Who Rides the Tiger Page 5

  The Santos Corporation provided recreational facilities for its staff, among them a golf and tennis club, and in the evenings sometimes John took Dominique down to the clubhouse Where they sat beside the swimming pool and drank long cooling lagers and talked to his colleagues and their wives. As well as Harry Rawlings and Marion, Dominique got to know several other couples, although Marion's close friends did not appeal to her.

  She had been in Bela Vista ten days when Vincente Santos's name cropped up again.

  Since her arrival she had deliberately refrained from discussing him with John as she had sensed John's withdrawal on the subject, and it was from Marion and her cronies that she heard Vincente's name.

  It was one morning when she was at the Rawlings' home, running up some curtains on Marion's sewing machine. Lynn Matthews, Susan Wheeler and Mary Pedlar were there, having coffee with Marion, and Dominique just happened to be sewing in the same room. It was Mary Pedlar who mentioned him first.

  'I see Santos is back,' she remarked conspiratorially, glancing in Dominique's direction. 'Bob was talking to him yesterday at the plant.'

  'Is he?' It was Marion who answered her. 'I didn't know that. I wonder how long he's staying this time. Is he alone?'

  'I've no idea,' said Mary, shaking her head. 'Bob did say something about a board meeting being held in a couple of days. I expect he's here for that.'

  'Most likely,' agreed Susan Wheeler. 'Have you met our chairman, Dominique?'

  Dominique glanced up, pretending not to have listened to their conversation. 'What?' she asked. 'Your chairman? Who's that?'

  Marion clucked her tongue. 'Of course she's met him,' she exclaimed. 'Heavens, didn't he meet her at the airport?'

  Dominique's face suffused with the revealing colour she despised so much. 'You mean Mr. Santos?' she asked.

  'Of course.'

  'But how come Santos met John's fiancee?' exclaimed Lynn Matthews in astonishment. 'Heavens, I would have thought. ...' Her voice tailed away at a look from Marion, and she added defensively: 'Well, I mean, he is the chairman, isn't he?'

  Marion licked her lips in preparation for relating the story. 'There was a landslide, don't you remember?' she say, leaning forward. 'John phoned in to the refinery in the hope that there might be one of the staff in Rio who could be contacted to meet Dominique. Anyway, as it happened it was at a time when there were few people about and the call was directed to Santos's office by mistake. He happened to be on his way to Rio on business and he offered to meet Dominique there. After all, it was the reasonable thing to do. The girl couldn't be left stranded at Galeao, now could she?'

  'No, but even so. ...' Lynn sounded amazed.

  'I know, but Santos does these unpredictable things sometimes, doesn't he?'

  They all agreed, and Dominique concentrated on her sewing hoping that was the end of it. But of course it was not.

  'Er - what did you think of him anyway, Dominique?' asked Marion, satisfying her curiosity at long last. 'I mean - he did escort you to your hotel, didn't he? It wasn't Salvador who met you, was it?'

  Dominique smoothed the material under the needle. 'No,' she agreed. 'It was Mr. Santos who met me.'

  'Well?' They were all eager for gossip, but Dominique felt a sense of distaste looking at their avid faces.

  'He was very polite,' she replied carefully. 'What else is there?'

  Marion looked annoyed, as though cheated of something she considered her right. Then she sniffed.

  'They say he has a fabulous apartment in Rio,' she remarked, returning her attention to her friends. 'I've even heard that he has a different woman there living with him every month.'

  Dominique stared at Marion, opened her mouth as though to speak, arid then closed it again. No! She would not enter into such a discussion.

  Marion looked back at Dominique. 'He has quite a reputation, you know,' she said conversationally. 'He's quite a playboy.'

  Dominique grew irritated. 'Why are you telling me all this?' she asked pointedly.

  Marion looked taken aback. 'No reason, of course. It's just that naturally we're concerned for your welfare!'

  'My welfare? What has Vincente Santos to do with my welfare?'

  The four women looked at one another knowingly, and Dominique could have kicked herself for using his Christian name as well as his surname. To their perverted minds it would escalate into something important.

