'You mean you've no idea?'
'Should I have? Unless it's the fact that I didn't make love to you last night—'
'I'm glad you didn't,' she told him vehemently.
'You could have fooled me.' She didn't like the look on his face. 'Then what?'
'My father told me he's selling the business.'
'That's right.' Even now he wasn't giving anything away.
'To you,' she continued. She didn't say that her father hadn't told her that.
'Yes.'
'Is that all you have to say?'
Leon shrugged. 'You're annoyed that nobody told you? Your father didn't think you'd be particularly interested. It's all been confidential up until now, anyway. You'd have heard eventually.'
'When it was too late to do anything about it!'
'It's too late now,' he said sharply. 'Not that it's any concern of yours. The deal is between myself and your father.'
'And you made darn sure that I didn't interfere, didn't you?' she flared. 'Tell me, are you proud of the way you went about the deal? First you con my father into believing that you really care about him—visits to his sick bed and then a special trip to fetch his erring daughter home. And then you work the same trick on me, making me believe you were really interested in what I had to offer you, that you enjoyed being with me—'
'I did,' he said tautly.
'Oh, that was one of the spin-offs, wasn't it? You'd have let me offer myself to you on a plate if I'd been fool enough! You wouldn't have said no. But you were scared of how it might rebound on you if you made love to me and then I changed my mind and confessed all to Papa. That was what you meant last night when you talked about recriminations, wasn't it?'
'You're talking rubbish,' he said.
'I don't think so!'
'My feelings for you come in a different category—'
'I can imagine! You reserve your finer emotions for my father's hotel chain, don't you? I'm just a fanciable body that you want to possess and that you can forget over a bottle of whisky!'
There was a ring of white around his mouth that told of temper kept firmly in check, but with an effort. 'I think you'd better go,' he said, and turned away to look out of the window.
Nita was strangely disappointed that he made no further effort to justify his actions to her. 'You realise that if I tell my father everything, he'll despise you as much as I do?'
Leon reacted to that, swinging round on her with an abruptness that scared her. 'You'll do nothing of the sort. Do you hear me?'
'Scared your precious deal might fall through after all?' she taunted him.
'If it does, think what it will mean to your father, rather than what it will mean to me,' he said. 'The worry, the pressure of finding another buyer, the inevitable fall in the share prices when it's generally known that the deal has collapsed. There'll be plenty of speculation that I was the one who pulled out at the last moment, not him, you know. And until it's allayed and a new buyer comes forward, who's going to fret and worry? Think about it, Nita, and think carefully, before you say anything at all.'
'You bastard!' she breathed.
He gave a mirthless smile. 'Think about it, Nita.'
For a moment she stood looking at him. 'I think I hate you,' she said. And then, without another word, she turned and left the room.
Mercedes wasn't in the outer office; perhaps she had been called away. Nita was glad she had gone. She went out and along the corridor to the lift without meeting anyone and got in it quickly when it came. Mercifully it was empty. As it carried her down to the ground floor again, she was conscious of tears trickling down her cheeks and, try as she could, she couldn't check them.
'I hate you,' she had said to Leon Calveto. But, to herself, she admitted the real truth. She loved him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The signing ceremony was held a week later in the white and gold splendour of the Hotel Cristobal ballroom. It had been decided to make quite an event of the hand-over, with the press and leading members of the business community present, and the huge room was filled to capacity with friends, associates, and rivals, all eager to witness the completion of one of the biggest deals that had taken place in recent times.
If Diego Lopez was having last-minute regrets at handing over the reins of power, they didn't show. He circulated, chatting happily to everyone, apparently without a care in the world. Nita, who had stayed by his side in the initial stages, felt confident enough to leave him and make her own circuit of the room.
