How long did it take to get over a major heart attack? And, when her father recovered, what then? Would he have to give up his business activities? If he did, what was left for him to do? He would loathe leading the life of a semi-invalid. But perhaps he had no option in the matter.
And where exactly did she fit into the jigsaw puzzle? Her first instinct when Leon Calveto had broken the news to her was to make for home. She still loved her father, however his feelings for her might have changed. Although he had always been a shadowy, remote parent, she had never ceased to hold affection for him, even in those last bitter days of wrangling before she left when it seemed that they would never agree again.
She was coming home. But to what? And for how long? She didn't know the answers. Her time was her own, of course, now. She had gone over Jeff's head to the manager of the Pink Flamingo, explaining about her father's illness and the need for her to travel home as soon as it could be arranged.
He had given her a sympathetic hearing—which was more, she suspected, than she would have got from Jeff. She had a notion that he might have chosen not to believe her story. It would not have been the first time he had heard the excuse of family illness to cover for some other, less acceptable reason for absence, and, having seen her with Leon Calveto, he would no doubt think the worst.
But the manager had no such misgivings. He had told her to go and pack. He would find a replacement somehow, he assured her. He wouldn't dream of holding her to the week's notice that her contract with the club stipulated. They would manage. It wouldn't be easy to replace her; she had made quite a name for herself in the short time she had been with them. But something would be arranged.
It was much more than Nita had hoped for, and she was grateful for the help. It would have been a miracle if he had offered to keep her place open for her until she was free to come back to them, and Nita wasn't surprised when he didn't. She had the promise of a glowing reference if she ever needed one, which was some consolation. But working regularly and being seen to do so was the best reference of all.
And, for the foreseeable future at least, that was out. Painfully, reluctantly, she severed the connections. She paid her share of the rent of the apartment to the end of the following month, but told Sandy to find someone else to live there with her.
'I can't take it, Nita,' the other girl protested.
'You can—and what's more, you will,' Nita insisted, thrusting the money firmly into her friend's hand. 'Don't be a fool. It'll give you the time to pick someone you really get on with.'
'Well, if you're sure.' Sandy took the bills reluctantly. 'I don't like doing it, though. You may need the money.'
'A highly paid artiste like me? You've got to be joking!' Nita laughed it off. 'I'll be just fine. I'll be able to get a job somewhere if I need to.'
If she was free. But that was something that she wasn't going to let on to Sandy. She didn't know what she might find at home. But one thing was sure: after three years of independence, she wasn't going to accept an allowance from her father. If he offered it, which was doubtful. Well, she had saved a little, and that would see her through for the moment. When it was gone would be time enough to worry about things.
'I guess you're right.' Sandy allowed herself to be persuaded. 'I sure hope your father is O.K. You'll let me know how everything goes, won't you?'
'Of course I will.'
Then the blonde girl brightened and shot Nita a mischievous look. 'What am I worrying for? You're the one Leon Calveto kissed, not me. You'll probably end up marrying the guy and living in idle luxury for the rest of your days.'
'No, Sandy, a thousand times, no! I've told you how I feel about him.'
'And I've told you I don't believe you.'
'Where Leon Calveto's concerned, I'm completely indifferent,' Nita assured her.
'Where he's concerned, no woman could possibly be indifferent,' Sandy had claimed vehemently.
Perhaps Sandy was right, Nita mused. He wasn't the sort of man one could pass by and ignore. Love him or hate him, he left one bruised by the contact.
Would he take that as a tribute? she wondered. Probably only as his due.
His voice, breaking into her thoughts at that precise moment, startled her, and she dropped the magazine that she was holding. It fell to the floor and his tanned, well-shaped hand retrieved it before she had time to move.
'Thank you,' she said automatically. 'What were you saying?'
Leon Calveto wasn't used to repeating himself. Most women hung on his every word, she supposed. He shot her an impatient look that told her more clearly than anything that he would be as glad as she when the journey was over.
'I said we were nearly home now. There's Popocatepetl.' He nodded in the direction of the window.
Nita leaned eagerly forward for a sight of the great volcano, its snow-tipped peak glimmering pink in the last rays of the evening sunshine. And then it was gone, lost in cloud, as the plane circled to make its final descent into the haze of pollution that was Mexico City.
Landing and clearing Customs was quick and trouble-free and, predictably, a uniformed chauffeur was waiting to relieve them of their cases and escort them to a waiting car. Nita couldn't ever imagine Leon Calveto carrying his own bags and joining the usual scrum fighting for taxis.
As they crossed the marbled floor towards the exit doors, familiar sights and sounds came at Nita from all sides. Swarthy Indian faces contrasted strongly with the more patrician features of those of pure Spanish descent. The brightly coloured ponchos and rebozos that were part of traditional dress vied in colour with the latest in haute couture in small groups of people standing around to await arrivals. And everywhere the babble of Spanish accents fighting to be heard above the noise of the loudspeaker announcements that came every few seconds.
The car was a respectable Daimler, solid, but out of character for Leon somehow, Nita thought. She would have imagined him driving something sportier.
