clouds. It kept on coming towards her, and only wheeled away at the very last minute. Rising rapidly, it banked steeply before turning inland. The pilot seemed to be flying on the edge of what was possible.
So it could only be one man, Rosie reasoned. Who else would take such risks with his life and company property?
And she shouldn’t be here on the beach daydreaming, but up at the house ready to greet him—or to hold him off!
To hell with greeting him! She should be up at the house to establish her right to call the hacienda home—the only home she’d ever known. More importantly, the hacienda had meant everything to Doña Anna, and no patronising, nose-in-the-air grandee was going to bulldoze it, to build yet another of his glitzy hotels. Kicking off her flip-flops, she began to run.
Rosie scrambled up the cliff path as if the hounds of hell were after her, and she didn’t stop until she reached the boundary to the property—a fence she hadn’t realised was quite so broken down. She picked her way carefully through the broken struts of a barrier that was supposed to divide a once beautiful formal garden from the glorious wilderness. As of now, it was all glorious wilderness, she saw with concern.
Imagining Don Xavier seeing the same thing made Rosie wince. She’d known things were bad, but not this bad. She’d meant to do something about the garden, but had no money to pay a gardener, and there was so much to do inside the house. Any spare time she had was spent researching grants and subsidies for the islanders, to help them get their plans for marketing their organic produce off the ground.
She glanced up to see the helicopter hovering over the hacienda. It looked like a giant black hand come to claim its rightful property. Its shadow was like an omen. Descending slowly from the sky, it looked like a malevolent locust as it settled on its widespread skids. It seemed to Rosie to be the clearest signal yet that she had no money, no power, no influence, while Don Xavier Del Rio had a cash register for a heart. What was going to happen to the island if she didn’t stand firm? Why had Doña Anna set them against each other like this? She couldn’t have expected them to work together. Don Xavier would never consider it. Doña Anna hadn’t been exactly noted for her willingness to compromise, and yet that was what she expected them to do.
So was she going to disappoint the woman who had given her a fresh chance in life?
Drawing a deep steadying breath, Rosie smoothed her hair and straightened her dress, ready for her second meeting with Don Xavier.
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