She talked to her father's deputy, Jose Guerrero, a quiet, shy man, who had a genius for figures and balance sheets, but little desire for corporate power. He had worked happily with her father for over ten years and had ably shouldered the burden of the decision-making process when Diego Lopez had been taken ill. But he had done so reluctantly, and he was clearly delighted to be stepping back from the limelight again. He had nothing but good to say of his replacement in the hot seat.
'Just the sort of young man we need. A worthy successor to your father, I think. There couldn't have been a better choice. Everyone is absolutely delighted,' he told Nita enthusiastically.
She gave a noncommittal smile and moved on. But it was impossible to escape. The same sort of praise echoed in her ears time and again as she went from group to group. It seemed that her father had achieved the impossible and found as his successor a man who was universally approved.
Nita smiled and nodded in response until her face felt as if it was cracking in half with the effort of it all. She sought a brief respite and took refuge from the throng by one of the long open windows at the far end of the room where the heavy velvet drapes lifted slightly in the breeze from outside.
She closed her eyes for a moment in an attempt to blot out the glare coming from the lighted chandeliers that blazed down from the ceiling and the smoky atmosphere, caused by innumerable Havana cigars. She wondered if Leon had arrived yet; she hadn't seen his tall figure anywhere in the throng. Not that she wanted to, of course. She didn't care if she never saw him again. In fact, she would rather it was that way.
'Wishing you were somewhere else?' Almost as if her thoughts had conjured up his presence, his low-timbred voice sounded at her side.
Nita's eyes flew open. 'Yes,' she said deliberately. 'I got rather tired of hearing people sing your praises.'
Leon cast a cynical glance at the assembled crowd, 'I shouldn't take them too seriously. They'd be baying for my blood with equal fervour if it suited their purposes.'
'I wish they were!'
'Still nursing a grievance, Nita?' His tone was harsh.
'That's a mild way of putting it.'
'Yet you chose not to say anything to your father in the end.'
'Don't tell me you've been having sleepless nights worrying about the possibility?'
'Not in the least.'
No, she was the one who had lain awake until the early hours of the morning, analysing and assessing every move he had made, every statement he had uttered, trying desperately to find excuses for his actions.
She hadn't succeeded. There were no excuses for him. However she looked at it, the evidence pointed to the same conclusion: that Leon was nothing more than a cold-blooded business machine, who calculated his opponents' strengths and weaknesses with deadly accuracy and then made the best use of them to serve his own ends.
Nita looked across to where Diego was standing with a group of friends, laughing with them at some shared joke. 'I couldn't do it to him,' she said, 'as you knew perfectly well. So you're still his blue-eyed boy. Satisfied?'
He shrugged. 'What do you think?'
'If you're not, you should be. Or are you so used to getting your own way in everything that nothing gives you any pleasure any more?'
'Not at all. I still get a kick out of winning.'
'And the richer the prize, the greater the satisfaction, I suppose?'
'I wouldn't say that. Money doesn't mean a great deal to me. I've made enough of the st
uff for it not to matter.'
'So what does matter then? demanded Nita. 'Power?'
'Authority,' he corrected. 'The chance to alter things for the better.'
'A giant ego trip for you, in other words!'
He shrugged. 'You could say that. I wouldn't.'
'Of course you wouldn't. But then people rarely see the truth about themselves, do they?' Nita told him. 'Well, you'll have your work cut out if you think that you can improve on my father's business.'
'Commendable loyalty, Nita, but ill-founded, I'm afraid. There's always room for improvement, even in the best-run establishments—as your father would be the first to agree. All the time he's kept me waiting I've used to best advantage by planning what I'd do when the deal finally came off.'
'You never had any doubts about it, did you? Patience must be one of your few virtues,' she said tartly.
'I usually get what I want in the end,' Leon agreed. 'You might do well to remember that.'
'And the people around you are just pawns in the game.' She gave a bitter laugh. 'Don't worry, that's something that I'm in no danger of forgetting about you.'
His eyes narrowed. 'You mean that you're determined suddenly to think the worst of me, for some reason.'
