Page 18 of Tender Triumph

  "The banks will not cooperate," Ramon said tersely. "I have already met with them in Chicago and St. Louis."

  "But why, dammit?" Miguel burst out, abandon­ing all pretense of being the impersonally profes­sional accountant. His face was agonized as he looked at the coolly impassive features of the man he loved like a brother. "They loaned you part of the money to get them completed this far, why won't they loan you the rest to finish them?"

  "Because they have lost faith in my judgment and my ability," Ramon said, looking at the figures on the ledger sheets. "They do not believe I can be relied upon to see that the buildings are finished and their loans repaid. From their point of view, while my father was alive they received their one-million-dollar interest payments every month. He died, I took control of the corporation, and suddenly we are almost four months delinquent in our pay­ments."

  "But it is your father's fault the corporation has no money coming in to make the payments!" Miguel gritted between his teeth.

  "If you explain that to the banks, they reverse their original opinion and point out that while he was chairman of the board, I was still the president, and I should have taken steps to stop him from mak­ing these mistakes."

  "Mistakes!" Miguel exploded. "They were not mistakes. He planned it this way so that you would have nothing left. He wanted everyone to think that when he died, the corporation fell apart without him."

  Ramon's eyes turned hard and cold. "He had a brain tumor; he was not responsible for his ac­tions."

  Miguel Villegas stiffened in his chair, his dark, Spanish face glowering. "He was a miserable bas­tard, an egotistical petty tyrant, and you know it! Everybody knew it. He resented your success and he hated your fame. All that tumor did was make him finally lose control of his jealousy." Seeing the mounting anger in Ramon's expression, Miguel softened his voice. "I know you do not want to hear it, but it is the truth. You came into the corporation and in a few short years, you created a worldwide financial empire worth three hundred times what your father had made it. You did it, not him. You were the one the magazines and newspapers wrote about; you were the one they called one of the world's most dynamic entrepreneurs; you were the one who was asked to address the World Business Conference in Geneva. I was having lunch in a hotel at a table near your father's the day he found out about that. He was not proud, he was furious! He was trying to convince the men he was with that the conference had taken you as a second choice be­cause he could not spare the time to go to Switzer­land."

  "Enough!" Ramon said sharply, his face white with angry pain. "He was still my father, and he is dead now. There was little love between us while he was alive; do not destroy what little feeling I have left for him." In grim silence, Ramon concentrated on the ledger sheets Miguel had given him. When his eyes swept over the last entry, he glanced up. "What is this three-million-dollar asset of mine you list at the end?"

  "Not really an asset at all," Miguel said glumly. "I found the file among your father's private things at the house in Mayaguez. As far as I could tell, it is a loan you made to a Sidney Green in St. Louis, Missouri, nine years ago. He still owes you the money, but you cannot sue him or take any legal ac­tion to try to get it back now; under the law you have only seven years to file a lawsuit—that time has already elapsed.

  "The loan was repaid," Ramon said with a shrug.

  "Not according to the records I found."

  "If you dig deeply enough you will discover it was repaid, but do not waste any more of your time looking through the files. You have enough to do." There was a brief knock on the door, followed im­mediately by the appearance of Simon Galverra's elegantly groomed secretary.

  "The auditors from New York are here. Also, there are two local newspaper reporters asking to schedule interviews, and an urgent telephone call from Zurich."

  "Send the auditors into the conference room, and tell the reporters I will give them an interview next month; that will keep them out of our way. I will return the Zurich call later." Nodding, she retreat­ed, her skirt swirling around long shapely legs.

  Miguel watched Elise leave, his brown eyes admir­ing. "At least your father had good taste in secre­taries. Elise is beautiful," he observed in a tone of impersonal aesthetic appreciation

  Ramon unlocked the massive, carved desk and did not reply as he extracted three heavy files marked'' Confidential.''

  "Speaking of beautiful women," Miguel went on with studied nonchalance as he gathered up his papers, preparing to leave. "When am I going to be able to meet the grocer's daughter?"