But the girl waiting beside it was exactly what she would have expected of him.
She was dark-eyed and dark-haired with a fashionably pale complexion. And she was tiny. Even the ridiculously high heels she wore brought her barely over the five foot mark. Nita had never thought of herself as particularly tall, but beside this girl she felt like a giantess, oversized and ungainly.
She was beautifully proportioned, though, Nita had to admit. Curves in all the right places and an impossibly slender waist. A man could span it with his hands. Nita wondered if Leon Calveto had ever tried. From the way the girl was looking at him, practically devouring him with her eyes, it seemed likely that he could take matters a lot further than that before she called a halt to proceedings.
Not his wife. The slender, perfectly manicured fingers were ringless. But she would like to be—Nita knew that instantly.
'Leon, I missed you!' The girl made the words sound like a caress.
He laughed as he took her extended hands and brushed them against his lips in a gesture that was curiously intimate for all its formality. 'In only three days? That I refuse to believe.'
'You'd be surprised!' She gave him an arch look and laughed too, a girlish, tinkling sound that grated on Nita.
She moved restlessly. From what she knew of the man it would be typical of him to let her stand by his side and listen to another woman throwing herself at him. But it didn't mean that she had to suffer it patiently.
Then he deigned to remember her existence and turned to effect the introductions. 'Juanita Lopez, Mercedes Cardenas. Mercedes is my assistant and right-hand woman.'
Is that what you call it? Nita thought cynically. But their relationship, however close it might be inside and outside the office, was none of her business. She smiled politely at the other girl and muttered the usual words of greeting, the Spanish courtesies drummed into her since childhood coming easily to her tongue.
Mercedes responded in kind, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. There was resentment there. Three days away from he
r and she's already wondering if he might have strayed, Nita decided. If you set your heart on a man like Leon Calveto, you must be a constant prey to doubts like that, however confident you were of your own attractions.
'I can easily find my own way into town, if you and your—assistant—have other things to do,' she offered.
'That won't be necessary.'
'Are you scared I wouldn't arrive?' she taunted him. 'You needn't worry—having come this far, I'm not likely to turn tail and vanish at the last moment.'
'I don't doubt it,' he said smoothly.
'No? Then what?'
'I intend to see you safely home,' he told her firmly.
Ever the perfect gentleman, she thought, and wondered if he would class his behaviour of the previous night in that category. But then she had been only a girl who sang in a nightclub for a living. Today she was Diego Lopez' daughter and every inch a lady.
She shrugged and moved towards the car. 'If you're sure—'
'Quite sure. I have no other plans.'
Maybe he hadn't, but she was quite sure that Mercedes had the evening ahead all mapped out, and it certainly didn't run to a threesome. An intimate dinner for two looked more on the cards, to judge from the smart cocktail dress that the other girl was wearing. No doubt there would be time for pleasure after she had been duly delivered to her father. A troublesome package safely off his hands. And he couldn't be more relieved at the parting of the ways than Nita would be.
Their cases safely stowed away, the car was soon speeding towards the centre of the city. The journey would not take long. Twenty minutes, half an hour at most if they were unlucky with traffic. Leon had elected to place himself between the two girls, although his attention seemed more on Mercedes than herself, as he inclined his head frequently in the other girl's direction to catch a series of remarks that were softly spoken and presumably intended for his ears alone.
As the car took a bend and Nita was thrown against him, she felt the strength of his hard-muscled thigh close to hers. It was an unnerving closeness. His particular brand of maleness was a little overpowering at this distance, she thought. She eased herself cautiously away, flinching from further contact and putting her hand unobtrusively on the window rest to avoid the same thing happening again. She saw the faint lift of his mouth as he noted the action, although his interest appeared to be firmly fixed elsewhere.
So her gesture of independence amused him for some reason. Was it the presumption on her part that he might possibly be interested in her when he had someone as stunningly attractive as Mercedes hanging on his every word? Or was he considering the challenge presented by surely the first woman ever to reject what he had to offer?
The car swerved violently, narrowly avoiding a collision with two others whose owners were exchanging angry shouts and gesticulations as they surged on at an erratic rate. Their own driver added to the general uproar with the warning blare of his horn as he accelerated to pass them safely.
'Now I know that I'm back in Mexico,' said Nita wryly. 'Nowhere else in the world do men have the urge to prove their manhood quite so obsessively!'
'Perhaps nowhere else in the world are there men with so much to offer in that respect,' Leon suggested.
'You think so? I'm not so sure.' She looked straight at him as she spoke, the inference in her words clear if he cared to pick it up. 'Empty swagger is just that if there's nothing behind it to back up the claim.'
Their glances clashed and held, but Leon didn't pursue the subject further. She didn't know whether she was glad or sorry. Crossing swords with Leon Calveto was an experience unlike any other, combining fear with exhilaration.
They were practically at journey's end now and, as the car turned into the crowded streets of the city proper, apprehension about what lay ahead replaced any other thoughts in Nita's brain. Suddenly she wished that she had more time to prepare herself. How did she greet the father from whom she had parted in so much anger? What was she going to say to him?