'I despise you,' she said bitterly. 'And your business methods. Is that clear enough for you?'
'Nita, I—' He stretched out a hand to her.
'Don't touch me!'
In spite of herself her voice rose, and a couple of elderly businessmen, chatting together a few paces from them, looked round in some surprise. Obviously Diego Lopez' daughter wasn't expected to squabble in public with his chosen successor.
'We can't talk now,' Leon said impatiently.
'No.'
'But we will talk.'
'Not now or in the future. I'm not interested in what you have to say!'
'Damn you, you'll—'
'Oh, there you are.' Mercedes' cool voice broke in on the argument. 'I've been looking all over for you.'
The other girl was wearing red today, a flaming, vibrant red that enhanced her dark good looks and made Nita's pink linen dress seem as demure as a schoolgirl's in contrast. Mercedes' fingernails were a matching shade, Nita noted absently, as one beautifully manicured hand pawed Leon's sleeve to attract his attention.
'Sorry if I'm breaking anything up.' She smiled up at him, confident that she had not and completely ignoring Nita. 'But I've been sent to find you. Everything's about ready for you, if you feel like coming over. The press people are all organised, and Seňor Lopez is waiting for you.'
'Sure.' Leon's interest switched with insulting swiftness from Nita to the matter closest to his heart. 'Let's go, shall we?'
The instruction seemed to be aimed at Mercedes rather than her, so Nita stood where she was, watching him wend his way through little knots of businessmen back towards the centre of the ballroom where an impressive marble-topped table stood ready for the signing session.
For all her words of defiance to him, Nita couldn't take her eyes off his figure as he strode across the room, Mercedes' tiny form struggling to keep up in his wake. Mentally as well as physically he dwarfed every man in sight.
The transfer of power took a very short time—the principals' signatures on first one document and then its duplicate, and then those of the chief executives on both sides. Handshakes and a quick abrazo all round and the deed was done. Nita saw her father make signs towards the waiters who were standing ready with trays of champagne and they moved forward to serve everybody in order that they could toast success to the venture.
The press photographers moved in again. There were pictures of Diego and Leon shaking hands, bending forward to examine the document they had just signed, talking to each other animatedly. And then the lesser dignitaries had their turn. And her father was calling her forward to include her in some of the group photographs.
'You don't want me in on this,' she protested.
'Of course we do.' Diego's voice was insistent. 'There've been too many pictures of old fogeys—saving your presence, Leon. It's time there was a bit of glamour included!'
He held out his hand to her and Nita was forced to comply. Just to make him happy, she told herself, as she posed between him and Leon. She was acutely aware of the tall, powerful figure on the other side of her as she smiled dutifully into the cameras. She wondered if Leon could tell how her treacherous senses blazed into life when the photographers asked them to move closer together for one picture and she felt the firm pressure of his thigh against hers and the touch of his hand on her shoulder, steadying her to hold the position. At the first opportunity she moved hastily away. She didn't trust herself.
Someone pushed a glass of champagne into her hand and she drank mechanically to the new order of things.
'Long life and prosperity to you, Leon,' her father called, and the toast echoed round the room, to be followed by others.
Just like a wedding, Nita thought. And, no doubt, a good deal more to Leon's taste than that kind of ceremony would be. Another stronghold had fallen to him; another triumph had come his way. She could hardly bear to look at the satisfaction in his face. Across the crowded room his head swung round in her direction, as if he sensed her feelings. He raised his glass mockingly to her, then turned away to the small, flame-red figure by his side.
Nita slipped away. She couldn't take any more. When her father came back to the apartment more than an hour later, she told him that she had had a headache.
'Too much champagne, when I'm not used to it,' she explained and, mercifully, he looked no farther as a reason for her absence.
Over the next few days the popular press was full of news of the merger, covering the event lavishly.
'Thousands of dollars' worth of free publicity there,' Diego commented approvingly as he scanned the results in a magazine.
