‘Rosie.’ He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of her arrival, and then he remained still, waiting for her to come to him.
He could try every trick in the book, but she was never dismayed. The power of her easy-going personality was undeniable. As she extended her tiny hand for him to shake, she tipped up her chin to look him in the eyes, and he felt the force of that stare in his groin, which didn’t just tighten now, but ached with the most urgent need.
‘Welcome to Hacienda de Rio,’ she said with a smile, as if he were the interloper. And then, having realised her mistake, instead of blushing or showing how awkward she surely must feel at the blunder, she put her hand over her mouth and giggled before exclaiming, ‘That was a bit of a clanger, wasn’t it?’
He stared coolly into her eyes, trying to read her. He could read every woman he’d ever met, from the mother who had barely made eye contact with him, to Doña Anna’s scathing and ironic stare, and, after them, the legions of women who knew very well how to flirt with their eyes; they were all transparent to him, but Rosie Clifton was an enigma, and she intrigued him. She was also extremely self-possessed for a girl from nowhere, who had owned nothing but the clothes she stood up in until a few weeks ago.
Seeing the cold suspicion in his eyes, she had taken a step back. Feeling the table behind her legs, she reached behind her to rest her palms on the scrubbed pine surface, making her breasts appear more prominent than ever. Had any other woman done the same thing, he might have wondered if it was an invitation, but Rosie Clifton only succeeded in making herself look younger and more vulnerable than ever. Perhaps that too was a ploy of sorts, he reflected.
‘So, you got here at last?’ she challenged him lightly.
He shrugged. ‘I came as soon as I could.’
She pressed her lips together in a wry, accepting smile. ‘Your aunt mentioned that you’re a workaholic.’
He had forgotten how self-possessed she was. But now there was a faint blush on her face, and her amethyst eyes had darkened. He watched her breathing quicken, displaying the shape of her full breasts quite graphically in the close-fitting dress.
‘This is, of course, as much your home as mine,’ she said candidly.
‘How kind of you to say so.’ He resisted the temptation to state the obvious: that his claim went back a thousand years.
‘You haven’t forgotten the ice cream I promised, have you? I made two flavours.’
Rosie wasn’t sure when she had decided to treat Don Xavier as a normal human being, rather than as an aristocrat with centuries of breeding behind him. They were wildly unequal in every sense, but, as nothing could change that, she had decided to be herself.
Maybe it was the Doña Anna effect, Rosie reflected as she reached for two bowls. In this one precious inheritance Doña Anna had made sure they were equals. The Spanish Grandee and the orphan housekeeper shared a huge responsibility thanks to the way that Doña Anna had drafted her will, but the more Rosie thought about it, the more it seemed to her that Don Xavier’s need for an heir gave her some leverage over him. She had no other power to wield, but he had a schedule to meet, or he would forfeit his fifty per cent of the island to her. Of course, she could just wait him out and hope he couldn’t produce an heir in the time specified, but she had no intention of wasting two years of her life hanging around for that. She wanted to get things moving on the island for the sake of the islanders as soon as she could.
Which, ideally, would mean working together, she thought, deflating somewhat when she caught sight of Don Xavier’s unsmiling face.
Dipping down, she reached into the freezer to pull out the boxes of ice cream. The air in the kitchen seemed to have frozen harder than the ice cream in the tub.
Whatever happened next, she wasn’t going to be railroaded into making any decision that didn’t feel right. She might have everything to learn about being a landowner, but Doña Anna had taught her not to be silent and accepting, but to question everything.
‘Vanilla,’ she announced, prising the lid off the tub. ‘And Doña Anna’s favourite—fresh strawberry. I picked the fruit from the garden this morning—’
‘I haven’t come here to eat ice cream,’ the towering monument to privilege and wealth currently occupying her kitchen coldly stated.
He hadn’t expected Rosie to be so relaxed on this second meeting, Xavier realised. She’d had time to think about things, and must surely realise the hopelessness of her situation. He was stationed at one end of the kitchen table, while she was at the other, and she didn’t seem concerned at all. As she opened a drawer to reach for a serving spoon he put the documents he’d brought with him very prominently on the table.
She didn’t look at them once—or didn’t appear to, but then she baited him with a level stare. ‘These look official,’ she said, moving them out of the way so she could arrange her dishes. ‘They look like the type of papers that won’t bring anyone any happiness. “Beware of lawyers, ” Doña Anna used to tell me. “Trust no one but yourself, Rosie.” So...what flavour would you like?’
He was taken aback for a moment. He had dealt with many difficult situations in business, but nothing like this. ‘What else did Doña Anna warn you about?’
‘Honestly?’ she said, pulling an attractive face as she thought about it for two seconds. ‘Nothing. Not you. Not anything. I think she must have trusted me to get on with things. And at the end, when she was dying, and I knew I was about to lose the best friend I’d ever had, the last thing on my mind was lawyers, or wills.’
He believed her.
‘I’ll look at the documents later,’ she said, ‘if that’s all right with you?’
And if it wasn’t all right with him, she would still look at the documents later, he guessed. In fairness, nothing would bounce him into doing anyth
ing in a hurry, so he couldn’t argue with that.
‘There is one thing I feel compelled to do,’ she said, ‘and I hope you’ll go along with me in this one little thing...’
‘That depends what it is,’ he said.
If they never did anything else together, they would do this, Rosie determined. The ceremony she had in mind held as much significance for her as toasting the life of a loved one in champagne at a wake. Taking a moment to celebrate the life of a very special woman, who had done so much for both of them, before normal hostilities were resumed shouldn’t be too much to ask. It was time to find out.