CHAPTER THREE

      THE DRIVER OF the waiting car, another of Felipe’s men, Francesca guessed, drove them carefully over roads thick with mud and so full of potholes she knew the damage had been pre-hurricane. Seb travelled with them, James staying in the Cessna with the pilot.

      The Governor’s residence was to the north of the island, far from the city he ran, an area relatively unscathed by the hurricane. To reach it, though, meant travelling through San Pedro, the island’s capital, which along with the rest of the southern cities and towns had taken the brunt of the storm. She shivered to think this was the city she’d planned to stay in during her trip here.

      They drove through towns that were only recognisable as such by the stacks of splintered wood and metal that had weeks before been the basis for people’s homes. Tarpaulin and holey blankets were raised for shelter to replace them. People crowded everywhere, old and young, naked children, shoeless pregnant women, people with obvious injuries but only makeshift bandages covering their wounds. Most stared at the passing car with dazed eyes; some had the energy to try to approach it, a few threw things at them.

      At the first bottle to hit their car, Francesca ducked into her seat.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ Felipe said. ‘It’s bulletproof glass. Nothing can damage it.’

      ‘Where’s all the aid?’ she asked in bewilderment. ‘All the aid agencies that are supposed to be here?’

      ‘They’re concentrated to the south of the island. We just landed in the main airport and you saw the state of that. The other one is worse. They’re having to bring the aid in by ship. The neighbouring islands have done their best to help but they’re limited with what they can do as the hurricane struck so many of them too and the government isn’t helping as it should. That airport should be cleared. There’s much it should be doing but nothing’s happening. It’s a joke.’

      By the time they arrived at the Governor’s compound Francesca was more determined than ever to get the hospital built, not just for her brother’s memory but for the poor people suffering from both the hurricane and its government’s incompetence in clearing up after it. She felt she could burst with determination.

      The Governor’s residence was a sprawling white Spanish-style villa that made her hate him before she’d even laid eyes on him. There were armed guards everywhere protecting it, men who should be out on the streets clearing up the devastation.

      As if reading her dark thoughts, Felipe stared at her until he had her attention.

      His eyes were hard. ‘Keep your personal feelings for the Governor to yourself. You must show him respect or he will kick you out and never admit you again.’

      ‘How do I show respect to a man I already loathe?’

      He shrugged. ‘You’re the one who wants to play the politician’s role. Fake it. You’ve read Alberto’s reports on Pieta’s old projects. Think what your brother would do and do that. You’re playing with the big boys now, Francesca. Or do I take you home?’

      ‘No,’ she rejected out of hand. ‘I can do this.’

      ‘You can fake respect?’

      ‘I will do whatever is needed.’

      Breathing deeply, Francesca got out of the car and walked up the long marble steps to the front door with Felipe at her side, leaving Seb and the driver in the car.

      ‘Is there something wrong with your leg?’ she asked, noticing a slight limp.

      ‘Nothing serious,’ he dismissed, his attention on their surroundings. She had a feeling nothing escaped his scrutiny.

      After being frisked and scanned with metal detectors, they were led into a large white reception room filled with huge vases of white flowers and lined with marble statues, and told to wait.

      The sofa in the reception room was so pristinely white that Francesca wiped the back of her skirt before sitting.

      When they were alone, she said in an undertone, ‘If this is the Governor’s home I dread to think how pretentious the President’s is.’

      ‘Be careful.’ Felipe leaned close to speak into her ear. ‘There are cameras everywhere recording everything we do and say.’

      She didn’t know what unnerved her the most: knowing they were being spied on or Felipe’s breath warm against her ear. She caught his scent, which was as warm as his breath, an expensive spicy smell that filled her mouth with moisture and had her sitting rigidly beside him to stop herself leaning into him so she could sniff him properly.

      Clasping her hands together, she focussed on a painting of a gleaming yacht on the wall opposite.

      She could not let her body’s reactions to Felipe distract her from the job in hand. She’d spent her adult life rebuffing male advances. She’d turned down plenty of good-looking undergraduates at university, always with an appeasing smile and zero regret.

      She hadn’t wanted the distraction of a romance—not that romance itself played much of a part in a student’s life—when she was determined to graduate with top honours. Sex and romance could wait until she was established in her career.

      She sneaked a glance at the hands resting on the muscular lap beside hers. Like the rest of him they were big, the fingers long and calloused, the nails functionally short, nothing like the manicured digits the men at Pieta’s law firm sported. Felipe was all man. You only had to look at him to know a woman’s body was imprinted like a map in his memories.

      A tall, lithe woman impeccably dressed in a white designer suit entered the room. The Governor was ready for them.

      Pulling herself together, Francesca got to her feet, smoothed her jacket with hands that had suddenly gone clammy and picked up her laptop bag.

      Her heart beat frantically, excitement and nerves fighting in her belly.

      She could do this. She would do this. She would get the Governor’s agreement for the sale of the land. She would make Pieta proud and, in doing so, obtain his forgiveness.

      * * *

      Felipe felt undressed without his gun, which he’d left in the car with Seb. He didn’t expect any trouble in the Governor’s own home but could see the bulges in the suits of the guards who lined the walls of the ostentatious dining room they were taken to.

      The Governor himself sat at the dining table alone, eating an orange that had been cut into segments for him. The tall woman who’d brought them in arranged herself a foot behind him.

      He didn’t rise for his guests but gestured for them to sit.

      Felipe hadn’t expected to like the man but neither had he expected the instant dislike that flashed through him.

      ‘My condolences about your brother,’ the Governor said in Spanish, addressing Francesca’s breasts. ‘I hear he was a great man.’

      From the panicked look Francesca shot at him, Felipe guessed she didn’t speak his native tongue. Without missing a beat, he made the translation.

      ‘Thank you,’ she replied, smiling at the Governor as if having a lecherous sixty-year-old ogle her whilst speaking of her dead brother was perfectly acceptable. ‘Do you speak Italian or English?’

      ‘No,’ he replied in English, before switching back to Spanish to address Felipe. ‘You are her bodyguard?’

      ‘I’m here as Miss Pellegrini’s translator and advisor,’ he answered smoothly, avoiding giving a direct lie.

      The Governor put a large segment of orange