by Penny Jordan
‘I wasn’t going to,’ Kitty protested—although she did, actually.
‘You were thinking it.’
Kitty laughed. ‘It must be quite a downpour if you got that wet going from the house to the car.’
‘The car wouldn’t start so I had to walk to the station. I missed my train, and then the next train was held up, and the waiting room was closed for renovations, so me and all the other poor sad wage-slaves just had to stand on the platform and get wet.’
‘I thought you were going to get a new car?’
‘And when we need to, we will.’ Lizzie spoke calmly. ‘So stop fretting and tell me why my ears should be on fire?’’
Kitty felt the tightness in her chest ease. Lizzie and Bill had basically supported her, not just emotionally but financially, for the last four years. When Jimmy had been admitted into the hospice she had moved into Lizzie’s spare room, and after his death Bill had asked her to help him with his latest venture—a micro rum distillery.
It had been an act of kindness and love. They hadn’t really been able to afford her salary, and she’d had no experience and nothing to offer except a degree in chemistry.
She could never truly repay them, but after all the sacrifices Lizzie had made the least she could do was convince her sister that they had been worthwhile and that her new life was fabulous.
‘I wanted to know what the Spanish word is for starfish,’ she said quickly. ‘And I thought you’d know.’
‘I do—it’s estrella de mar. But why do you need to know?’ Lizzie hesitated. ‘Please tell me you’re not adding starfish to the rum? Bill and I ate them in China—on sticks like lollipops—and I really don’t recommend it.’
Kitty screwed up her face. ‘That is gross—and, no, of course I’m not going to put starfish in the rum. I just keep seeing them in the sea.’
She heard her sister groan. ‘You’re looking at one right now, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be at work? Or have I got my times wrong again?’
Kitty grinned. ‘I’m not in the office, but this is work. I’m doing research.’
Lizzie said a very rude word that her mother had once sent Kitty to her room for saying.
‘Well, I just hope you’re covering up. You know how easily you burn.’
Glancing down at her long-sleeved blouse and maxi-skirt, Kitty sighed. ‘The sun isn’t that hot now, but I’m wearing so much clothing and sunblock I’m probably going to come back paler than when I left anyway.’
‘Who knows? You might not come back at all. Not if that gorgeous boss of yours finally decides to pay a visit to his hometown and your eyes meet across a deserted boardroom…’
Hearing the teasing note in her sister’s voice, Kitty shook her head. For all her pragmatism, Lizzie was actually a committed believer in love at first sight—but then she had every reason to be, having met Bill in a karaoke bar in Kyoto on her gap year.
Kitty, on the other hand, had not even had to leave her house to meet Jimmy. He’d lived next door and they’d met before they’d even been able to walk, when his mother had invited her mother over for tea one afternoon when they were just babies.
‘I work in the labs, Lizzie. I don’t even know where the boardroom is. And even if he does come to Havana, I don’t suppose my “gorgeous boss” will even know who I am, much less care.’
After she’d hung up, having promised to call later, Kitty made her way back up the beach to the forest that edged the sand. It was always cooler there than anywhere else.
She wasn’t rushing—and not just because the pine needles were slippery to walk on. It was just how people did things in Cuba. Even at work everyone moved at a pace of their own making, and after a week of replicating her typical English nine-to-five day she’d surrendered to ‘Cuban’ time. It had felt odd at first, but the sky hadn’t come crashing down—and, as Mr Mendoza had told her the first time they’d spoken—she was her own boss.
But as she made her way along a path edged with sea grape and tamarind trees, her cheeks felt suddenly warm. What was she talking about?
Like everything else on this untouched peninsula, these trees, the beach, probably even the starfish, were all part of the Finca el Pinar Zayas estate. A private estate that belonged to el jefazo—the big boss, as his staff referred to him.
César Zayas y Diago.
His name was not so much a name as a spell. Rolling her tongue over the exotic syllables, she felt her stomach tighten nervously, as though even thinking them inside her head might have the power to conjure the man himself to this deserted woodland.
Some hope!
Lizzie might imagine that she was going to cross paths with the Dos Rios boss, but so far she hadn’t even spoken to him on the phone. He’d copied her in on some emails, and she’d received a letter of congratulations allegedly from him when her contract had been finalised, but realistically it was unlikely that he’d even seen it.
Somehow she couldn’t imagine the elusive, work-hungry, publicity-shy CEO sitting in the penthouse office of his company headquarters, chewing his pen and trying to find exactly the right words to toast her success. And that signature that she’d spent so long examining had probably been perfected by one of his personal assistants a long time ago.
Not that she was bothered at his lack of interest. In fact, she was quite relieved.
She had moved from the quiet English coast to the pulsing heart of the Caribbean, but she was still a small-town girl, and meeting her legendary and no doubt formidable boss was an experience she was happy to miss.
And he must feel the same way about meeting her, because he had visited the head office twice since she’d arrived, and both times he had left before she had even realised he was in the country.
Truthfully, though, she hadn’t been expecting to meet him. He might have a beautiful Colonial-style home on the estate, and the site of the original distillery was the Dos Rios headquarters, but his business took him all over the world. According to her colleagues, he visited Havana infrequently, and rarely stayed more than a couple of days.
