Vistaria Has Fallen (The Vistaria Affair/Vistaria Has Fallen #1)(23)

“Yes, it is,” Nicolás agreed. He pushed his sleeve back and glanced at his watch, the gold band glittering in the light from the chandelier overhead. “You must excuse me, both of you.”

“Of course,” Peter agreed. “It was good of you to stop and say hello.”

“My pleasure,” Nicolás murmured. He turned to Calli and bent his head. “Miss Munro.”

“Goodbye,” she said politely.

He moved to the front door, said something to the waitress that made her giggle with her tray covering her mouth and shut the heavy door behind him. He didn’t look back.

As it should be, Calli told herself.

Yet she could still feel the imprint of his hand on her breast, the feel of his heart beating against her back. Her sleep would be as broken tonight as it had been for the last two nights.

“Could you please take me home, Peter?” she asked.

*

Peter dropped her outside the apartment. She did not invite him in. Her silence on the way home conveyed her mood, for he did not attempt to kiss her. He simply braked and put the car in neutral, the engine running, his hand on the gear stick.

“Thank you for dinner,” Calli said, as the enormous weariness wrapped about her once more.

“No problem. Thanks for your company,” he said. “Calli, did Escobedo say something to you? Something that upset you?”

“Why?” she asked.

“You’ve been silent ever since. What happened?”

“He was polite.”

“He invariably is polite,” he agreed. “That doesn’t mean what he’s saying doesn’t mean anything.”

“He said nothing of significance. The view, the fiesta, Vistaria’s wonderful future with the discovery of silver.”

“All politically correct.” It sounded like Peter sneered. It was too dark to check.

One of the black taxis common around Vistaria pulled up in front of them. The back door opened. Minnie nearly fell out of the back seat, laughing. With her hand on the door she righted herself and stood up, pushing her clingy jersey dress down from around her hips to hang properly. It didn’t seem to bother her that she was spot-lit by Peter’s headlights. A long trouser-encased leg pushed out of the taxi beside her, then Duardo uncurled himself from the back seat. He kept his head bent down, talking to the driver, waving his hand for emphasis.

“That’s Minnie, isn’t it?” Peter said.

“Yes.”

Minnie turned to face Duardo, both of them standing in the angle between the open door and the side of the taxi. Duardo caught her face in his hands and kissed her hard and passionately as her arms curled around his neck. He grasped her thigh, drawing her leg up against his hip. The dress rode up her leg, revealing most of her thigh and the start of her bare buttock. At the same time his lips moved down her throat to the top of her breasts, revealed by the scoop neck of the dress. The hand on her leg slid around the curve of thigh to cup her buttock, his sunburned, olive fingers a sharp contrast to her pale white flesh.

Peter made a hissing sound between his teeth. “Jesus, Minnie,” he murmured. “Who is that guy, anyway?” he demanded.

“He’s okay,” Calli said. “He’s a nice guy.”

“I bet.”

The pair kissed again, lingering. Calli didn’t want to get out of Peter’s car and alert them to witnesses. She cleared her throat, unsure what to do except wait out their passionate goodbye.

The taxi driver was not so patient. He tooted his horn.

Minnie pulled her mouth from Duardo’s and appeared to chuckle. Duardo spoke, gave her another quick kiss and let her go. She stepped back as he climbed back into the taxi. She waved as it pulled away.

Calli got out of the car and shut the door. Minnie turned to smile at her as Peter drove past. Calli didn’t wave.

“You look like you’ve been eating lemons,” Minnie said.

“I’m very tired,” Calli confessed.

“You’re also damn early and you don’t look like you had a good time.”

“I didn’t,” she confessed. “It was wretched.”

“Ah. Then Peter’s the jerk I always thought him to be.” Minnie shrugged and turned toward the apartment.

“You had a good time, though, I can tell.”

“Mmm.”

“Where did you go?”

Minnie laughed. “We planned to go to a night club with the others, only we never got there. We found a little bistro and then afterwards, well...” She gave a gusty sigh and ran her hand through her hair.

“I assume the goodbye kiss we saw was a mild rendition of the rest of the evening,” Calli said.

“Oh, yeah.” Minnie laughed as she unlocked the front door and pushed it aside. “I gotta get some sleep. I’m exhausted.”

*

Calli’s prediction about her own sleep proved correct. It was restless, shot through with dreams either erotic or downright disturbing—charged with a sense of impending doom. In the lucid moments of wakefulness between nightmares, she told herself her subconscious understood the danger of entertaining even in her imagination any relationship with Nicolás Escobedo.

Close to dawn, exhausted, she dropped into a dreamless, heavy sleep. When she woke only slightly refreshed, her exhaustion cemented her intention to avoid any more contact with the man.