The Spanish Groom

is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular and

bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant

success with readers worldwide. Since her first

book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.

In this special collection, we offer readers a

chance to revisit favourite books or enjoy that rare

treasure—a book by a favourite writer—they may

have missed. In every case, seduction and passion

with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

CÉSAR replaced the phone, his lean, strong face taut, wide, sensual mouth compressed. So Jasper’s health was failing. Since his godfather was eighty-two, the news should not have come as a shock…

Rising restively from behind his desk, César crossed his spacious office—a contemporary triumph of glass and steel, wholly in keeping with a minimalist building much mentioned in architectural digests. Formed round a series of stylish atriums embellished with lush greenery and tranquil fountains, the office block César had commissioned to house the London headquarters of the Valverde Mercantile Bank was as elegant and impressive as its owner.

But César was indifferent to his surroundings. His thoughts were on Jasper Dysart, who had become his guardian when he was twelve. He was a true English eccentric, a bachelor bookworm who had made rare butterflies his lifestudy, and the kindest old man imaginable. César and Jasper were mental poles apart. Indeed César and Jasper might as well have come from different planets, but César was fond of Jasper, and suddenly grimly aware that the only thing Jasper had ever wanted him to do remained undone and time now seemed to be running out…

A knock on the door heralded the entrance of his executive assistant, Bruce Gregory. Normally the very epitome of confident efficiency, for some reason Bruce chose to hover, a sheet of paper rather tensely clutched between his fingers.

‘Yes?’ César prompted impatiently.

The young blond man cleared his throat. ‘The random security check has turned up a member of staff with financial problems.’

‘You know the rules. Getting into debt is grounds for instant dismissal.’ César frowned at the need to make this reminder when that warning appeared in all staff employment contracts. ‘We deal with too much confidential information to take the risk.’

Bruce grimaced. ‘This…er…person is a very minor cog in the bank, César.’

‘I still don’t see a problem.’ The brilliant dark eyes were cool, unemotional, the hallmark of a hugely successful financial genius with neither time nor sympathy for those who broke the rules. César was contemptuous of weakness, and ruthless at exploiting it in business opponents.

‘Actually…it’s Dixie.’

César stilled. Bruce studied the wall, not wanting to see César smile at that information. Everybody knew how César felt about Dixie Robinson, currently the equivalent of an office junior on the top floor. Dixie, quite simply, irritated the hell out of César.

She had not one single trait which didn’t grate on her cool, sophisticated employer. In recent weeks, César had been heard to censure her sloppy appearance, her clumsiness, her friendly chatter, her constant collecting for obscure charities…and, it had to be admitted, a degree of incompetence at business skills that had raised her to the level of an office mascot. César, alone, was deflatingly untouched by the compensatingly warm and caring personality which made Dixie so universally well liked.

But then on a level playing field, Dixie Robinson would never have got as far as an interview at the Valverde Mercantile Bank: she had no qualifications. Jasper Dysart had asked César to give her a job. Personnel had jumped to the task, only to find themselves seriously challenged by Dixie’s inability to cope with technology. Passed on from one department to another, Jasper’s protegée had finally arrived on the top floor, a fact which had delighted her elderly sponsor but which had unfortunately brought Dixie into César’s immediate radius.

César extended a hand for the computer printout. Bruce passed it over with perceptible reluctance.

Scanning down the sheet, César slowly elevated a winged ebony brow. Evidently Dixie Robinson led a double life. The list of her dissatisfied creditors included a well-known interior designer and the kind of bills that indicated some serious alcoholic partying. César was tickled pink, his even white teeth flashing in a derisive grin of satisfaction.

So her resolutely innocent front was a façade, just as he had always suspected it was. For a split second he thought how appalled Jasper would be—Jasper who broke out with a modest sherry only at Christmas and who fondly believed that Dixie Robinson was a thoroughly decent, old-fashioned girl with homely tastes.

‘Obviously she’s been really stupid. But if she’s sacked, she’ll sink like a stone,’ Bruce pointed out gruffly. ‘She doesn’t handle anything confidential, César—’

‘She has access.’

‘I don’t really think she’s bright enough to use that kind of information,’ Bruce breathed tautly.

César gave him a look of grim amusement. ‘Got you fooled as well, has she?’

‘Fooled?’ Bruce’s brow furrowed.

‘Now I know why she always looks half asleep—too many late nights.’

In desperation, Bruce shot his last bolt in Dizzy’s defence. ‘I guess Mr Dysart will be upset not to find her here on his next visit.’

