Her Latin Lover (Contemporary Romance) (4 page)

“Don Paulo!
Como estais
?” the barman called out as soon as he walked through the door. Don Paulo greeted him back and ordered himself a small bandy. He stood at the bar just a few feet away from where Mary was drinking a large beer. He pretended not to see her, but he could certainly feel her presence. It made him feel warm and hot inside, like the brandy that was burning down his throat. He called out to the barman for a glass of ice water.

“I said that I could look after myself,” she called out.

“I am not disputing the fact. I am just here having a drink and perhaps something to eat. The hotel bar was getting a little lonely.” He leaned slightly nearer to her and dropped his voice. “And, as I said, the food at the hotel is not the best.” He could see her eyes soften a little and her mouth relaxed just enough for her lower lip to come forward, all full and pink. He could see her straight, white teeth. There was a small gap between the front two. It looked incredibly sexy. Don Paulo leaned back and took a sip of the ice water that had been placed in front of him on the bar. Mary leaned forward, not much, but just enough for him to push a little bit further. “Let me order you a steak. The cook here gets excellent beef from her cousin’s farm.”

“I told you, I can order my own food.”

“Of course, please go ahead.” He pointed to the scratched blackboard behind the bar on which the menu for the day was scrawled in white chalk. He saw that he had pushed her too far, too quickly. He would have to be more careful.

She looked quizzically at the board. He guessed that she didn’t understand what was written there, but he decided not to interfere this time. After several minutes of studying the menu she pointed to the first item on the board and declared that she would like that for dinner.

“Excellent choice,” he informed her. “It is a speciality of the house.” He ordered a large steak for himself.

When the food arrived, she looked at her plate in horror. In front of her were half a dozen fried pigs’ ears. A few bristles were still visible on some of them.

“Please start,” he said, trying his best not to laugh as he cut into his large, juicy steak.

Slowly Mary picked on an ear. She nibbled the corner. She dropped it and looked at his steak and then up at him. He could see the hunger in her eyes. Finally she burst out, “OK, you win. Order me a steak.”

“Are you sure? You wouldn’t prefer the little piggy ears?” He picked up two of them, jiggled them about and made little piglet noises.

She started giggling. “Please, order me a steak. And some decent beer. This stuff is awful.”

After that, the tension between them eased and they began to talk. At first, they just talked about the food, where the beef was from and how it was cooked, but then, once they had finished eating and had ordered a second round of drinks, Mary asked him to explain what had happened the night before.

“I only saw a few pesos on the card table when I left last night. How could Nick have lost $1500?” Mary asked. She poured the chilled, bottled beer into her glass.

Don Paulo did not feel that he had to explain the rash actions of her idiotic boyfriend, but he did think that she deserved to know what had happened and this time he was not going to mess up the way he told her about it and make her run off again. “You are right; it was only for a few pesos, just a friendly game with my
compadres
, my friends.”

“Strange-looking friends. They looked like bandits to me.”

“Bandits? No! They are just simple farmers and villagers who like to relax over a few drinks and a game of cards. They are men that I have known for years, though they may be a little coarse and sometimes a bit too loose with their tongues. I apologise for their bad language, I was hoping that you couldn’t understand it, but basically they are good men. But not El Leon. He is a bandit of the worst type. He is, I don’t know how you say this word in English, but he is
mafia
.”

“Mafia, it’s the same in English, but what has this man got to do with what happened last night.”

“El Leon came in just as you were leaving. You passed him in the doorway.” Don Paulo could not forget the filthy, lecherous look that El Leon had given Mary. It made the leering of Señor Marcos at the hotel appear like the gurgling of an innocent baby.

“Yes, I remember him. He had a big gut. I remember trying to squeeze past him to get out.”

“That’s the man, a big stomach and a big pig-headed attitude. As soon as he came in he insisted on joining the game.”

“Why didn’t you refuse and tell him to go away.”