  'Well, dear,' said Susan, with a wry smile, 'you're rather attractive, and after all....' Her voice trailed away.

  Dominique got to her feet. 'Do you mind if I finish this later, Marion?' she asked.

  Marion shrugged. 'Suit yourself, of course.'

  'Thank you.'

  Dominique walked swiftly out of the room, and closed the door with a definite click. Then she breathed a deep breath. Those women! She felt absolutely infuriated by their sick curiosity. Had they nothing better to do than indulge in this kind of gossip, inventing their own rumours if none existed?

  She walked outside the building and seated herself on the veranda, under the shade of the trellised roof. Then she lit a cigarette and allowed her mind to drift, knowing full well that she would be the subject of their gossiping at this moment.

  Even so, their news that Vincente Santos was in Bela Vista disturbed her a little. Was it possible that she might meet him, and if so what would she say to him? If only she had not agreed to spend that evening with him she would not have felt this sense of apprehension at meeting him again, mixed with a sense of guilt at her deception of John.

  She glanced at her watch. It was a little after eleven. John was coming back for lunch to pick her up and take her into town to the apartment, but that would not be until nearly one. Whatever was she to do till then? She couldn't go back into the house. She had no desire to join Marion and her friends, even though she had left her coffee untouched and she would have liked a drink.

  Going into her bedroom, she collected her dark glasses, and changing her dress for cotton pants and a sleeveless blouse, and her shoes for thonged sandals, she left the house, and began to walk away from the town, towards the hills.

  It was not too hot, and a faint breeze fanned her hot cheeks. Only her hair seemed a heavy weight on her shoulders, and she wondered whether she ought to have it cut. It would certainly be cooler and easier to handle.

  She sighed and looked about her with interest. She was gradually climbing upwards, and when she looked back the Rawlings' house and its neighbours were some distance below" her. The road forked at this point, one road leading higher into the mountains, and the other leading down towards the valley again, with the river in the distance.

  She decided to take the latter road, and was glad when the going became less arduous as she began the descent. Here the road was lined with thick plantation growth and foliage, and shaded by huge trunks of trees. It was quieter here and although Dominique liked it she couldn't help but recall that Brazil was the country of the deadly rattlesnake, and that a quiet dusty road like this could be its natural habitat.

  Because of this she quickened her step and when the road opened out again she was looking down on a part of the valley she had seen from the air but never from the ground. Here were the larger houses of the community, surrounded by high walls overhung by liana creeper and bougainvillea.

  Sighing, she halted. This then would be where Vincente Santos lived, in one of these palatial dwellings. There were not very many, but what there were were very impressive. She turned back at this point. She had no desire to meet Santos himself when her thoughts were already disturbed by Marion's words.

  She plodded back up the incline, and reached the belt of trees. When she heard the sound of a car's engine, she almost jumped out of her skin. She had been listening for noises in the undergrowth, and so concentrated had been her involvement that she found it difficult to distinguish what the sound was at first.

  Thus she was standing with her hands pressed to her lips when the car swung round the curve and h
alted abruptly beside her.

  'Hello,' said a lazy voice, and the colour returned to her face.

  'Vin— I mean - you!' she exclaimed.

  He smiled and slid out of the car. Dressed in close-fitting cream pants and a cream silk sweater which was unbuttoned almost to his waist revealing the dark mass of hairs on his broad chest he looked lithe and masculine, and she bent her head, unwilling to appear glad to see him.

  He put a hand under her chin, and forced her head up, however. 'Well?' he said. 'It was to have been Vincente, wasn't it?' Then he leaned back against the bonnet of the car. 'Where have you been? I've been looking for you.'

  'You - you've been looking for me!' she gasped. 'You - you haven't been to the Rawlings?'

  'Why not? Marion told me that you must have gone for a walk. How else would I have found you so easily?'

  'Oh, lord!' exclaimed Dominique, staring at him in exasperation. 'Why on earth did you do that? What do you want to see me for?'

  'I'm beginning to wonder,' he remarked, a trifle dryly.