‘Jasper’s not well. It’s unlikely that he’ll be in London in the near future.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Bruce studied his employer’s coolly uninformative face warily. Well, that was that, he acknowledged. He couldn’t say he was surprised either. César was not a soft touch. And proof of such foolish extravagance had merely increased his contempt. ‘I’ll pass the information concerning Dixie on to Human Resources.’

‘No. I’ll deal with this personally,’ César contradicted without warning.

Bruce wasn’t quite fast enough to hide his dismay.

‘I’ll see Miss Robinson at four,’ César completed.

‘She’ll be very upset, César.’

‘I think I can handle it,’ César drawled, in the sort of tone that made the younger man flush and go into retreat.

Alone again, César studied that list of creditors, a smouldering look awakening in his narrowed gaze. Jasper was very fond of little Dixie Robinson. In fact, superficially Dixie was exactly the kind of young woman Jasper longed to have César produce as the future Mrs Valverde, the sort of girl who didn’t intimidate an innocent old bachelor totally out of step with the modern world.

So there it was, out in the open. The admission that he had disappointed his godfather, César conceded with exasperated reluctance. Jasper’s deepest and most naive hope had always been that César would marry, settle down and have a family. And live happily ever after, of course, César affixed, scornfully recalling his late parents. His volatile Italian mother and equally volatile Spanish father had between them stacked up half a dozen failed marriages before dying young and anything but happy.

Wincing at the very idea of marital togetherness with any woman, but with his conscience still causing him rare discomfiture, César brooded on the problem of Jasper’s disappointment. Experience had taught César that there was no such thing as a problem without a solution. When shorn of the inhibiting factors of emotion and morality, the impossible could almost always become the possible…

No doubt Jasper fondly imagined that his veiled hints about what a wonderful wife Dixie Robinson would make some fortunate male had been too subtle to be recognised for what they were. In point of fact, Jasper had the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and when César had first picked up on his godfather’s pointed comments on the subject of his protegée he had been anything but amused.

But now César grimly acknowledged that were he to announce that he had got engaged to Dixie Robinson, Jasper would be overjoyed. César visualised Dixie with something less than joy, but Jasper thought the sun rose and set on her. And, as pleasing Jasper was César’s only goal, there would be little point in persuading any other woman into playing his temporary fiancée. What Jasper wanted, César decided there and then, Jasper deserved to receive.

As he pictured how he might sensibly stress the need for a lengthy engagement between two such disparate personalities as himself and the office klutz, César began warming to the exercise. It would make Jasper happy. And Jasper, who could spend hours just choosing a single book, would scarcely expect his godson to leap straight from an engagement into matrimony.

And Dixie Robinson? Dixie was between a rock and a hard place. She would do as she was told. Around him, she was quiet and cowed, which was just as well because César was convinced he would strangle her if she behaved any other way. He would do whatever it took to ensure that the fake engagement appeared credible. He would be nothing less than thorough…

‘AT F-FOUR?’ DIXIE stammered, pale as milk as she stood over the photocopier, striving somewhat hopelessly to conceal the ‘inoperative’ sign flashing above a pile of discarded photocopies printed with impossibly tiny type. ‘But why would Mr Valverde want to see me?’

Already conscious that his attempt to speak up on her behalf had taxed César’s patience, Bruce did not dare utter a word of warning.

‘Is it about that Arab guy whose call I cut off?’

Bruce tensed. ‘He doesn’t know about that.’

‘That file I accidentally took out?’

Bruce paled at the reminder. ‘You got it back from the bus company.’

Dixie gulped. ‘I’ve been trying so hard to stay out of Mr Valverde’s way…it’s just he keeps on popping up in the most unexpected places.’

‘César likes to be visible. What sort of unexpected places?’ Bruce could not resist asking.

‘Like the kitchen…when I was icing the cake for Jayne’s leaving party last week. Mr Valverde went through the roof,’ Dixie recounted, half under her breath, shuddering at the recollection. ‘He asked me if I thought I was working in a bakery and I ended up spelling her name wrong. Then yesterday he walked into that little room the cleaning staff use and found me asleep…he gave me the biggest fright of my life!’

‘César expects all his employees to make a special effort to stay awake between nine and five,’ Bruce responded, deadpan.

Currently working two jobs just to keep a roof over her head, Dixie gave him an abstracted look, her eyes, so dark a blue they were violet, strained with anxiety and tiredness. Fear emanated from her in waves. Small though she was, she seemed to grow even smaller as she hunched her shoulders and bowed her head, the explosive mop of her long curly dark brown hair falling over her softly rounded face. She was terrified of César Valverde, had become acquainted with every hiding place on the executive floor within days of arriving there.