  Reaching for the intercom on his right, Ramon pressed the button and issued instructions to Elise: "Have Davidson and Ramirez come up. When they arrive, send them into the conference room with the auditors." With his attention still on the files before him, Ramon said, "What grocer's daughter?"

  Miguel rolled his eyes in amusement. "The one you brought back from the States. Eduardo says she is reasonably attractive. Knowing how he dislikes American women, that means she must be extraor­dinarily beautiful. He said she is a grocer's daughter."

  "A grocer's—?" For a moment Ramon looked ir­ritated and blank, then the uncompromising line of his jaw slowly relaxed. His eyes, which had been cold and harsh, kindled with warmth, and his stern mouth was touched by an unexplainable smile. "Katie," he breathed aloud. "He is talking about Katie." Leaning back in his chair, Ramon closed his eyes. "How could I possibly have forgotten I have Katie here?" Regarding Miguel through half-closed eyes, Ramon said with wry humor, "Katie is the daughter of a wealthy American who owns a large chain of supermarkets. I brought her back from the States with me yesterday. She is staying with Gabriella and Eduardo for two weeks until we are married."

  While Ramon briefly explained that he was mis­leading Katie, and why, Miguel was slowly sinking back into the chair he had just vacated. He shook his head. "Dios mio, I thought she was going to be your mistress."

  "Eduardo knows she is not. He mistrusts all American women, and he prefers to think I will change my mind about marrying her. When he learns to know Katie, he will like her. In the mean­time, out of respect for me he will treat her as a guest in his home, and he will not discuss my past with her."

  "But your return is undoubtedly the talk of the village. Your Katie will be bound to overhear some village gossip."

  "I am certain she will, but she will not understand a word of it. Katie does not speak Spanish."

  Heaving himself out of his chair, Miguel shot a worried look at Ramon. "What about the rest of my family—they all speak English—and the younger ones may inadvertently give you away."

  "Only your parents and Gabriella and her hus­band remember their English," Ramon said dryly. "As of yesterday, your brothers and sisters know only Spanish."

  "Ramon, after this, nothing you ever do or say will surprise me."

  "I want you to be my best man."

  Miguel smiled somberly. "That does not surprise me. I always expected to be your best man, just as you flew back from Athens to be mine." He put his hand out across the desk. "Congratulations, my friend." His firm handshake conveyed his pleasure as well as his unspoken regret for Ramon's stagger­ing financial losses. "I will go back to work on your father's files."

  The intercom buzzed, and the secretary's voice announced that the corporation's two attorneys, whom Ramon had instructed her to summon, were now in the conference room waiting with the audi­tors.

  Still seated behind the desk, Ramon watched Miguel cross the broad expanse of thick gold carpet. When the door clicked shut behind him, Ramon let his gaze roam over his office as if he were seeing it for the last time, unconsciously memorizing it in all its quiet splendor.

  The Renoir landscape he had purchased for an exorbitant sum from a private collector was framed beneath a portrait light, its colors a vibrant contrast to the rich, walnut-paneled walls. He had put all his personal possessions up as collateral to obtain loans for the corporation before he discovered the full ex­tent of his father's
destructiveness. Along with everything else he owned, the Renoir would soon be auctioned off to the highest bidder. He hoped who­ever bought it would love it as much as he always had.

  Leaning his head back against the chair, Ramon closed his eyes. In a minute he was going to walk into the conference room, turn the auditors loose on the records, and instruct the corporation's attorneys to file the legal documents that would announce to the courts and the business world that Galverra International was crippled. Broken.

  For four months he had fought to save it, trying to transfuse it with his own money—doing anything just to keep it alive. He had failed. Now all he could do was make certain that it died swiftly and with dignity.

  Night after night he had lain awake, dreading this moment. Yet now that it was finally here, he was facing it without the wrenching agony he would have felt two weeks ago.

  Because now he had Katie.

  He had given his life to the corporation. Now he was going to give the rest of it to Katie. Only to Katie.

