But luck wasn't with her. On the eve of her departure, as she was in the last stages of packing her cases, her father called out to her.
'Is something wrong, Papa?' He was standing by the phone, registering some impatience.
'I've been trying to get hold of Rivera for the last half hour,' he told her, looking impatiently at his watch. 'He's manager on duty at the moment and he should be available, but he's just not answering his phone.'
'He's probably been called away for something. He's bound to be somewhere in the hotel.'
'So I imagine. But I haven't time to track him down. I've got a car waiting.'
'Was it something urgent?' asked Nita. 'I could pop down to the hotel and look for him.'
Bernardo Rivera had run the Hotel Cristobal since its inception and Nita had known him since childhood. She didn't mind going in search of him and delivering a message, particularly if it set her father's mind at rest. He wasn't supposed to get agitated; it wasn't good for him.
'Would you, Nita?' Diego looked relieved. 'He was going to drop by tonight for a drink and a game of chess and perhaps a little chat about old times. But I'd forgotten, when I told him to come this evening, that I was already promised to the Alayas, and they live over on the other side of the city. I don't really want to go, but I've already cried off twice, and they'll be offended if I don't turn up.'
Nita laughed. 'Don't worry, I'll go and make your excuses to Seňor Rivera. I expect he'll forgive you.'
'Yes, he'll understand. He's an obliging chap. Which is more than I can say for Felipe Alaya,' Diego added ruefully. 'Oh well, I'd better get off there.' Her father took up his coat and prepared to leave. 'You won't forget, will you?'
'I'll come down with you right this minute,' she assured him, following him to the lift.
In the lobby she saw her father stride off to the front entrance where a chauffeur-driven limousine was waiting for him. She smiled. He was looking better, she thought. There was a spring in his step and a jauntiness in the way that he carried his head. He was right; she could leave him with a clear conscience.
She strolled casually through the crowded foyer and made for the door labelled Hotel Manager at one side of the plush reception area. It was probably best to try the office first in case he had returned there while she and her father had been taking the lift down. If she drew a blank there, she could try the catering manager's office or the hotel accounts department. And, if all else failed, she could have him paged.
But it looked as if she had found her quarry at her first attempt. The office door was half open and she could hear the rustle of papers from inside. Relieved, she tapped gently and, with the ease born of long years of familiarity with all her father's staff, didn't wait to be told to enter, but walked straight in.
But the figure bending over some papers laid out on the battered desk that took up a good half of the floor space wasn't the short, plump form of Bernardo Rivera. It was Leon.
'I thought I gave strict instructions that I wasn't to be—' He turned his head and registered Nita's presence. He got to his feet. 'What are you doing here?'
He was dressed in usual style, but casually, in a light woollen sweater and dark cords that hugged his long legs. He looked strained, she thought, as if he had been working for long hours without a break in the aftermath of the take-over. If that was what business deals did to you, she was glad her father was out of it all at last.
'I was looking for Seňor Rivera,' she told him.
'He's not here at the moment.'
'I can see that,' she said. Reaction made her voice shrill and she tried to pull herself together. Act normally, she told herself. Don't let him throw you. 'Do you know where he is? I've got a message for him from my father.'
'He'll be back shortly, I expect. You'd better come in and wait.'
'It's all right. I needn't—' She floundered. 'That is, I can—'
'Scared of being alone with me, Nita?' Leon mocked her.
'Of course not!'
The door had swung to behind her and she had the strangest feeling of being trapped. She was being ridiculous, she told herself. Leon was hardly likely to try something on here in his own manager's office of all places. She was getting paranoid about the man! All the same, there was something about the curiously intent way that he was studying her that made her distinctly uneasy.
'You must be working very hard,' she said with an attempt at brightness, looking past him towards a sheaf of papers which he had been studying when she had interrupted him.
He shrugged. 'I always work hard. I like to know as much about what's going on as my staff do.'
