The Ultimate Persuasion: A Tempestuous Temptation / The Notorious Gabriel Diaz / The Truth Behind his Touch

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Can we discuss this upstairs? In your room? Or we could always go back downstairs to the sitting room. It’s quiet there.’

‘If you don’t mind me changing while you speak, then follow me to my room, by all means.’ He turned his back on her and headed up.

‘So…’ Once inside the bedroom, Luiz began pulling off his sweater which he flung on a chair by the window. Their bags had been brought up and deposited in their separate rooms and he began rummaging through his for some clothes.

‘I never wanted to make this trip with you,’ Aggie began falteringly, and Luiz stilled and turned to look at her.

‘If this is going to be another twenty minutes of recriminations, then let me tell you straight away that I’m not in the mood.’ But, even as he spoke, he was seeing her tumble of fair hair and the slender contours of her body encased in a pair of the new jeans and deep burgundy jumper that was close-fitted and a lot sexier than the baggy jumpers she seemed to have stockpiled. Once again, his unruly lack of physical control made him grit his teeth in frustration. ‘I’m also not in the mood to hear you make a song and dance about paying your own way.’

‘I wasn’t going to.’ She pressed her back against the closed door.

‘Then what was it you wanted to tell me?’

‘I’ve never met anyone like you before.’

‘I think,’ Luiz said drily, ‘you may have mentioned that to me in the past—and not in a good way—so unless you have something else to add to the mix then I suggest you go and freshen up.’

‘What I mean is, I never thought I could be attracted to someone like you.’

‘I don’t do these kinds of conversations, Aggie. Post mortems on a relationship are bad enough; post mortems on a non-relationship are a complete non-starter. Now, I’m going to have a shower.’ He began unbuttoning his shirt.

Aggie felt the thrill of sudden, reckless excitement and a desperate urgency to get through to him. Despite or maybe because of her background she had never been a risk taker. From a young age, she had felt responsible for Mark and she had also gathered, very early on, that the road to success wasn’t about taking risks. It was about putting in the hard work; risk taking was for people who had safety nets to fall into. She had never had one.

Even in her relationships, she had never strayed from what her head told her she should be drawn to. So they hadn’t worked out. At no point, she now realised, had she ever concluded that maybe she should have sat back and taken stock of what her head had been telling her.

Luiz, so different from anyone she had ever known, who had entered her life in the most dubious of circumstances, had sent her into a crazy tailspin. She had found herself in terrifying new territory where nothing made sense and she had reacted by lashing out.

Before he could become completely bored with her circuitous conversation, Aggie drew in a deep breath. ‘You made a pass at me and I’m sorry I turned you down.’

Luiz, about to pull off his shirt, allowed his arms to drop to his sides and looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘I’m not with you,’ he said slowly.

Aggie propelled herself away from the safety of the door and walked towards him. Every step closer set up a tempo in her body that made her perspire with nervous tension.

‘I always thought,’ she told him huskily, ‘that I could never make love to a guy unless I really liked him.’

‘And the boyfriends you’ve had?’

‘I really liked them. To start with. And please don’t make it sound as though I’ve slept around; I haven’t. I’ve just always placed a lot of importance on compatibility.’

‘We all make mistakes.’ At no point did it occur to Luiz that he would turn her away. The strength of his attraction was too overwhelming. He didn’t get it, but he knew himself well enough to realise that it was something that needed sating. ‘But the compatibility angle obviously didn’t play out with you,’ he couldn’t help adding with some satisfaction.

‘No, it didn’t,’ Aggie admitted ruefully. She sneaked a glance at him and shivered. He was just so gorgeous. Was it any wonder her will power was sapped? She would never have made a play for him. She would never have considered herself to be in the category of women he might be attracted to. It occurred to her that he only wanted her because she was different from the women he dated, but none of that seemed to matter, and she wasn’t going to try and fight it.

‘What happened?’ Luiz strolled towards the king-sized four-poster bed and flopped down on it, his hands linked behind his head. His unbuttoned shirt opened to reveal a tantalising expanse of bronzed, muscular chest. This was the pose of the conqueror waiting for his concubine, and it thrilled her.