But then she had started out on the wrong foot, hadn’t she? Her big mouth, she conceded glumly. While covering for the receptionist during her afternoon break, Dixie had begun chatting to the gorgeous blonde seated in the waiting area. In an effort to make entertaining conversation, she had mentioned the world-famous model, Mr Valverde had entertained on his yacht the previous weekend. And then her employer had strolled out of the elevator…

And without the slightest warning all hell had broken loose! The blonde, who it later transpired had actually been waiting for César Valverde, had risen to her feet to throw a jealous fit of outrage and accuse him of being a ‘love-rat’.

Dixie’s co-workers had very decently acknowledged that that charge might well have some basis in fact, but it was not an allegation César had expected to face within the hallowed portals of the bank because one of his own staff had been recklessly indiscreet. Indeed what César had had to say about Dixie’s gossiping tongue had been, as one of the directors had frankly admitted while trying hard not to smile, unrepeatable. Since then she had been banned from manning Reception.

‘Is César dating any nice girls at present?’ Jasper always asked hopefully in his letters to Dixie, not seeming to appreciate that at the threat of what his godfather deemed a ‘nice girl’ César Valverde would undoubtedly run a mile. It was a well-worn joke in the bank that César’s answer to commitment was escape.

But Dixie’s troubled face softened at the thought of Jasper Dysart. He was a dear old man, but she hadn’t seen him in months because he lived in Spain most of the year, having found the hot climate eased his arthritic joints.

Dixie had met Jasper the previous summer. She had been walking down the street when a thuggish bunch of youths had carelessly pushed him aside when he didn’t get out of their way fast enough. Jasper had fallen and cut his head. Dixie had taken him to the nearest hospital. Afterwards, she had treated him to tea and buns in the cafeteria, because he had looked so poor and forlorn in his ancient tweeds and shabby old overcoat.

They had been firm friends from that moment on. She hadn’t once suspected that Jasper might be anything other than he appeared: an elderly academic living on a restricted income. So she had been quite honest about being unemployed, sharing her despair at not even being able to get as far as an interview for a clerical job. She had also told him how horribly guilty she felt about being dependent on her older sister Petra’s generosity.

They had arranged to meet up again, and Jasper had escorted Dixie to his favourite secondhand bookshop, where they had both promptly lost all track of time browsing through the shelves. The following weekend she had returned the favour by taking him to a library sale, where he had contrived to buy a very tattered copy of an out-of-print tome on butterflies that he had been trying to find for years.

And then quite casually Jasper had announced that he had fixed her up with an interview at the Valverde Mercantile Bank. ‘I put in a word for you with my godson,’ he had informed her cheerfully. ‘He was very happy to help.’

She hadn’t had a clue that Jasper’s godson was the chief executive. And she had been utterly appalled to be confronted by César Valverde that first day, and coldly interrogated about exactly how she had met his godfather. He had made little attempt to conceal his suspicions about her motives in fostering such a friendship with an elderly man, and had coolly enjoyed informing her that Jasper would be returning to his home in Spain at the end of September. Dixie had found that encounter deeply humiliating.

‘César always had a head for figures…very clever chap with that sort of stuff,’ Jasper had conceded vaguely when Dixie had later gently taxed him with his failure to tell her that his godson ran Valverde Mercantile and was, in fact, a super-rich and very powerful legend of thrusting success in the financial world. ‘It’s in his blood.’

Jasper was a genius at understatement. The Valverdes had been in banking for generations. César was the last of the dynasty, and reputedly the most brilliant. He also had very high expectations of his staff. All Dixie’s colleagues had a university degree in financial management, economics or languages, and thrived on the cracking pace of a high-powered mercantile bank with an international list of hugely important clients and companies.

Dixie knew that she was a fish out of water at Valverde Mercantile, only fit, it sometimes seemed, to run messages, ensure the coffee machines stayed filled and perform the most humble of tasks. She worked really hard at keeping busy, but the kind of lowly work she did rarely produced results that other people could appreciate.

And Bruce Gregory’s announcement had thoroughly shaken Dixie. The threat of a face-to-face meeting with César Valverde kept her stomach churning throughout the day. What had she done? What had she not done? Well, if she had made some awful mistake or oversight, she would have to grovel on her knees and promise to do better in the future; she had no choice.

Right now, the only thing keeping Dixie going through exhaustion was the knowledge that she had a steady salary coming in as well as what she earned working as a waitress several nights a week. That long talk she had had with the helpful lady at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau had suggested that as long as she could prove an honest intent to pay back those creditors in instalments, her offer to do so should be acceptable, and would hopefully protect her from the threat of legal proceedings.

