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‘Hacienda de Oro…literally the House of Gold. The conservationist’s paradise, the archaeologist’s dream destination…but the It Girl’s living death,’ the self-possessed brunette completed, with a dissatisfied twist of her sultry mouth.
‘The It Girl’s living death…?’ Lucy repeated weakly, not quite sure she had heard her correctly.
‘I’m Yolanda Del Castillo, Joaquin’s sister. Surely you know what an It Girl is?’
Lucy nodded, but only slowly. She had read about the cult of the new It Girls in newspapers. Young, rich, high society British women, who were wildly popular with the media. They partied from dawn to dusk, wore fabulous clothes and dated only the most newsworthy men. Such an existence was so far removed from Lucy’s own that she just stared at Yolanda Del Castillo, who undeniably seemed to possess all the attributes it took to be an It Girl, continually photographed, pursued and envied. Even in daylight, it seemed, Yolanda dressed as if she was about to go to a party.
‘You speak wonderful English,’ Lucy remarked, awkward in the presence of such exoticism.
Yolanda uttered a rueful groan. ‘Where do you think I was educated?’
Most probably in a British school, Lucy gathered, feeling foolish.
‘Where is this house?’ Lucy pressed.
‘You’re still in the Petén, just a different part of it.’
‘So how did I get here?’ Lucy asked.
‘Joaquin had you airlifted in.’
‘Airlifted?’ Lucy interrupted helplessly. ‘Who are you people?’
‘You really don’t know, do you?’ Yolanda rolled her dark eyes in dramatic disbelief, momentarily looking much younger than the twenty-two or twenty-three which Lucy had estimated her to be. She threw the bedroom door wide again. ‘Hang on a minute—’
‘Yolanda…is there a phone I could use?’ Lucy hastened to ask, before Joaquin’s sister could disappear again.
Yolanda’s attention shifted to the vacant spot by the bed. She frowned in surprise. ‘Well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t have a phone!’ she remarked with instant sympathy. ‘You may be a con-artist, but for Joaquin to have the phone removed is total sensory deprivation! I couldn’t exist for five minutes without a phone!’
Lucy turned white as milk. ‘You know…I mean—?’
‘You thought I didn’t just ’cos I came in to chat?’ Yolanda shrugged a languid shoulder. ‘I’m bored out of my mind here without company. But I know what you did… Of course I know, and it was disgusting! Fidelio is the sweetest old man.’
Cut to the bone by that blunt condemnation from yet another source, and feeling as limp as a wrung-out dishrag, Lucy sank down on the edge of the bed. Within minutes Yolanda reappeared, to toss a glossy magazine down beside her.
‘Fidelio Paez started working for my family when he was fifteen, señora,’ Yolanda informed her with cool dignity. ‘We threw a big retirement party for him. Imagine how we felt when we later found out that Fidelio had gone to work for a neighbour because he was too embarrassed to ask Joaquin if he could continue working for us!’
‘And then Fidelio told your brother what had happened to his savings,’ Lucy assumed uncomfortably.
‘No! Fidelio has no idea that you cheated him out of his money,’ Yolanda contradicted instantly. ‘Joaquin had to do his own detective work.’
In considerable discomfiture, Lucy dropped her head.
‘And while we’re on the subject of my brother, stop embarrassing me by making a total ass of yourself around him!’
Her lips parting company in sheer shock, Lucy looked up.
‘The way you were carrying on when you were ill, I initially thought that Joaquin had brought his mistress home!’ Yolanda admitted in exasperation.
‘His…m-mistress?’ Lucy stammered with incredulity.
‘All Joaquin’s mistresses have been foreigners like you. Guatemalan women don’t sleep around. We know better,’ the brunette told her with unapologetic superiority.
‘What way was I…“carrying on”?’ Lucy tilted her chin, denying the charge.
‘OK, so you had a fever, but you were continually moaning on about how beautiful Joaquin’s eyes were and asking him to kiss you…talk about deeply uncool! Listening outside that door, I was just cringing for you!’
A tide of truly painful colour illuminating her face, Lucy turned her shaken gaze away from her visitor in self-protection. Suddenly her eyes were stinging with stupid tears.
Yolanda walked round the bed to get a better look at her victim and frowned in frank bewilderment. ‘You know, you just don’t add up…you are acting so wet!’
Lucy chewed at her wobbly lower lip. ‘I’m only feeling weepy because I’ve been ill—’
‘No…you fancy my brother something rotten,’ the brunette countered, unimpressed, and she shook her head in wondering pity. ‘I have problems, but you have got an even bigger problem, Lucy!’
The door snapped shut on Yolanda’s departure. Drawing in a deep shuddering breath, Lucy lifted the magazine she had left behind. Her hands were trembling and she felt as weak as a kitten. But, worst of all, she felt utterly humiliated. A con-artist who had made an ass of herself? Evidently while her temperature had been high she had rambled on like some dizzy teenager suffering from a severe crush.
The cover of the magazine bore a picture of Joaquin emerging from a limousine with a very beautiful blonde. Lucy leafed through and found the relevant page. It was a North American magazine dedicated to depicting the lives of the rich and famous. Correction, Lucy adjusted as she slowly scanned the pages of photos, the lives of the super-rich…
For Joaquin Del Castillo appeared to own a whole selection of homes around the globe. There were several shots of various enormous properties, sheltering behind high walls and huge gates. Her heart beating very fast, Lucy skimmed through the brief blurb for actual facts. Joaquin was variously described as a ‘billionaire industrialist’ and a ‘reformed playboy’, who now spent much of his time advising governments on conservation. He was thirty years old, single, and he changed women like he changed his shirts. His late father hadn’t married for the first time until he was sixty, and there was strong speculation that Joaquin was planning to do the same.
Lucy snapped shut the magazine again. So, a gorgeous billionaire had kissed her! Where had that naff thought come from? Mortified by her rebellious mind, which refused to focus on what was truly important, Lucy instead pondered the likely power at Joaquin’s fingertips. Her blood duly chilled. Cindy had made a very dangerous enemy who had the resources to cause a great deal of trouble.
Since she was now totally exhausted, and in no state to leave her room in search of a phone, Lucy crawled back into bed, sinking beneath the cool sheets to close her eyes in weary relief.
‘Lucy…?’
Even as Lucy surfaced from sleep again every fibre in her body knew that the speaker was Joaquin, for nobody else had ever managed to make her name sound that exciting. That wonderful sexy drawl, rich as honey with smoky overtones, haunted her dreams, so she kept her eyes shut, warding off temptation as best she could.
‘Go ’way,’ she mumbled in sleepy self-defence.
‘Wake up, Lucy…’
With drowsy reluctance, Lucy focused on the male poised at the foot of her bed. It was dusk. But, even in that duller light, his dark-as-midnight hair gleamed with vitality and his fabulous eyes glittered like jewels. That Joaquin should always look spectacular was no longer any surprise to Lucy, for other memories were stirring to endow him with a familiarity she accepted without question. Joaquin had been with her when the fever had been at its worst. Whenever she had become momentarily conscious of her surroundings again Joaquin had been there.