It was too late to start rehearsing speeches. They were past the wide square of the Zocalo, dominated by its magnificent cathedral, and then all the other tourist sights, familiar to Nita since childhood, were flashing by. The Palace of the Fine Arts where she had often seen the Ballet Folklorico perform; Alameda Park with its quaint globe lamps, glimmering now at dusk; the tall spire of the Latin American Tower.
They turned into Reforma, the great avenue that is to Mexico City what the Champs Elysees is to Paris. Nita glimpsed the monuments to Columbus and to Cuauhtémoc, the last of the Aztec emperors, and the tall column of the Monument to Independence, topped by its gilded angel, gazing out over the city, loftily careless of the packed lanes of traffic that skirted its base in a never-ending flow.
They took a side road just before they reached it and drew up outside a tall, modern building, one of the skyscrapers that were now a common feature of the city.
The Hotel Cristobal was Diego Lopez' pride and joy, the centre of his empire and the first of his chain of hotels to be built to his own specifications rather than simply acquired and refitted. It was his proud boast that it had everything to offer those who stayed there, tourist and businessman alike—luxuriously appointed rooms, a swimming pool, a sauna, two restaurants, a coffee shop, a nightclub and an arcade of small boutiques, ready to sell the casual visitor almost anything he could ever want.
No trouble had been spared to make the customer feel loved and wanted. Her father had spent hours devising improvements and modifications. But, when it came to his only child, that concern had been sadly lacking, Nita reflected. The penthouse apartment, seventeen floors above street level, had been a lonely place for a child to grow up.
The smartly uniformed porter who stood at the entrance to the hotel came forward and opened the door for her with a flourish and a smile. She slid out with a word of thanks. She didn't know him, but that was hardly surprising. In three years there would have been some changes in staff. He didn't recognise her either. The admiring leer he gave her legs as she got out of the car would have been carefully suppressed if he had been aware that she was the owner's daughter, she was sure.
But he did know the man who followed her out on to the marble steps and his sudden air of deference showed all too clearly in what light he held him. Nita was conscious of a faint surprise. Was Leon Calveto such a power in the land, then? Or did all her father's business associates receive this sort of treatment? She rather doubted it somehow.
She turned to him in another effort to rid herself of his company. Surely now he would consider duty well and truly done and take himself off with his girl-friend? But the polite words of farewell that she had carefully summoned up froze on her lips as she realised that he had every intention of accompanying her inside. A door-to-door service with a vengeance! she thought, but said nothing. Protests meant nothing to this man when he had made up his mind and she would only look undignified if she attempted them.
Instead she gritted her teeth and allowed the firm grip of his hand on her elbow as he led her inside after a brief word tossed to Mercedes. Looking back, Nita saw the sour expression on the other girl's face as they left her behind. It was some consolation at least not to have to suffer her company as well.
They crossed the lobby to the private lift that went directly to the Lopez private apartments. Leon ignored the phone that was intended for callers to announce themselves and produced a key from his pocket— another sign of his casual familiarity with the place and one that made her feel strangely uneasy.
As the automatic doors closed on them she freed herself from his grasp in pointed fashion, but said nothing. If truth were told she was almost glad of his presence now. Anything, anyone was a comfort to support her against the moment when she would have to face her father. Her heart was pounding, her hands clammy, now that the time had come.
It was ridiculous to be nervous about meeting her own father. But so many things had happened since the last time they had spoken. She didn't know what
kind of man would be waiting for her. A frail invalid or the strong, domineering person that she had always known—which would it be?
The hum of machinery stopped and the lift doors opened on to a short corridor with an apartment entrance at the end of it. Would Leon Calveto have a key for that too? It appeared not. He rang the bell.
'We are expected,' he said as they waited.
He must have telephoned from Miami before they left. It was probably the wisest course. Sudden shocks were the last thing her father needed right now. But it was strange to be treated like a visitor to her own home.
The sound of steps and at last there was a familiar face, older, greyer, with new lines of strain added to the mass of wrinkles that had been there for as long as Nita could remember, but still instantly recognisable.
'Josefina!'
'Seňorita!'
Nita was over the threshold in an instant, formality cast aside as the housekeeper's arms came out to envelop her in a loving embrace. They were both close to tears.
It was Josefina who recovered herself first, standing back and scanning Nita with shrewd, button-black eyes that never missed anything. 'Let's be looking at you.' She tutted with the fondness of an old servant. 'What have you been doing to yourself, child? Shadows under your eyes and as pale as a ghost! What have you got up to while you've been away?'
As if she had been absent for weeks rather than years! Nita laughed shakily. 'You never did hold with travel to foreign parts, did you, Josefina?' A similar response had greeted her on her return from every holiday she had ever taken. 'But I'm fine, really I am. Just worried about Papa.'
The older woman shook her head. 'It's been a worrying time.'
'How is he?'
'Better every day, thanks be to God.' The housekeeper crossed herself fervently. 'He'll live to be a hundred, you'll see.'
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