'Papa always says that—said that, I mean,' she corrected herself hastily. It was difficult to adjust to the fact that her father was no longer in control of all this. 'He never stopped for anything. He worked frantically hard.' She was conscious that she was talking slightly too fast out of nerves. 'I'm sorry if I've distracted you. Please do go on with whatever you were doing.'
'It can wait,' he said carelessly. 'I think that just now I prefer to be distracted.' He took a step towards her and it was an effort on her part not to start back in reaction. 'After all, it's nearly a week since I had the pleasure of your company. And you absented yourself pretty speedily then.'
That had been at the signing ceremony.
'Don't tell me you missed me? I'd have thought you were too taken up with Mercedes to notice that I wasn't there.'
'Were you jealous?' he taunted her. 'Was that why you left?'
'Not at all. I had a headache.'
'It came on rather suddenly, didn't it?' he drawled.
'Yes, it did, as a matter of fact.'
'Liar,' he said without heat. 'Admit it—you ran away.'
'I did nothing of the sort!'
His eyes narrowed. 'You did. And you're still intent on running, aren't you? Your father tells me you're going to stay with Maria and Emilio.'
'And what if I am?' she challenged him. 'I wasn't aware that I had to ask your permission!'
'It won't work, you know.'
'What won't work?'
'Dodging the issue. There's no point trying to run away from me, Nita. I'll catch up with you in the end.'
She forced a laugh. 'Is that why you think I'm going? To escape from you?'
'Isn't it?' His glance was shrewd.
'I'm going because I want to see Maria again. And because I've never been to the Yucatan and I've always wanted to. Satisfied?'
Leon shrugged. 'O.K. Have it your way, then, if it makes you feel any better. But bear in mind that absence makes the heart grow fonder.'
'Not in this case. I've every intention of forgetting your existence.'
'That would be a pity. Perhaps I'd better give you something to remember me by.'
Nita guessed his intention and moved back towards the door. But she hadn't a hope of escaping. His longer legs covered the distance between them in a couple of easy strides and one hand came out to draw her effortlessly to him while the other reached behind her to secure the door from unwelcome intruders.
'It appears that there's only one satisfactory way of communicating with you, Nita,' he said harshly. 'Let's try it, shall we? It might get us somewhere for a change.'
'I don't want you,' she claimed. 'I don't want you! Do you hear?'
'Who are you trying to convince, Nita?' he asked her, and, without waiting for an answer from her, took possession of her lips in a kiss that made her senses reel.
Her nerve ends splintered in a thousand pieces of delight and merged again in a wave of mingled passion and desire. Holding back was like trying to stem a floodtide. But she couldn't give in to him. He had used her quite coldbloodedly to obtain his own ends. And, despising him as she did, there was no way that she was going to meekly surrender to him. He doesn't care, her brain told her. He never will. Don't trust him.
'Respond, damn you!' His lips left hers briefly, impatiently, to mutter the words against her ear as he realised she was holding
out on him. 'Give, Nita, give— I want you!'
And she wanted him, God knows. Her whole body ached with the effort of denying him. Leon pressed her still closer to him, moulding the soft curves of her body against the unyielding hardness of his, making her all too aware of the extent of his own arousal.
She would have to give in. She couldn't stand it any longer; she had no choice. There was a languid warmth creeping through her, drugging her, blurring her ability to think clearly about anything any more. She had done her best to resist him, but her best wasn't good enough.
There was a hammering in her head, a drumming sound. For a split second Nita thought that the noise was the pounding of her own heartbeat. Then, as the sound continued, she was suddenly conscious that it had nothing to do with her. Someone was knocking at the office door.
Leon snapped back to sanity at almost the same instant, releasing her abruptly as if she had suddenly become red-hot.
'One moment!' he called.
Nita could see him fighting and winning the battle to control himself, although his voice, when he finally turned the catch and bade whoever it was outside to enter, had an unaccustomed roughness. The atmosphere in the room was electric; Nita could almost feel the charge in the air.
