A Tempestuous Temptation

‘I can’t imagine you taking orders from your sister.’

‘You haven’t met Luisa or any of my five sisters. If you had, you wouldn’t make that observation.’ He laughed and Aggie felt the breath catch in her throat because, for once, his laughter stemmed from genuine amusement.

‘What are they like?’

‘All older than me and all bossy.’ He grinned sideways at her. ‘It’s easier to surrender than to cross them. In a family of six women, my father and I know better than to try and argue. It would be easier staging a land war in Asia.’

That glimpse of his humanity unsettled Aggie. But she had had glimpses of it before, she recalled uneasily. Times when he had managed to make her forget how dislikeable he was, when he had recounted something with such dry wit that she had caught herself trying hard to stifle a laugh. He might be hateful, judgemental and unfair, he might represent a lot of things she disliked, but there was no denying that he was one of the most intelligent men she had ever met—and, when it suited him, one of the most entertaining. She had contrived to forget all of that but, stuck here with him, it was coming back to her fast and she had to fumble her way out of her momentary distraction.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing those messages earlier on at the house,’ she said politely.

‘Messages? What are you talking about?’

‘Lots of business calls. I guess you’re having to sacrifice working time for this … unless you don’t work on a weekend.’

‘If you’re thinking of using a few messages you overheard as a way of trying to talk me out of this trip, then you can forget it.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of doing that. I was just being polite.’

‘In that case, you can rest assured that there’s nothing that can’t wait until Monday when I’m back in London. I have my mobile and if anything urgent comes up, then I can deal with it on the move. Nice try, though.’

‘What about that other message? I gather you’ll be missing a date with someone tomorrow night?’

Luiz stiffened. ‘Again, nothing that can’t be handled.’

‘Because I would feel very guilty otherwise.’

‘Don’t concern yourself with my private life, Aggie.’

‘Why not?’ Aggie risked. ‘You’re concerning yourself with mine.’

‘Slightly different scenario, wouldn’t you agree? To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t been caught trying to con anyone recently. My private life isn’t the one under the spotlight.’

‘You’re impossible! You’re so … blinkered! Did you know that Maria was the one who pursued Mark?’

‘Do me a favour.’

‘She was,’ Aggie persisted. ‘Mark was playing at one of the pubs and she and her friends went to hear them. She went to meet him after the gig and she gave him her mobile number, told him to get in touch.’

‘I’m finding that hard to believe, but let’s suppose you’re telling the truth. I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Whether she chased your brother or your brother chased her, the end result is the same. An heiress is an extremely lucrative proposition for someone in his position.’ He switched on the radio and turned it to the traffic news.

London was crawling. The weather forecasters had been making a big deal of snow to come. There was nothing at the moment but people were still rushing to get back home and the roads were gridlocked.

Aggie wearily closed her eyes and leaned back. She was hungry and exhausted and trying to get through to Luiz was like beating her head against a brick wall.

She came to suddenly to the sound of Luiz’s low, urgent voice and she blinked herself out of sleep. She had no idea how long she had been dozing, or even how she could manage to doze at all when her thoughts were all over the place.

He was on his phone, and from the sounds of it not enjoying the conversation he was having.

In fact, sitting up and stifling a yawn, it dawned on her that the voice on the other end of the mobile was the same smoky voice that had left a message on his answer machine earlier on, and the reason Aggie knew that was because the smoky voice had become high-pitched and shrill. Not only could she hear every word the other woman was saying, she guessed that if she rolled down her window the people in the car behind them would be able to as well.

‘This is not the right time for this conversation …’ Luiz was saying in a harried, urgent voice.

‘Don’t you dare hang up on me! I’ll just keep calling! I deserve better than this!’

‘Which is why you should be thanking me for putting an end to our relationship, Chloe. You do deserve a hell of a lot better than me.’

Aggie rolled her eyes. Wasn’t that the oldest trick in the book? The one men used when they wanted to exit a relationship with their consciences intact? Take the blame for everything, manage to convince their hapless girlfriend that breaking up is all for her own good and then walk away feeling as though they’ve done their good deed for the day.

She listened while Luiz, obviously resigning himself to a conversation he hadn’t initiated and didn’t want, explained in various ways why they weren’t working as a couple.

She had never seen him other than calm, self-assured, in complete control of himself and everything around him. People jumped to attention when he spoke and he had always had that air of command that was afforded to people of influence and power.

He was not that man when he finally ended the call to the sound of virulent abuse on the other end of the line.

‘Well?’ he demanded grittily. ‘I am sure you have an opinion on the conversation you unfortunately had to overhear.’

When she had asked him about his private life, this was not what she had been expecting. He had quizzed her about hers, about her brother’s; a little retaliation had seemed only fair. But that conversation had been intensely personal.

‘You’ve broken up with someone and I’m sorry about that,’ Aggie said quietly. ‘I know that it’s wretched when a relationship comes to an end, especially if you’ve invested in it, and of course I don’t want to talk about that. It’s your business.’

‘I like that.’

‘What?’

‘Your kind words of sympathy. Believe me when I tell you that there’s nothing that could have snapped me out of my mood as efficiently as that.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Aggie asked, confused. She looked at him to see him smiling with amusement and when he flicked her a sideways glance his smile broadened.

‘I’m not dying of a broken heart,’ he assured her. ‘In fact, if you’d been listening, I’m the one who instigated the break-up.’

‘Yes,’ Aggie agreed smartly. ‘Which doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt.’

‘Are you speaking from experience?’

‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact!’

‘I’m inclined to believe you,’ Luiz drawled. ‘So why did you dump him? Wasn’t he man enough to deal with your wilful, argumentative nature?’

‘I’m neither of those things!’ Aggie reddened and glared at his averted profile.

‘On that point, we’re going to have to differ.’

‘I’m only argumentative with you, Luiz Montes! And perhaps that’s because you’ve accused me of being a liar and an opportunist, plotting with my brother to take advantage of your niece!’

‘Give it a rest. You have done nothing but argue with me since the second you met me. You’ve made telling comments about every restaurant, about the value of money, about people who think they can rule the world from a chequebook … You’ve covered all the ground when it comes to letting me know that you disapprove of wealth. Course, how was I to know that those were just cleverly positioned comments to downplay what you were all about? But let’s leave that aside for the moment. Why did you dump the poor guy?’

‘If you must know,’ Aggie said, partly because constant arguing was tiring and partly because she wanted to let him know that Stu had not found her in the least bit argumentative, ‘he became too jealous and too possessive, and I don’t like those traits.’