And he must feel the same way about meeting her, because he had visited the head office twice since she’d arrived, and both times he had left before she had even realised he was in the country.
Truthfully, though, she hadn’t been expecting to meet him. He might have a beautiful Colonial-style home on the estate, and the site of the original distillery was the Dos Rios headquarters, but his business took him all over the world. According to her colleagues, he visited Havana infrequently, and rarely stayed more than a couple of days.
Of course she was curious about him—who wouldn’t be? He had taken a modest, family-owned rum distillery and turned it into a global brand. And, unlike so many of his business peers, he had done so at the same time as refusing to play the media game.
She ducked under an overhanging branch, wondering why it was that despite his phenomenal success César Zayas’s private life was so private. If he was famous for anything aside from his rum, it was for the way he guarded his privacy with almost pit-bull determination.
Perhaps he was just modest. His biography on the Dos Rios website certainly implied that: it was brief to the point of being minimalist. There were no personal comments or inspirational quotes, just a couple of lines hidden in a more general piece about the history of the company.
Even the photo accompanying the piece seemed designed not to inform but to mislead anyone looking to find out more about the man behind the brand. He was standing in the centre of a group of men lounging on a veranda, glasses of ron in their hands, the colour of the liquid an exact match for the huge burnt orange sun setting behind them. It was an informal shot, but it perfectly captured their camaraderie and their glorious masculine swagger.
They were casually dressed, shirtsleeves rolled up, collars loosened, arms resting on each other’s shoulders. Some were laughing, some holding the island’s other famous export—the Cuban cigar.
All were gazing at the camera.
All except one.
Remembering the picture, Kitty felt her mouth grow dry.
The Dos Rios CEO was turning away, so that his face was slightly blurred, and it was possible only to sense the flawless cheekbones and sculpted jawline beneath the smudge of dark stubble and tousled black hair.
There was no key to identify who was who, but it didn’t matter. Even blurred, his features and the clean lines of his buttoned-up and clearly expensive shirt were stamped with an unmistakable air of privilege, that sense of having the world at his feet. For him, life would always be bright and easy and fast—too fast for the shutter speed of any camera.
Only his smile—a smile she had never seen but could easily imagine—would be slow...slow and languorous like a long, cool daiquiri.
She swallowed, almost tasting the hit of rum and the tang of lime on her tongue.
Except she didn’t drink daiquiris. Daiquiris were cocktails, and she had never felt cool or confident enough to order one. Not even here in Cuba.
Especially not here in Cuba.
Everyone was so beautiful and sun-kissed and happy. The men had dark, narrowed gazes and moved like panthers, and the women made even the simplest actions—crossing the road, buying fruit at the market—look as though they were dancing the Mambo.
She hadn’t dared to face Havana at night, but she had visited three times during daylight and she could still feel the vibrancy of the city humming in her chest—drowsy but dangerous, like a swarm of bees. She’d been captivated not just by the people but by the faded revolutionary slogans on the walls promising Revolución para Siempre—Revolution For Ever—and the Pantone palette of gleaming, buffed máquinas, the classic nineteen-fifties American cars that lined every street.
Everywhere there were reminders of the past from elaborate, Colonial-style balconies to curving marble staircases. It was vivid, and exhilarating, and she had been tempted to press herself against the hot stucco and absorb some of the lambent warmth of the city into her blood before heading off to explore the tangle of alleys leading off the main squares.
Only she had a terrible sense of direction.
Speaking of which—
She had reached a fork in the path, and she stopped and glanced hesitantly in both directions.
There was no point trying to use her phone—the signal was only strong enough right by the sea—and it was impossible to see over the tops of the pine trees that gave the estate its name. If she went the wrong way it would take for ever. She’d just have to make her way to the track-cum-road that led through the estate and then she’d know where she was.
She felt her heart begin to beat faster.
Her villa was at the edge of the estate. Usually it was home to one of the maids who worked at the main house, but she had gone to the other side of the island to take care of her sick mother, so it was currently empty. She’d been told by Andreas, the head of Dos Rios security, that she was welcome to explore the estate, but she had mostly stuck to the beach and woods around the house. She had never gone as the far as the road before, not on foot anyway.
It took less than ten minutes, and as she stepped between the trees onto the edge of the track she knew immediately where she was. Thank goodness. From here, her villa was only ten minutes away.
Breathing out in relief, she lifted up her hat and fanned her face—and then froze. Half hidden by the dark green vegetation, sunlight dappling their backs, were a group of the wild horses that roamed the estate.
Her heart gave a thump. She knew from conversations with Melenne, who came in three times a week to clean the cabaña, that the horses were not wild in the sense of dangerous, they were just not ‘broken’. They moved freely, foraging in the woods, and it showed in their satin-smooth coats and toned muscles.
They were so beautiful, she thought, feeling a lump building in her throat, and tentatively, slowly, she took a step closer, holding out her hand to the nearest one. She held her breath as he gazed at her assessingly, and then her pulse darted as his soft, velvety nose snuffled against her fingers.
Breathing out cautiously, she held her hand steady—and then suddenly there was a rumbling growl from behind her, and as one the horses turned and wheeled away between the trees.