Don Paulo laughed at the idea. “El Leon is not a man that you can refuse easily.” Don Paulo was not a coward and he was willing to stand up to El Leon, but one had to pick and choose one’s battles. “However, it was not long before the other players had lost all their money and dropped out, and it was just him, Señor Kingsley and me. It was then that El Leon started to raise the stakes.”

“Let me guess, Nick came back to the hotel and got more money out of the safe?” Mary appeared familiar with this side of his character. He wondered, and not for the first time, what she saw in such a man.

“Nick was certain that he had a winning hand. I knew that he was bluffing. He has some rather obvious ticks, tell-tale habits. Whenever he was bluffing, he drank more. This is not a good tick, as a drunk poker player is a very bad player, and to be honest, Señor Kingsley wasn’t very good to start with.” Unlike Don Paulo, who was known to be an excellent player.

“I know; it’s just that Nick likes to be where the action is.”

“He certainly saw some ‘action’ as you call it last night. Originally, I thought that the game was a battle between El Leon and I, a battle that your
friend
,” he struggled with the word, “Señor Kingsley got caught up in, but then I realised that it was actually a contest between El Leon and Señor Kingsley, and I was trapped in the middle.”

Mary didn’t seem to see the significance of what he had said. She took another sip of beer. She was near the end of the glass. Don Paulo wondered if he should order her another drink, but decided against it. He didn’t want her to think that he was trying to get her drunk.

“So why didn’t you leave?” she asked.

Don Paulo rubbed the scar on his cheek as he thought about how to answer her question. He had not stayed to help her boyfriend. As far as he was concerned, if a foreigner wanted to get drunk and lose all his money to mafia that was his business, and the mafia were so rich that a few thousand dollars either way wouldn’t make much difference to them.

He moved his chair nearer to her so that their knees were almost touching, but not quite. The smell of brandy mixed with the smell of her imported beer. Someone nearby seemed to be smoking a cigar.

“Did you stay to get Nick’s money?” she asked.

“I stayed to stop El Leon from getting you.”

“What?” She seemed genuinely surprised.

“El Leon was playing to win you from Señor Kingsley. I could tell that from the questions he was asking.” He did not repeat the questions, but they generally involved asking about Mary’s sexual preferences and abilities in the bedroom, which her boyfriend had been drunk enough and stupid enough to answer. “I knew that Señor Kingsley would lose, so I had to stay and make sure that I won you and not El Leon. You are lucky that I succeeded.” He thought about how hard he had played using all his wits and ability to beat El Leon who was a master card player and not beyond cheating. Trying to overcome these thoughts, he tried to smile warmly at Mary. The smile was not returned.

“You won me in a poker game and you expect me to thank you for it?”

“Let me tell you this,” he looked straight into her angry brown eyes, “if El Leon had won you instead of me, you certainly would not be sitting here now having this nice cosy chat and you would certainly not be left to enjoy the rest of the night alone.” And having said it, he decided that this time it was his turn to stand up and walk out.

Chapter 4

The next day Mary went down for breakfast in the hotel, despite knowing that their coffee was bitter and their bread was stale. When she had finished, she asked the waitress for the bill. The woman, who was the same person who had served at the bar the night before, looked surprised.

“The cheque, the bill,” Mary repeated and made a gesture with her hands to imitate signing a cheque.

“Don Paulo de Castile, he pay it. He pay all,” the woman said with a flourish of her hand and flounced off.

Mary was not sure whether she was angry or relieved. He had paid for their dinner and drinks the night before, though quite how he had managed to do so before he stormed out of the bar, she did not know; however, she had secretly been rather happy. She still only had $16 and when he had walked out, he had left her wondering if her $16 was enough to cover the cost of their meals and all their drinks. And now he had paid for her breakfast as well as the cost of her room. Surely this would not go on until she flew back to England in two weeks time and even if it did, why was he doing this and what exactly did he expect in return?