'Yes.' Nita looked at the photograph of Leon with her father and herself that had been printed there. She was amazed how carefree she looked. So the camera could lie occasionally.
The headline read, 'Calveto makes another killing.' The crude language of the concrete jungle summed it all up. The business world was, above all, a place where one fought for survival.
And Leon was a born survivor, a successful predator who would go from strength to strength. He looked the part, too, Nita thought, studying the glossy colour photograph. A perfectly tailored dark suit, teamed with an immaculately white shirt and a grey silk tie, gave an impression of cool authority. Hand-tooled shoes on his feet and a heavy gold watch on his wrist were discreet symbols of wealth. His hair was brushed ruthlessly back from his forehead, his chin jutted upwards in an aggressive line. He looked supremely confident of his ability to dominate the world around him. And that included her, she suspected, noting the possessive angle of his body against hers.
She hadn't seen him since the signing session. But it could only be a matter of time before she encountered him again. She couldn't bear it. She needed time to herself to think. She must at least try to get him out of her system. She wondered where to go—and whether her father would be upset if she announced plans to go off on her own for a week or so. She hesitated to broach the subject to him.
Deliverance came in a long-distance phone call from Maria. Nita had given the other girl her number, but had hardly expected to hear from her so soon.
'I've been wondering how you were getting on. Is everything going all right with you?' Nita asked.
'I'd like to say I'm fine, but I'm not,' groaned Maria.
'No? But what—'
'Morning sickness. I know it'll pass eventually, but at the moment it's driving me out of my mind,' Maria sighed. 'And I feel so tired! I've been moping rather. So Emilio came up with a marvellous idea—to cheer me up, you know. He realised how I took to you when we met the other week and he thought it would take my mind off my troubles if you were to come out here to visit us.'
'Maria, that's a—'
'Well, you did say you would visit us
soon, didn't you? And you don't know how wonderful it would be just to see a new face around me. My mother-in-law lives just round the corner and she's been very nice— well, nice for her, that is. But it's not the same as someone young and sympathetic, if you know what I mean—'
'Perfectly.' Nita tried to stem the babble from the other end of the line. 'But are you sure you want to be bothered with a visitor? I—'
'Would I be asking you if I wasn't sure? Of course I want you to come and stay for as long as you can.'
'Well, if you promise faithfully that you'll tell me the minute that you've had enough of my company—'
'Then you will come?' Maria sounded delighted. 'That's the best news I've had all week!'
'I'm not a miracle worker, you know,' Nita warned. 'Don't expect all your problems to vanish the instant I cross the threshold.'
'Nonsense! It'll be a tonic just to see you,' Maria told her happily. 'And Emilio will be as pleased to have you here as I will. I think he's been a bit worried about me. He doesn't say very much, but he's been clucking round me like a mother hen these last few days.'
Nita promised to make her arrangements as swiftly as possible and said she would phone details of her flight as soon as she had it. When she finally rang off and went in search of her father to tell him about her intended trip, she felt as if a weight had been lifted from her. Maria's invitation couldn't have come at a better time.
'Of course, I won't go, if you'd rather I stayed here to look after you,' she said to Diego.
He snorted indignantly. 'Look after me indeed! You can stop treating me like an invalid. I'm practically my old self again now. I feel better than I've done for years.' He caught the sceptical look in her eye. 'Ask the doctor, if you don't believe me. Anyway, it's not as if you'll be at the end of the world. Merida's only a short flight away. So go and book your ticket with a clear conscience.'
Nita laughed and did as he said. The Yucatan Peninsula was always a popular tourist stop and flights were often booked days in advance, but she managed to get a seat on a plane in two days' time. That gave her sufficient breathing space to pack and organise those details of the running of the household that she had taken over by way of helping Josefina. And, with a bit of luck, it meant that she wouldn't see Leon before she left.
Lions Walk Alone Page 13