  'Well!' Dominique moved restlessly. 'You've lived here, You must know what kind of woman Marion Rawlings is! Heavens, I'll be branded as a scarlet woman by merely speaking to you!' She bit her lip.

  Vincente Santos's hand gripped the rim of the car's bonnet for a moment, and then he said tautly: 'And that bothers you? Why? Because of Harding?'

  Dominique sighed. 'Why did you come?'

  'Because I wanted to,' he replied harshly. 'Get in the car. I want to talk to you.'

  Dominique hesitated, and then as once before she gave in. He slid in beside her and turned towards her, his arm along the back of her seat, his fingers playing with the tendrils of her hair. 'Well?' he murmured questioningly, 'is it love's young dream?'

  Dominique was unable to relax. 'What do you mean?'

  'Now you're pretending you don't know,' he said softly. 'I mean Harding, of course.'

  'That's nothing to do with you,' she said stiffly.

  'Of course it is. I want you to be happy.'

  Dominique looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. 'Why Should my feelings interest you?' she asked unevenly.

  His eyes were slightly narrowed against the glare of the sun, and she noticed how long and thick were his lashes. With his free hand he lifted the dark glasses from her nose and threw them on the parcel shelf.

  'Don't you know the answer to that either?' he murmured lazily.

  'No! No, of course not!' Dominique was swift to answer him.

  He lifted a handful of her hair and wound it round his fingers and then drew her towards him, slowly and persistently. 'Your hair is beautiful,' he said huskily.

  'Please,' she began unsteadily. 'I -I must get back.'

  'Must you?'

  His fingers slid her blouse from one creamy shoulder and then she felt the warmth of his mouth caressing her skin. Her whole body seemed to be a mass of unfamiliar emotions, most persistent of all was a desire for him to go on caressing her.

  'Vincente,' she murmured achingly. 'This is crazy!' Her breath was swift and uneven.

  'Yes, isn't it?' he muttered, caressing her bare arm with his hard fingers while his mouth sought the nape of her neck. 'You smell divine, Dominique, put your arms round my neck.'

  'No,' she said, managing to turn her face away by a great effort of will power.

  'Yes,' he commanded a trifle thickly, and with hard deliberate hands he pressed her mouth to his, his fingers in the silky mass of her hair. She tried to push him away, but her hands came up against the hard strength of his bare chest and seemed unwilling to obey the dictates of her brain. Instead, they slid round his neck, drawing him even closer, and she found herself clinging to him, allowing the force of his passion to destroy all her inhibitions.

  John had never kissed her in this way, so that she seemed to be drowning in feeling, sensual feeling. In fact she wasn't, at all sure he was capable of doing so. There was something wholly primitive about Vincente Santos's emotions that seemed to penetrate her whole being, seducing her to complete submission.

  Then, firmly, he put her away from him, and merely sat looking at her with lazy eyes as she confusedly fastened the buttons of her blouse and endeavoured to restore some order to her tousled hair.

  'No, don't,' he said huskily. 'Leave it. I like it the way it is. You look very desirable. Come back to the house - my house - now.'

  Dominique did not trust herself to speak. She merely shook her head wildly, aware that something terrible had happened and she must not allow it to continue.

  'Dominique,' he said persuasively. 'Don't be afraid! You know you want to.'

  'No,' she said jerkily. 'No, you're wrong!'

  'Prove it,' he said, his voice harder now.

  'How?' she looked at him with eyes that were still a trifle glazed from her emotions.

  'Come and have lunch with me!'

  She shook her head again. 'No. Nol' Opening the car door she slid out and without another word she set off to run down the road towards the Rawlings' house. The heat was intense now and the unfamiliar exercise brought a film of sweat out all over her body, but she had to get away, and she knewxhe wouldn't allow her to do so without a struggle. The trouble was that the biggest struggle was taking place inside herself. She had wanted to go with him, he had been right!

  Once she glanced back, but the car was still parked where she had left him. To turn he would have to make a good many moves, and she knew he would not take the trouble. He had no need. He thought that sooner or later she would give in.