Of course she was curious about him—who wouldn’t be? He had taken a modest, family-owned rum distillery and turned it into a global brand. And, unlike so many of his business peers, he had done so at the same time as refusing to play the media game.
She ducked under an overhanging branch, wondering why it was that despite his phenomenal success César Zayas’s private life was so private. If he was famous for anything aside from his rum, it was for the way he guarded his privacy with almost pit-bull determination.
Perhaps he was just modest. His biography on the Dos Rios website certainly implied that: it was brief to the point of being minimalist. There were no personal comments or inspirational quotes, just a couple of lines hidden in a more general piece about the history of the company.
Even the photo accompanying the piece seemed designed not to inform but to mislead anyone looking to find out more about the man behind the brand. He was standing in the centre of a group of men lounging on a veranda, glasses of ron in their hands, the colour of the liquid an exact match for the huge burnt orange sun setting behind them. It was an informal shot, but it perfectly captured their camaraderie and their glorious masculine swagger.
They were casually dressed, shirtsleeves rolled up, collars loosened, arms resting on each other’s shoulders. Some were laughing, some holding the island’s other famous export—the Cuban cigar.
All were gazing at the camera.
All except one.
Remembering the picture, Kitty felt her mouth grow dry.
The Dos Rios CEO was turning away, so that his face was slightly blurred, and it was possible only to sense the flawless cheekbones and sculpted jawline beneath the smudge of dark stubble and tousled black hair.
There was no key to identify who was who, but it didn’t matter. Even blurred, his features and the clean lines of his buttoned-up and clearly expensive shirt were stamped with an unmistakable air of privilege, that sense
of having the world at his feet. For him, life would always be bright and easy and fast—too fast for the shutter speed of any camera.
Only his smile—a smile she had never seen but could easily imagine—would be slow…slow and languorous like a long, cool daiquiri.
She swallowed, almost tasting the hit of rum and the tang of lime on her tongue.
Except she didn’t drink daiquiris. Daiquiris were cocktails, and she had never felt cool or confident enough to order one. Not even here in Cuba.
Especially not here in Cuba.
Everyone was so beautiful and sun-kissed and happy. The men had dark, narrowed gazes and moved like panthers, and the women made even the simplest actions—crossing the road, buying fruit at the market—look as though they were dancing the Mambo.
She hadn’t dared to face Havana at night, but she had visited three times during daylight and she could still feel the vibrancy of the city humming in her chest—drowsy but dangerous, like a swarm of bees. She’d been captivated not just by the people but by the faded revolutionary slogans on the walls promising Revolución para Siempre—Revolution For Ever—and the Pantone palette of gleaming, buffed máquinas, the classic nineteen-fifties American cars that lined every street.
Everywhere there were reminders of the past from elaborate, Colonial-style balconies to curving marble staircases. It was vivid, and exhilarating, and she had been tempted to press herself against the hot stucco and absorb some of the lambent warmth of the city into her blood before heading off to explore the tangle of alleys leading off the main squares.
Only she had a terrible sense of direction.
Speaking of which—
She had reached a fork in the path, and she stopped and glanced hesitantly in both directions.
There was no point trying to use her phone—the signal was only strong enough right by the sea—and it was impossible to see over the tops of the pine trees that gave the estate its name. If she went the wrong way it would take for ever. She’d just have to make her way to the track-cum-road that led through the estate and then she’d know where she was.
She felt her heart begin to beat faster.
Her villa was at the edge of the estate. Usually it was home to one of the maids who worked at the main house, but she had gone to the other side of the island to take care of her sick mother, so it was currently empty. She’d been told by Andreas, the head of Dos Rios security, that she was welcome to explore the estate, but she had mostly stuck to the beach and woods around the house. She had never gone as the far as the road before, not on foot anyway.
It took less than ten minutes, and as she stepped between the trees onto the edge of the track she knew immediately where she was. Thank goodness. From here, her villa was only ten minutes away.
Breathing out in relief, she lifted up her hat and fanned her face—and then froze. Half hidden by the dark green vegetation, sunlight dappling their backs, were a group of the wild horses that roamed the estate.
Her heart gave a thump. She knew from conversations with Melenne, who came in three times a week to clean the cabaña, that the horses were not wild in the sense of dangerous, they were just not ‘broken’. They moved freely, foraging in the woods, and it showed in their satin-smooth coats and toned muscles.
They were so beautiful, she thought, feeling a lump building in her throat, and tentatively, slowly, she took a step closer, holding out her hand to the nearest one. She held her breath as he gazed at her assessingly, and then her pulse darted as his soft, velvety nose snuffled against her fingers.
Breathing out cautiously, she held her hand steady—and then suddenly there was a rumbling growl from behind her, and as one the horses turned and wheeled away between the trees.
What the—?