'I'm sorry.' The bewildered expression on Bernardo Rivera's face as to why he should be barred from his own office cleared and changed to a slightly knowing look when he realised that Nita was keeping his new boss company. 'I didn't realise you had someone with you. Seňorita Lopez.' He inclined his head deferentially to Nita and she managed to find a smile for him.
'Seňorita Lopez had a confidential message for me from her father,' Leon explained, and his expression dared his manager to challenge him.
'Of course.' Rivera's voice was bland, but there was speculation in his eyes.
'And I have a message for you as well, Seňor Rivera.' Nita delivered it rapidly and then, all too conscious of her flushed face and swollen lips, which must bear clear evidence of Leon's kisses, she excused herself. 'I'm sure you must have a lot of things to discuss. I'll leave you together.'
There was nothing Leon could do to stop her, although she could see by the ominous firming of his mouth that he wasn't best pleased with the situation. She slipped past him to the door, which the older man hastened to hold open for her.
'My regards to your father, seňorita. If you could tell him that I'll be along to see him tomorrow night instead?'
'I'll do that, Seňor Rivera.'
'You won't forget what I told you?' Leon spoke after her.
'To enjoy myself in Merida?' Nita deliberately chose to misunderstand him. 'No, of course not.' She paused in the doorway and managed a cool smile. 'Believe me, I can't wait to get away. It'll be so nice to have a little civilised company for a change!'
She left on that parting shot. No doubt it would give rise to even more speculation on Bernardo Rivera's part. But, if he was wise—and she knew he was—he would keep it to himself. As Nita made her way back to the penthouse she was lightheaded with relief at her escape.
Next day, on the plane to Merida, she relaxed and looked forward to the break. A week, maybe two weeks, in different surroundings and with different people and she would be a new person, she told herself confidently. She had been under a fair amount of strain, one way and another, in the last few weeks. Worry about her father had been succeeded by a different type of worry about Leon and his intentions. She hadn't really been thinking straight recently.
So she thought she was in love with Leon. So what? Three years ago she had imagined she was in love with Antonio Diaz. And now she found it hard to remember what he looked like and the pain that she had felt at the time had faded. And the same process would take place over her feelings for Leon, she vowed, determinedly ignoring the knowledge that Antonio had never brought her the awareness of her body and its needs that Leon had forced upon her. Antonio had made her conscious of love as a girlish emotion. Leon had demanded a woman's response from her.
There were other men in the world. She was sure that Maria knew any number of eligible bachelors and would be delighted to introduce her to them. Somewhere there had to be a man who wouldn't let her down and who could be trusted. Perhaps, in Merida, she might find him.
The airport was small compared to the one that she had left and it was swarming with people. Emilio was waiting to greet her and take her luggage.
'It's good to see you again,' he said with a friendly smile. 'We're both looking forward to having you stay for as long as you can. Who knows, you may decide never to go back to the big city?'
'Perhaps,' Nita laughed. That would certainly be one solution to her problems. 'How's Maria?'
'Feeling the heat a little today. She insisted on coming out to the airport with me, but I managed to persuade her to stay in the car with the air-conditioning unit switched on while I came to find you. The last thing I wanted was for her to faint in the middle of the arrivals hall!'
He opened the swing doors for her to go through, and Nita understood what he meant. She had left Mexico City on a hazy day with the temperature in the mid-sixties. Here it was more like ninety degrees and the sun blazed down from a sky so blue that it dazzled the eyes. Her forehead was wet with perspiration even in the short walk to the car, and she was grateful for the blast of cool air that hit her as she got inside and shut the door.
Maria was looking a bit pale, Nita noticed, but her welcome was as enthusiastic as that of her husband, and she brushed aside her visitor's sympathetic questions about her health. 'I'll be right as rain now that you've come,' she declared. 'I'm really looking forward to showing you everything. I've been planning all sorts of outings that we can take. I'm really going to enjoy myself!'