Aggie shrugged. ‘They were free spirits. I liked it to start with. But I guess I’m not much of a free spirit.’

‘No. You’re not.’ He gave her a slow, lingering smile that made her toes curl. ‘Are you going to continue standing there or are you going to join me?’ He patted the space next to him on the bed and Aggie’s heart descended very rapidly in the direction of her feet.

She inched her way towards the bed and laughed when he sat forward and yanked her towards him. Her laughter felt like an unspoken release of all her defences. She was letting go of her resentment in the face of something bigger.

‘What do you mean?’ Heart beating a mile a minute, she collapsed next to him and felt the warmth of his body next to her. It generated a series of intensely physical reactions that left her breathless and gasping.

‘So you’re not impressed by money. But a free spirit would have taken what I offered—the computer, the extensive wardrobe; would have factored them in as gifts to be appreciated and moved on. You rejected the computer out of hand and agonised over the wardrobe. The only reason you accepted was because you had no more clothes and I had to talk you into seeing the sense behind the offer. And you still tell me you’re going to return them all to me when we get back to London. You criticise me for wanting control but you fall victim to the very same tendency.’

‘We’re not alike at all.’ They were both on their sides, fully clothed, staring at one another. There was something very erotic about the experience, because underneath the excitement of discovery lurked like a thrilling present concealed with wrapping paper.

‘Money separates us,’ Luiz said wryly. ‘But in some areas I’ve discovered that we’re remarkably similar. Would this conversation benefit from us being naked, do you think?’

Aggie released a small, treacherous moan and he delivered a rampantly satisfied smile in response. Then he stood up and held out one hand. ‘I’m going to run a bath,’ he murmured. ‘Your room’s next to mine. Why don’t you go and get some clothes…?’

‘It feels weird,’ Aggie confided. ‘I’ve never approached an intimate situation like this.’

‘But then this is an intimate situation neither of us expected,’ Luiz murmured. ‘And that in itself is a first for me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It never fails to surprise me just how turned on I get for you.’

‘Because I’m nothing like the women you’ve gone out with?’

‘Because you’re nothing like the women I’ve gone out with,’ Luiz agreed.

Aggie knew that she should be offended by that, but then who would she be kidding? He was nothing like the guys she had gone out with. Mutual physical attraction had barrelled through everything and changed the parameters. Maybe that was why it felt so dangerously exciting.

‘You’re a lot more independent and I find that a turn on.’ He softly ran his fingers along her side. He couldn’t wait for her to be naked but this leisurely approach was intoxicating. ‘You’re not a slave to fashion and you’re fond of arguing.’

Aggie conceded privately that all three of those things represented a change for him, but a change that he would rapidly tire of. Since she wasn’t in it for the long haul, since she too was stepping outside the box, there was no harm in that, although she was uneasily aware of a barely acknowledged disappointment floating aimlessly inside her.

‘You like your women submissive,’ she said with a little laugh.

‘Generally speaking, it’s worked in the past.’

‘And I like my guys to be creative, not to be ruled by money.’

‘And yet, mysteriously, your creative paupers have all bitten the dust.’ Luiz found, to his bemusement, that he didn’t care for the thought of any other man in her life. It was puzzling, because he had never been the possessive type. In fact, in the past women who had tried to stir up a non-existent jealousy gene by referring to past lovers had succeeded in doing the opposite.

‘They haven’t been paupers,’ Aggie laughed. ‘Neither of them. They’ve just been indifferent to money.’

‘And in the end they bored you.’

‘I’m beginning to wish I’d never mentioned that,’ Aggie said, though only half-joking. ‘And if they bored me,’ she felt obliged to elaborate, ‘it was because they turned out to be boring people, not because they were indifferent to money.’ She wriggled off the bed and stood up. ‘Perhaps I’ll have a bath in my own bathroom…’

Luiz frowned, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘Second thoughts?’ His voice was neutral but his eyes had cooled.

‘No.’ Aggie tilted her chin to look at him. ‘I don’t play games like that.’