And, in the meantime, there was always the hope that her sister Petra would phone to say that she was back in funds again and able to send the money to clear her debts. Petra had always had terrific earning power as a model, Dixie reminded herself bracingly. All she herself was really doing was holding the fort until her sister could pick up the financial slack. Petra had been upset when Dixie called her to tell her about the bills she had neglected to pay before she flew out to Los Angeles in the hope of starting an acting career.

In the restroom, minutes to go before the encounter, Dixie freshened up and morosely surveyed her reflection. Plain and wholesome, that was her. The loose beige top and long gray cotton skirt at least concealed the worst of her deficiencies, she told herself in consolation. But as always it seemed particularly cruel to Dixie that she should have been endowed with hatefully large breasts and generous hips but only a height of five feet two inches.

As often happened at times of particular stress, Dixie drifted off into her own thoughts. Was it any wonder that Scott saw her as a good sport and a mate, rather than a possible girlfriend? Scott Lewis, handsome, extrovert and the love of Dixie’s life. Momentarily, self-pity filled her to overflowing. And then she scolded herself for being so foolish. Hadn’t she always known she didn’t have a hope of attracting Scott?

She had met Scott at one of her sister’s parties. Having just moved into a new apartment, he’d been giving a comic description of his less than successful efforts to get organised on the domestic front. His frank admission that his mother had spoilt him rotten had impressed Dixie, and before she had even thought about what she was doing she had found herself offering to come round and give him a hand…

When Dixie presented herself for her appointment, César Valverde’s secretary, a svelte brunette in her thirties, gave her a pained look. ‘It might have been a good idea to be on time, Dixie.’

‘But I am on time.’ Dixie checked her watch and then her face fell. Once again time had run on without her.

‘You’re ten minutes late.’ The other woman didn’t wince but she might as well have done.

Sick with apprehension, Dixie knocked on the door of her lofty employer’s office and walked in, a band of tension tightening round her head, her mouth bone-dry and her palms damp.

César Valverde spun lithely round from the wall of glass which overlooked the City skyline and studied her. ‘You’re late,’ he delivered icily.

‘I’m really sorry…I just don’t know where the time went.’ Dixie studied the deep-pile carpet, wishing it would open up and swallow her and disgorge her only when the interview was safely over.

‘That is not an acceptable excuse.’

‘That’s why I apologised,’ Dixie pointed out in a very small voice without looking up.

There was really no need to look up. In her mind’s eye she could still see César Valverde standing there, as formidable and unfeeling as a hitman. And close to him she always felt murderously awkward, not to mention all hot and bothered. Yet he was physically quite beautiful, a little voice pointed out absently inside her head.

He had the lean dark face of a fallen angel, blessed with such perfect bone structure that at first glance he knocked women flat with his spectacular sleek Mediterranean looks. Hair thick and glossy as ebony. Eyes the same colour as dark bitter chocolate, which blazed into the strangest silver in strong light. Mouth mobile, wide and sensual. A sensationally attractive male animal, but at second glance he had always chilled Dixie to the marrow.

Those stunning eyes were hard and cold, that shapely mouth rarely smiled, except at someone else’s misfortune, and those sculpted cheekbones stamped his features with a quality of merciless unemotional detachment which intimidated. He might radiate raw sexuality like a forcefield, but Dixie still prided herself on being the only woman in the whole building who was repulsed by César Valverde. The guy could give a freezer pneumonia just by arching one satiric brow.

Belatedly conscious of the dragging silence, Dixie emerged from her own reflections and glanced nervously up. Her pupils dilated, her heartbeat quickening as she stared. A decided frown on his striking dark features, César Valverde was strolling in a soundless circle round her, his piercing gaze intent on her now shrinking figure.

‘What’s wrong?’ she breathed, thoroughly disconcerted by his behaviour and the intensity of his scrutiny. ‘Dio mio…what’s right?’ His frown deepened as her slight shoulders drooped. ‘Straighten up…don’t slouch like that,’ he told her.

Flushing, Dixie did as she was told. She was relieved when he positioned himself against the edge of his immaculately tidy glass desk.

‘Do you recall the terms of the employment contract you signed before you started work here?’

Dixie thought about that and then guiltily shook her head. She had had to fill in and sign an avalanche of papers at speed that first day.

‘You didn’t bother to study the contract,’ César gathered with a curled lip.

‘I was desperate for a job…I would have signed anything.’

‘But if you’d read your contract, you would have known that getting into debt is grounds for instant dismissal.’

That unexpected revelation struck Dixie like a sudden blow. She stared at him in horror, soft full lips falling apart, what colour there was in her cheeks slowly, painfully draining away. César studied her the way a shark studies wounded prey before moving in for the kill. In silence he extended a computer printout.