  For the first time in many years, Ramon felt deeply religious. It was as if God had decided to take away his family, his possessions, his status, and then, realizing that Ramon had absolutely noth­ing left, He had taken pity and given him Katie in­stead. And Katie made up for everything he had lost.

  Katie brushed her lips with a tawny lipstick that matched the shiny polish on her long tapered finger­nails. She checked her mascara, then combed her fingers through the sides of her hair, restoring the glossy mane to its windblown style. Satisfied, she turned away from the mirror above the dresser and glanced at the clock. At five-thirty it was still broad daylight, and Ramon had told Gabriella he would be here between five-thirty and six to take Katie to din­ner at Rafael's.

  On an impulse, Katie decided to walk out and meet him. After changing into a pair of white slacks and a jaunty navy silk shirt trimmed in white, she slipped out the front door, relieved to escape the rather oppressive presence of Gabriella's disapprov­ing husband, Eduardo.

  Overhead, the powder-blue sky was heaped with piles of whipped cream clouds. The hills rose around her, carpeted in emerald green and splashed with pink and red flowers. With a contented sigh, Katie lifted her face to the balmy breeze and started across the front yard toward the dirt driveway that led through the trees out to the main road.

  She had felt a little lost being among strangers all day, and she had missed Ramon's reassuring pres­ence. She hadn't seen him since he introduced her to Gabriella and her husband last night, then left an hour later to go back to Rafael's house.

  "Katie!" The familiar voice stopped her in her tracks. Turning her head, Katie saw Ramon about fifty yards away on her left. He was cutting across the hillside from Rafael's house, and she had ob­viously just crossed directly in his path as she walked toward the road. He stopped, waiting for her to come to him. With a cheery wave, Katie turned and started up the hill.

  Ramon forced himself to stay where he was, to luxuriate in the sheer pleasure of knowing she had come out to meet him. His gaze moved over her in a tender caress, watching the way her hair was blowing across her shoulders in a shining tumble of red gold. Her deep blue eyes were laughing up at him, and a welcoming smile was curving the inviting full­ness of her lips. She moved with a natural, unaf­fected grace, her slim hips swaying just enough to be exquisitely provocative.

  His heart pounded with the yearning to snatch her into his arms and crush her against him, to absorb her into himself. He wanted to cover her mouth with his and whisper over and over, I love you, I love you, I love you. He wanted to say that to her, but not enough to risk the possibility that Katie's response—or lack of it—would tell him that she did not love him. That he could not bear.

  A few yards from him Katie stopped, immobilized by a strange combination of happiness and shyness. Ramon's dark blue shirt was open halfway to his waist, revealing an expanse of tanned chest covered with curling black hairs; his dark pants hugged his lean hips and hard thighs, faithfully following every line of his long legs. The raw, potent sexuality he was exuding made Katie feel strangely fragile and vulnerable. She swallowed, searching for something to say, and finally said with soft uncertainty, "Hello."

  Ramon's arms opened wide to her. Huskily he re­plied, "Hello, mi amor."

  Katie hesitated, and then flung herself into his welcoming embrace. His arms closed around her, holding her to him as if he would never let her go.

  "Did you miss me?" he whispered thickly, when his mouth at last released hers.

  Katie pressed her lips to the base of his throat, in­haling the heady scent of warm, masculine skin and spicy after-shave. "Yes. Did you miss me?"

  "No."

  Leaning back, Katie looked up at him, her smile quizzical. "You didn't?"

  "No," he said with quiet gravity. "Because since ten o'clock this morning I have kept you with me; I have not let you leave my side."

  "Since ten o'clock—?" Katie started to ask, then something in his voice made her look at him more closely. Intuitively she recognized the ravaged emo­tions hidden in the depths of those onyx eyes. Reaching up, she took his chin between her thumb and forefinger, turning his surprised face first to the left, then the right. Keeping her expression bright, she asked teasingly, "How do the other men look?"

  "What other men?"

  "The ones who tried to beat you up."

  "You mean I look as if I have been in a fight?" Ramon said.

  Slowly, Katie nodded, her smile widening. "With at least six armed men and a demented bulldozer."

