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‘Not to worry.’ Felix leaned forward and patted her hand. ‘Now, go and find out what’s happened to the coffee I asked for an hour ago.’
Arden bit her lip as she stepped into the hall and closed the library door after her. That would be the final straw, she thought unhappily, if she were to lose this position because of a selfish stepdaughter and a grasping nephew...
‘Brava,’ a woman’s voice said.
Arden spun around. No, she thought, it wasn’t a woman, not really. It was a girl, perhaps nineteen or twenty years of age, tall and beautiful, with a look of haughty insolence in her dark eyes, and she knew without question that this had to be Felix’s stepdaughter, Linda Vasquez.
‘It is a brilliant strategy, señorita, speaking up to my stepfather as if you were his equal, then throwing yourself on his mercy and reminding him that you are merely a woman and dependent on his indulgence. No tica maid would ever have thought of such a thing.’
Arden flushed but forced a smile to her lips. ‘I’m not a maid, señorita, I’m Arden Miller, the señor’s new companion.’ She held out her hand. ‘And you must be Linda.’
The woman smiled, too, showing even white teeth set against tawny skin. ‘I am Senorita Vasquez,’ she said, ignoring Arden’s outstretched hand, ‘and I suggest you pack your things while Pablo prepares the car to take you back to San José.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I am in charge of the hiring at El Corazon and you do not suit my needs.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to discuss this with your stepfather first,’ Arden said as calmly as she could. ‘I thi
nk you’ll find he’s quite happy with me, and—’
‘You are wasting my time, Miss Miller. My stepfather is not himself and everyone knows it. As for me, I want you out of here immediately.’
The woman’s rudeness shattered Arden’s attempted civility.
‘Since you were eavesdropping,’ she said coldly, ‘you know what your stepfather said. He hired me. If I’m going to be fired, it will be by him.’
Linda laughed. ‘How quick you are to bare your claws. I wonder, what makes you so ready to do that?’
‘I told you, your stepfather—’
‘Is it the money? Are you so brave and determined because you have heard the rumours, that my stepfather is rich and no longer quite as in command of his faculties as he once was?’
Arden’s eyes met Linda’s. ‘What are you implying?’
‘I have phoned here every evening since you arrived, and each time my stepfather has told me of your beauty and your charm, of your wit and intelligence.’ Linda’s smile faded and her eyes turned to black ice. ‘If you think I will permit a scheming gringa to usurp my position here—’
‘I have absolutely no intention of usurping—’
‘You may have fooled my stepfather, but you cannot fool me, and you most assuredly will not fool Senor Martinez. He will see straight through you!’
Two crimson circles appeared in Arden’s cheeks. ‘Señor Martinez will see nothing!’
‘That’s enough!’
The voice was male and very harsh, and it brought a flash of satisfaction to Linda Vasquez’s face.
‘Thank you, Conor,’ she said. ‘I am weary of dealing with this woman myself.’
Arden spun around, words of anger on her lips, words that died before she spoke them. Her heart thumped into her throat. No, she told herself, no, it just wasn’t possible.
But there he was, backlit by the sun so that he seemed to have been forged in fire, his hands on his hips, his posture intransigent, and the contempt in his voice so familiar that she knew that this encounter would not be any different than the last.
‘You!’ she breathed, and she stumbled back against the wall.
The drifter who’d helped Edgar Lithgow snatch away everything she’d worked so hard to attain wasn’t a drifter at all.
He was Conor Martinez, the master of El Corazon.
