“That, Mr. Shea, er, Dom, is the understatement of the century.”
“May I give you some advice on how to handle J.J.?”
Miguel turned and looked at Domingo. The two of them being of almost equal height, they stood eye-to-eye. “I would appreciate any advice you can give me.”
“Don’t try to boss her around. She hates that. Let her think something is her idea, not yours. Make suggestions, but ask her opinion. Allow her to believe that she is totally in charge.”
Miguel smiled. “You know her well, do you? There is a personal relationship between the two of you?”
“I’ve worked with J.J. for three years. I like and respect her. We’re friends. Nothing more, nothing less. But I should warn you that if you do anything to hurt her, you’ll have at least half a dozen of Dundee’s best men coming after you.”
“I certainly do not want that.”
Miguel and Dom stood on the veranda for several more minutes, not speaking, then Dom broke the silence. “We need to discuss something you probably prefer not to talk about at all.”
“And that would be?”
“The loyalty of your friends, closest supporters and household employees. My job is to make sure there are no traitors in your camp.”
“I trust my friends and employees completely, as I do the supporters I have known for many years.”
“But you don’t have any objections to my digging around in their lives, do you? I will do it as discreetly as possible.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Someone tried to shoot you yesterday, Señor Ramirez,” Dom said. “And behind the shooter is the person who hired him. That person wants to see you dead.”
“We are relatively certain that the Federalist Party was behind the assassination attempt, which means Hector Padilla was part of the plot.”
“That may be true, but I doubt President Padilla actually hired the rifleman who fired at you. We need to find the person or persons who paid the assassin. Often, behind something like this, you’ll find a small group of people, not just one person.”
“You will discover that none of my friends, supporters or employees are involved,” Miguel said with total assurance. “But I give you permission to do the job Will Pierce hired you to do.”
“Hmm…”
“What?”
“Another bit of advice.”
“Yes?”
“When you speak to J.J., try not to use those exact words.”
“What words?”
“Don’t ever say to her that you give her your permission to do something. That would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
Miguel snorted. “Other than the fact she speaks Spanish fluently, what possible reason could your superior have thought she was the ideal person to pose as my girlfriend?”
“Your fiancée, not your girlfriend.”
“Yes, she chose to become my fiancée instantly, without consulting me. That is a case in point of why she is unsuitable.”
“She really ticked you off, didn’t she?”
“Let us just say that I would prefer facing a mountain lion without a weapon than having to deal with your J.J.”
“She’s not my J.J. She’s your J.J., Señor Ramirez, at least for the next few weeks.”
“¡Que Dios me ayude!” Miguel said aloud, then repeated the prayer to himself. God help me!
Chapter 3
Miguel’s bedroom suite comprised three rooms—bedroom, sitting room and bath—and a massive walk-in-closet that had probably, at one time, been a small nursery. A huge round iron chandelier hung in the middle of the ten-foot-high ceiling, crossed with weathered wooden beams. The stucco walls possessed a soft gold patina, as did the cast-stone fireplace, which was flanked by sets of double French doors. A plush coral velvet sofa hugged one wall. Round tables and nail-head-trimmed chairs in taupe leather served as bookends for the marble-topped decorative-iron coffee table in front of the sofa. Across the room, two rich gold arm chairs sat like fat mushrooms growing out of the antique Persian rug.
Luxurious was the first word that came to mind.
Paco had deposited J.J.’s bags in the closet and told her that Ramona would see to the unpacking in the morning. That had been at least twenty minutes ago and it had taken her every second of that time to explore the rooms she would be sharing with Miguel for the next few weeks. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known luxury before—she had when she’d lived with her mother and Raymond, her stepfather, in their twenty-room mansion in Mobile. But this was no antebellum mansion, although she suspected it was as old, if not older than many of the homes built pre War Between the States.
The French doors led to a large balcony that overlooked the courtyard gardens. J.J. had stood out there for several minutes, breathing in the cool night air and thinking about how she would handle her first night with the future president of Mocorito. If she weren’t terribly attracted to him on a purely physical level, it might be easier to share these intimate quarters without her mind wandering from the job at hand to considering what it would be like to actually be engaged to this man.
She would never—not in a million years—marry a man like Miguel Cesar Ramirez, a male chauvinist from the old school of male superiority. But the very thing that she disliked about him the most was what also attracted her to him. That powerful male essence that declared to one and all that he was king of the hill, master of all he surveyed. Her father had been that kind of man. Was that kind of man. Rudd Blair was a career soldier, having moved up the ranks over the years. The last she’d heard, he was a general and his son, eighteen-year-old Rudd, Jr., had just graduated from military school. She had spent her entire life trying to earn the privilege of being what her half-brother became the moment he was born—the apple of their father’s eye. Hell, she’d even joined the army after college graduation in the hopes that her becoming a soldier would please her father as much as it pissed off her genteel, Southern-belle mother. But it hadn’t mattered to Daddy Dearest that she had graduated top in her class or that she’d excelled in her duties as a second lieutenant. As far as Rudd was concerned, J.J. was nothing more than a female offspring who should get married and do her best to produce some grandsons for him.
Okay, so it was unfair to compare Miguel to her father, despite the fact that they were probably cut from the same prejudiced cloth. She figured that over the next few weeks, she would learn to dislike Miguel intensely for reasons that had nothing to do with her past history with her father.
A soft rapping at the door drew J.J.’s eyes in that direction. “¿Sí?” she asked.
“I have your dinner, señorita,” a woman’s voice called from the other side of the door.
Ramona, no doubt. “Please, come in.” J.J. rushed across the room to open the door.
Carrying a small silver tray covered with a white linen cloth, Ramona entered the room, walked over and placed the tray on the coffee table and turned to J.J. “If you require anything else, señorita—”
“No, thank you. Not tonight.”
Ramona nodded, then turned and left the sitting room. The woman had been neither friendly nor unfriendly. J.J. wasn’t certain how she should interact with the servants in Miguel’s house. The servants who worked for her mother were treated well, but were thought