  "That bad?" he grinned wryly.

  Katie nodded again, then sobered. "It must be very hard, very depressing working for a company that you know is going out of business."

  His stunned look told Katie that her conclusion was correct. "Do you know," he said with a be­mused shake of his head, "I have been told by many men from many countries that I have a face that is absolutely unreadable when I wish it to be."

  "And you wanted it to be unreadable tonight, with me?" Katie guessed. "Because you didn't want me to see that you're tired and depressed?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you have any of your own money invested in the company?"

  "Virtually all of my money and most of my life," Ramon admitted smiling at her in amazement. "You are very perceptive. But there is no need for you to worry. After today it will be much easier, and I will not have to be there for so many hours each day. Tomorrow afternoon I can begin helping the men who are working on our home.''

  Dinner at Rafael's house was a relaxed affair with much joking and laughing around the table. Senora Villegas, Rafael's wife, was a stout, bustling woman who treated Ramon with the same solicitude she lav­ished on her husband and children—two boys in their early twenties and a girl of about fourteen. For Katie's benefit most of the conversation was in English, which the young members could not speak but apparently understood a little, because several times Katie saw them smile at something Rafael or Ramon said.

  After dinner the men went into the lounge while the women cleared the table and did the dishes. When they were through, they joined the men for coffee. As if he had been watching for her, Ramon's gaze lifted and he held 6ut a beckoning hand to her. Katie slid her hand into his firm grasp, and he exert­ed just enough pressure to pull her down beside him. She listened to Rafael Villegas talking to Ramon, making suggestions about the farm, but every mo­ment she was vitally aware of Ramon's hard thigh pressing against hers. His arm was resting along the back of the sofa, his hand imperceptibly caressing her shoulder, his thumb moving idly against her nape beneath the cloak of her heavy hair. Except there was nothing idle about what he was doing—he was deliberately keeping her fully aware of his nearness. Or was he, Katie wondered suddenly. She thought about what he had said earlier about keep­ing her beside him, implying that he had needed her to get through his day. Was he keeping her physical­ly close now, touching her this way because he need­ed her to get through the evening as well?

 
Katie stole a glance at his chiseled profile and, with a pang of sympathy, she recognized the preoccupation in his features.

  Katie delicately faked a yawn behind her fingers, and Ramon's eyes were instantly on her. "Are you tired?"

  "A little," Katie lied.

  In three minutes, Ramon had seized on her com­ment, made their excuses to the Villegases, and whisked her out the front door. "Do you feel up to walking back, or would you rather I drove you?"

  "I feel up to almost anything," Katie smiled soft­ly, "but you looked tired and distracted, so I used that as a way of excusing you from being there."

  Ramon didn't deny it. "Thank you," he said ten­derly.

  Gabriella and her husband had already gone to bed, but they had left the front door unlatched.

  Katie stopped to turn on a mellow lamp while Ramon walked over and sat down on the sofa. As she neared him, he reached out and captured her arms, starting to pull her down onto his lap. Firmly disentangling herself from his grip, Katie went around behind him.

  Beneath her ministering hands his broad shoul­ders were taut as she began to massage the tenseness from his thick muscles. She felt so strange with him in this mood. There was a relaxed closeness between them that had never been present before; Ramon always seemed to have a leashed sexual energy that kept her senses in a state of trembling anticipation. Tonight that energy was a quiet magnetism. "How does that feel?" she asked, kneading the tendons at the base of the neck.

  "Better than you can imagine," he said, bending his dark head forward to give her better access to his neck. "Where did you learn to do that?" he asked a few minutes later as Katie began quickly chopping the sides of her hands over his shoulders and back.

  Katie's hands froze. "I don't remember," she lied.

  Something in her voice made Ramon turn around sharply. He saw the haunted expression in her eyes, caught her arms and brought her around in front of him, pulling her down onto his lap. "Now I will make you feel better," he stated, his hands un­fastening the button of her shirt, delving into the lacy cups of her bra, and pushing her breasts up and out of them.