  What frightened her most was the realization that she thought so, too.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DOMINIQUE slowed her steps before she reached the Raw- lings' house, but even so, she felt hot and uncomfortable, a feeling that was heightened when she recognized John sitting on the veranda with Harry and Marion, drinking lager and smoking cigarettes. She wondered desperately whether Marion had made any insinuative remarks concerning herself and Vincente Santos, and it was difficult to appear casual with so many disturbing thoughts on her mind.

  'Enjoy your walk?' asked Marion silkily, observing Dominique with her usual intensity.

  'Thank you, yes. Hello, John, you're early!' She managed to give a faint smile that included Harry. 'Gosh, it's hot now!'

  'Have you been running, Dominique?' asked John, in surprise. 'You needn't have done. You're not late.'

  Dominique seized this remark, and said: 'I wasn't sure what time it was, and I wanted to get changed before you arrived.'

  Marion tapped ash from her cigarette into the ashtray. 'Er - did you see Mr. Santos?' she asked casually.

  John looked questioningly at her. 'Why should Dominique see Santos?' he asked.

  Marion shrugged her thin shoulders. 'Well, he called here, soon after she had left. I believe he wanted to assure himself that Salvador had delivered her safely.' She smiled rather mockingly.

  John looked at Dominique. 'Well?' he said. 'Did you see him?' "

  Dominique stiffened her shoulders. 'Yes, I saw him.'

  'And?'

  'And what? What's all the fuss about?' Dominique hid her nervousness in defiance.

  'What did he say to you? I presume he did stop and speak to you.' John sounded furious.

  'Yes, he stopped. He didn't say much at all. I expect as Marion said he wanted to assure himself that I had arrived safely.'

  'Some chance!' muttered John angrily. 'Honestly, Dominique, I'll be the laughing stock of the plant if this leaks out!'

  Dominique put her hands on her hips. 'If what leaks out?' she exclaimed, trembling inwardly, but outwardly appearing calm.

  'Santos - coming here - looking for you! For God's sake, Dominique, why did you have to go walking today of all days? If you'd been here when he arrived it wouldn't have sounded so bad!'

  Harry Rawlings interposed, 'Leave the girl alone, John! She hasn't done anything. It's not her fault that she's so damned attractive!'

  Dominique felt her colour rising, and m
oved to the door of the house. 'Can I go and get changed, now?' she asked, with assumed nonchalance.

  John shrugged. 'I suppose so. But keep away from him in future, Dominique.'

  Dominique was about to protest that she had not sought Vincente Santos's company, and then decided not to bother. Already her conscience was troubling her, and she couldn't argue with John about something that still terrified her by its enormity.

  However, when she emerged from the shower, she had managed to put all thoughts of Santos to the back of her mind, deliberately listening carefully to every remark John made, trying to fill her mind to the exclusion of everything else. John soon recovered his good spirits and there was,, only Marion's speculative glances to contend with. Harry Rawlings seemed to think nothing of it, although Dominique suspected this was because he himself was no innocent and he supported a policy of live and let live.

  During the next few days Dominique devoted herself to her work at the apartment. She had redecorated the lounge, painting the walls a stark white and adding some hand- painted plaques she had brought with her from England and which looked wonderful against such a background.

  She had explored the town quite fully now, and liked what she had seen, except for the slum areas which seemed to spring up wherever there were towns. The centre of the town was laid out with spacious avenues and parks marching side by side, and trees had been planted beside the fountains and lakes. The shops were not as comprehensive as they could have been and she did most of her shopping at a huge supermarket that supplied everything from reels of cotton to motor cars. There were few dress shops and what there were, were very expensive. Their styles were not particularly modern either, and Dominique was glad she could use a sewing machine. Once she and John were married she intended to buy one and make her own clothes as she had sometimes done when she lived with her father.

  It was an easy walk from the apartment to the centre of the town and as John used the car to get out to the refinery Dominique grew used to walking everywhere. In consequence her tan deepened and in her short swinging skirts which showed a delicious length of slender leg she attracted quite a lot of attention. She had got into the habit of plaiting her hair and winding it round her head. That way it kept tidy as-well as keeping her cool.