Turning round towards the noise, Kitty lifted her hand to shield her face as a burst of sunlight hit her eyes. The noise swelled into a roar and there was a gleam of metal. She gasped, the sound choking off as a motorbike and its rider reared up in front of her. She got just the briefest impression of dark eyes narrowing in surprise, and then everything seemed to go into slow motion as the bike swerved away from her, skidding, tilting sideways, sliding smoothly across the coarse-packed dirt until finally it came to a shuddering stop.
For a moment, time contracted to a heartbeat.
Was he hurt?
Was he—?
She couldn’t even think the word—and she pushed it away. She was struggling to breathe, her brain scrabbling, her mind stunned, disbelieving what had just happened. And then something opened inside of her chest, and even as panic jostled with fear she was running towards the bike.
The rider was already on his knees, and as he clambered to his feet he glanced up at her and swore in Spanish under his breath—or at least she assumed by the tone of his voice that he was swearing. Her Spanish lessons had been more focused on conjugating verbs than on cursing.
As she reached the bike she stopped and glanced back down the road, stomach clenching. From here it was possible to see clearly in both directions. Had she been standing on this spot she would have seen the bike, and he would have seen her, and the accident would never have happened.
The randomness of it made her head spin. In contrast, the motorcyclist seemed remarkably unperturbed.
Watching him, she felt her skin start to prickle. He was pressing his hand against the chassis of the bike as though it was one of the horses he’d startled, making the muscles beneath his oddly formal white shirt strain against the poplin.
He looked so vivid and real and she hated that he might have been hurt; hated too that she had unwittingly played a part in his accident. If only she had been standing where she was now. But then she would never have met him—this man.
Her breathing jerked as the thought sneaked into her head from nowhere and refused to leave.
It had been a long time since a member of the opposite sex had even registered on her radar, but this man resonated.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the underside of the bike’s wheel, still spinning slowly, and she was grateful for the reminder of what had so nearly happened and how she should react, for otherwise her brain might not have remembered what passed for acceptable behaviour.
‘Are you okay?’
He lifted his gaze and for a moment she forgot to breathe as dark green eyes the same colour as the pine trees behind her stared at her in confusion. And then she realised she was speaking in English.
She blinked. ‘Sorry, I mean…se hecho daño?’
He shook his head slowly, his gaze fixed on her face, and she saw that his expression had shifted from confusion to something like irritation. Instantly the sick panic she’d felt at watching the bike’s wheels slide from under him was replaced by a bubbling rush of anger.
‘Cómo—? I mean, puede—? Oh, what’s the word?’ She broke off in frustration. She was too angry to think straight in her own language, let alone in Spanish.
‘That would depend, I suppose, on what it is you’re trying to say.’
Her stomach clenched. He was speaking English—fluent, almost accentless English.
But clinging onto her outrage, she pushed past her astonishment. ‘How could you be so reckless? You could have been hurt. Or worse,’ she said accusingly.
‘Unlikely. I wasn’t going that fast. Besides…’ He paused and then almost casually hoisted up the right leg of his trousers and showed her a thin, knotted scar running up from his ankle. ‘I’ve done far worse.’
She gaped at him in silence, too stunned to respond and dazzled not just by the effortless way he switched between languages but by his casual lack of concern for his own safety. A sliver of anger she didn’t really understand twisted inside her as she watched him lean over the bike and haul it upright, nudging out the kickstand with his foot.
‘How about you?’
He still hadn’t turned to face her, but as he glanced over a jolt like a pulse of electricity passed between them as his eyes locked onto hers
, his green gaze so intent she felt flushed and dizzy.
‘Are you okay?’
She stared at him blankly. He sounded businesslike rather than concerned, but she barely registered his words. She was too distracted by his face. Caught in the sunlight, it was beautiful. The straight nose and jaw were outlined in gold, his skin clear and bright like a just lit flame.
Like a just lit flame?
She felt herself tremble as the words echoed inside her head. Thankfully she’d only thought them and not actually said them out loud, but what was she thinking?
Easy question.
Wrong answer.
She was thinking about his mouth and how it would feel pressed against hers.
She frowned, flustered by her unexpected and unwelcome reaction to a stranger—a stranger who had scant regard both for himself and the safety of others. A stranger who couldn’t even be bothered to turn and face her.
Her heart began to beat faster, and she had a sudden impulse to turn and dart back beneath the trees. Only there was something in her that wanted to know what would happen if she stayed.
‘I’m fine. Although I’m surprised you’re bothering to ask.’
She spoke quickly, her words tumbling over themselves, for she was not by nature a confrontational person—a character trait that had only been reinforced by months of sitting in hospital waiting rooms and dealing with a conveyor belt of compassionate but phlegmatic specialists and consultants.
But something about this man…something in his manner…sparked against her like a match striking tinder.
He tipped his head back, his lips parting slightly as though internally questioning what he’d just heard.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
He spoke softly, but there was an edge to his voice that made the hairs stand up on her arms. But remembering how the wild horses had scattered at his approach, her irritation was rekindled and she felt the last of her panic disappear in the face of his level gaze.
‘It means that you almost ran into me.’
His eyes flashed, the whites glinting like teeth, but his gaze stayed locked on her face. ‘Yes, because you stepped out in front of me. I only came off the bike because I had to swerve to avoid hitting you.’