'So am I, if I don't melt away in this heat,' said Nita as she mopped her streaming brow.
'You'll get used to it, everyone does after a few days. Although it even catches us natives out occasionally. What you need is a cool drink and a rest. You'll feel fine then.'
The journey into town took little time and, enlivened as it was by running comments from her hosts, she was almost sorry when it ended.
Emilio gave her a brief history of the city. 'It was established in the sixteenth century by the son of one of Cortes' captains who had been given a royal grant from Spain to colonise the Yucatan. And it's still a colonial city in many ways. You can see the Spanish-Moorish look to the buildings with thick walls and flat roofs. And, of course, the colour-washed walls. We haven't any skyscrapers out here yet, thank goodness. Not that they won't come in time,' he told her gloomily.
'You'd think he hated progress, to hear him talk!' Maria rounded on her husband. 'And how many times have I heard you complain about the narrow streets that also date from colonial times? There's no way of parking outside some of the hotels in the centre of town, Nita. It would block the traffic entirely. So Emilio has to leave his mini-bus quite a distance away and go and fetch his groups of tourists on foot. You should hear him grumble about it!'
'Oh, well, I suppose it keeps me fit,' Emilio allowed, and Maria hooted unsympathetically.
'That's what you ought to use,' she said, pointing out a horse-drawn carriage that was proceeding in a leisurely fashion along the road that led to the main square. 'They go everywhere, and the tourists love them.'
'So long as they get a carriage with a few springs in it still. Last time I went in one I was bruised all over after an hour's drive, we bumped up and down so much.'
'I never heard a word about the discomfort when you used to take me out in one on Sunday afternoons before we were married.'
'Perhaps I had other things to think about.'
Maria gave him an arch look. 'That's love for you, Nita! It's a wonderful thing.'
'So they tell me.' Nita kept her tone light. 'Hey, what's that building over there on the other side of the square?'
Maria leaned forward to identify it as the Palacio Municipal and the moment passed.
Maria and Emilio's house was
a large, comfortable building dating from the turn of the century. Spanish in tone, it was delightful, with cool, marbled floors and white walls. The windows had wrought-iron grilles to them and doors in the same pattern led off to the rear where there was a cool patio, fragrant with the scent of tropical flowers.
The two girls sat there to enjoy the ice-cold drinks that were served by a young maid whose dark features betrayed her Indian ancestry. Emilio excused himself, pleading business at the office that he had to attend to personally.
'Don't wear Nita out with your chatter,' he warned his wife as he left.
Maria giggled. 'Emilio always says that if I hadn't anyone to talk to, I'd talk to myself. And the awful thing is, he's probably right!'
Nita laughed. Maria's brand of bubbly happiness was just what she needed. She had been right to come here, she thought.
The other girl leaned forward in her chair. 'Now, tell me what's been happening in the Big Smoke,' she commanded. 'I want to hear it all—the latest fashions that you've seen in the boutiques, the scandals in high society, everything you can think of to tell me. We get a bit cut off here, being so far from anywhere.' She clapped a guilty hand to her mouth. 'Don't tell Emilio I said that, will you? He's a Yucateco first and a Mexican a long way second. He wouldn't live anywhere else. I'd love to be in Mexico City, but Emilio would never hear of it, so what's the use?'
'It's fine for a visit. But you'd soon be crying out for blue skies and hot sunshine if you were there all the time,' Nita told her.
'That's what Leon says.' Maria was off on another tack. 'How is he, by the way? I've tried to get hold of him any number of times since we've been back, but all I ever got from his home number was no answer, and when I tried his office I got some bitchy girl who kept telling me he was unavailable.'
'Mercedes,' Nita identified immediately. 'His secretary.'
'Oh, is that her name? Well, she was very rude to me.' Maria frowned at the memory. 'I think she thought I was an ex-girl-friend of Leon's to be fended off. One can't blame her, I suppose.'
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