Captive Heart Read Online Free Page B

drawled Uncle Edgar, with his almost-smile pulling at his lips.
    Miguel led the way up a curved marble stairway. He stopped at a door and opened it for JoNell. "You like?" he asked, his eyes twinkling.
    JoNell stared. She had never seen anything like it in her entire life. A huge bed with a red velvet canopy matching the bedspread dominated the room. The walls were lined with baskets of red roses. The dressing table was topped with red roses. In fact, the entire room was a sea of red roses.
    "Oh!" JoNell squealed. "I can't believe it. Are all those flowers for me?"
    "Si, seňorita. They are a gift from seňor Del Toro."
    Some of JoNell's elation evaporated. Of course Del Toro had ordered the flowers before he met JoNell. He had had the roses placed in her room when he thought she was coming to Peru with her father, wanting to be the elegant and expansive host of the
Americano
fliers. Now, after discovering JoNell was going to be his instructor, and after the way she had tricked him into the airplane and then scaring the living bejabbors out of him, he probably wished he'd had the room filled with stinkweeds!
    "I bring your luggage right away," Miguel said. He disappeared down the hall with Uncle Edgar.
    JoNell pushed unpleasant thoughts about Jorge Del Toro out of her mind and dashed from basket to basket, hugging huge armfuls of flowers, drinking in their fragrance. Once she caught sight of herself in a mirror and giggled. Her casual braids, blue jump suit and white sneakers were definitely out of place in all this opulence.
    A knock at the door signaled that Miguel had arrived with her bags. "Dinner is at ten, seňorita," he said in Spanish.
    "Thank you," JoNell replied in the same language. "Uncle Edgar and I will be there."
    Miguel's round face lighted up in obvious amusement. He set the bags down and left.
    What was so funny? Her Spanish wasn't that bad. Her Cuban friends back home told her she spoke like a native. Perhaps Miguel too was amused at how silly she looked in her scruffy flight clothes amidst all these elegant roses.
    The first order of business was a hot bath. JoNell found the adjoining bathroom. It had white plastered walls, a sunken blue tile tub and a rich blue rug on the marble floor. On the dressing table was a small portable color TV. JoNell flipped it on.
    Slender fingers turned on the gold hot water knob, sending billows of steam into the air. JoNell unzipped her one-piece jump suit and let it fall around her fragile ankles. How wonderful it would feel to wash away the grime of travel. She had plenty of time for a long, hot soak in the tub. Next, she removed the rubber bands which held her thick braids and shook out her wavy hair letting it fall in a golden cascade down her back. The steam would loosen the design imprinted by the plaits and make her hair softly manageable. She dumped a generous amount of bubble bath into the tub, tested the water with her toe, and then slid into the billowing suds with a happy sigh.
    For a taste of this luxury, she supposed she could tolerate Jorge Del Toro for a while. After all, she had braved types like him before in her father's business. Some of those rich businessmen who had come to her parents for flying lessons were almost as boorish as Del Toro. They threw their money around and thought it would buy them special privileges with the instructor's daughter. She had decided long ago that men with money and power never learned to develop themselves as compassionate human beings. They figured they could buy their way through life. And Jorge Del Toro was certainly no exception. However, he had the added threat of a brooding handsomeness that gave him a double-edged power with women. His wealth, power, self-assurance, incredible good looks, all combined with the remote coldness in his eyes, was a challenge that few women could resist.
    And I'm a woman
, JoNell thought with a momentary stab of uneasiness as she pictured the intimacy of the airplane cockpit, with just