Also, Mary wasn’t sure about Don Paulo’s story about winning her in a game of poker. Firstly, she did not belong to Nick, so Nick had no right to give her away. They had been seeing each other for several years, since they left college, but they weren’t married and didn’t even live together. Nick had suggested it many times, but Mary always refused. She liked her own privacy and personal space. Also, she knew that Nick, with his erratic hours and unpredictable behaviour, would not be an ideal flatmate. He was the type of man who wouldn’t just leave his dirty underwear all over the floor and unwashed plates in the sink; he would also be someone who came home at six o’clock in the morning and invited strange people back to the flat to carry on drinking after the bars had shut. On the positive side, Nick bought wildly expensive bottles of champagne, presented her with beautiful gold jewellery and regularly took her off to celebrity-filled parties using his press pass; she had even met Prince William and Kate Middleton at a couple of these events. These were some of the better aspects of their relationship and she could have them without having Nick move in with her.

However, there were times when even the parties, gifts and excitement were just not worth it, like the time he turned up to a restaurant two hours late on her birthday and the time he got drunk at a party and threw up all over a well-known Hollywood movie star. Yet these embarrassments were nothing compared to running off and abandoning her in a small, dangerous town with no money. Nick did some stupid things, but he had never done something as insane as this. Something did not make sense. Someone was lying, or at least not telling her the whole truth.

She thought about Don Paulo. When he had been talking to her over dinner he had seemed sincere. However, maybe he was fabricating the story in an attempt to seduce her. She was certain that he was attracted to her and if she was completely honest with herself, it was not one-sided. When he smiled and looked deep into her eyes, it made her throat dry and her temperature rise. It had taken all her strength to remain cool and not succumb to the very sexy tone of his voice. Mary closed her eyes and relived the moment for a minute.

“Coffee?” It was the waitress.

Mary opened her eyes, refused the lukewarm coffee that was being offered her and got up. Sitting around all day being angry with Nick and day-dreaming about Paulo was not going to solve her problems. The first thing she needed to do was find out what had really happened to Nick and the second thing was to get some money, get out of Corazon and get home to London.

Her phone was dead, but maybe she could email Nick. She went into the reception area and asked Señor Marcos if she could use his computer. Before Nick had disappeared, they had both used Nick’s notebook, but that had gone with him, along with everything else.

Señor Marcos took several long drags on his cigarette, tapped on a few keys of the ash-covered keyboard and heaved the large monitor round to face her. This system needed a serious upgrade, thought Mary as she put in her email address and password. It took the computer several minutes to process it. Mary could almost hear the cogs turning at the back of the antiquated machine. Señor Marcos kept a surprisingly respectful distance and continued smoking his thin, black cigarettes. Eventually her email messages came up. After scrolling though the usual circulars about special offers and the education newsletters that she subscribed to, she came to a couple of personal messages. One was from another teacher asking her about next year’s curriculum and the other was an invitation to a cousin’s wedding this coming Christmas. There was absolutely nothing from Nick. Mary was about to exit when she changed her mind and decided to send Nick a message.

“Nick, where are you? What the hell is going on? You left me with no money, all on my own in the middle of nowhere with some bandit who says that he won me in a poker game!”

Mary reread her message, deleted it and started again.

“Hi Nick. How’s it going? Enjoying your holiday? I’m not. Mary.”

She liked the casual tone and hoped that when he read it, it would make him feel guiltier than he had ever felt before. But would he read it? What if something had happened to him? What if Paulo’s story was all part of a cover up? What if Paulo was the mafia and he had just made up the story about the other guy to throw her off the scent? With his powerful self assurance he could certainly be a local drug baron for all she knew. Mary deleted her email to Nick and started again.

“Nick, I’m not sure what’s going on, but as soon as you get this let me know, Mary. P.S. My phone’s dead, so email me.”

She reread it through twice, clicked send and logged out.

“Thank you Señor,” she said to the owner.

“Anything for a friend of Don Paulo de Castile,” he squeaked. Mary looked at him to see if he was being sarcastic. He looked sincere. There was no hint of his earlier lecherous attitude either.