‘No,’ Luiz murmured. ‘Thought not. Well, at least you’re honest enough not to deny it.’ He stood up, towering over her while Aggie stuffed her hands in the pockets of her coat and frantically tried to think of ways of dodging him.
And yet, disturbingly, wasn’t she just a little pleased that he would be with her? For good or bad, and she couldn’t decide which, her senses were heightened whenever he was around. Her heart beat faster, her skin tingled more, her pulse raced faster and every nerve ending in her seemed to vibrate.
Was that nature’s way of keeping her on her toes in the face of the enemy?
‘You’ll need to have something to eat,’ was the first thing he said when they were outside, where the brutal cold was like a stinging slap on the face. The snow falling and collecting on the already thick banks on the pavements turned the winter-wonderland scene into a nightmare of having to walk at a snail’s pace.
Her coat was not made for this depth of cold and she could feel herself shivering, while in his padded Barbour, fashioned for arctic conditions, he was doubtless as snug as a bug in a rug.
‘Stop telling me what to do.’
‘And stop being so damned mulish.’ Luiz looked down at her. She had rammed her woolly hat low down over her ears and she was cold. He could tell from the way she had hunched up and the way her hands were balled into fists in the pockets of the coat. ‘You’re cold.’
‘It’s a cold day. I like it. It felt stuffy inside.’
‘I mean, your coat is inadequate. You need something warmer.’
‘You’re doing it again.’ Aggie looked up at him and her breath caught in her throat as their eyes tangled and he didn’t look away. ‘Behaving,’ she said a little breathlessly, ‘as though you have all the answers to everything.’ She was dismayed to find that, although she was saying the right thing, it was as if she was simply going through the motions while her body was responding in a different manner. ‘I’ve been meaning to buy another coat, but there’s hardly ever any need for it in London.’
‘You can buy one here.’
‘It’s a bad time of the year for me,’ Aggie muttered. ‘Christmas always is.’ She eyed the small town approaching with some relief. ‘We exchange presents at school … then there’s the tree and the food … it all adds up. You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
Aggie hesitated. She wasn’t used to confiding. She just wasn’t built that way and she especially couldn’t see the point in confiding in someone like Luiz Montes, a man who had placed her in an impossible situation, who was merciless in pursuit, who probably didn’t have a sympathetic bone in his body.
Except, a little voice said in her head, he took care of you last night, didn’t he? Without a hint of impatience or rancour.
‘When you grow up in a children’s home,’ she heard herself say, ‘even in a great children’s home like the one I grew up in, you don’t really have any money. Ever. And you don’t get brand-new things given to you. Well, not often. On birthdays and at Christmas, Betsy and Gordon did their best to make sure that we all had something new, but most of the time you just make do. Most of my clothes had been worn by someone else before. The toys were all shared. You get into the habit of being very careful with the small amounts of money you get given or earn by doing chores. I still have that habit. We both do. You’ll think it silly, but I’ve had this coat since I was seventeen. It only occurs to me now and again that I should replace it.’
Luiz thought of the women he had wined and dined over the years. He had never hesitated in spending money on them. None of those relationships might have lasted, but all the women had certainly profited financially from them: jewellery, fur coats, in one instance a car. The memory of it repulsed him.
‘That must have been very limiting, being a teenager and not being able to keep up with the latest fashion.’
‘You get used to it.’ Aggie shrugged. ‘Life could have been a lot worse. Look, there’s a café. You’re right. I should have something to eat. I’m ravenous.’ It also felt a little weird to be having this conversation with him.
‘You’re changing the subject,’ he drawled as they began mingling with the shoppers who were out in numbers, undeterred by the snow. ‘Is that something else you picked up growing up in a children’s home?’
‘I don’t want to be cross-examined by you.’ They were inside the café which was small and warm and busy, but there were spare seats and they grabbed two towards the back. When Aggie removed her gloves, her fingers were pink with cold and she had to keep the coat on for a little longer, just until she warmed up, while two waitresses gravitated, goggle-eyed, to Luiz and towards their table to take their order.
‘I could eat everything on the menu.’ Aggie sighed, settling for a chicken baguette and a very large coffee. ‘That’s what having too much to drink does for a girl. I can’t apologise enough.’
‘And I can’t tell you how tedious it is hearing you continually apologise,’ Luiz replied irritably. He glanced around him and sprawled back in the chair. ‘I thought women enjoyed nothing more than talking about themselves.’
Aggie shot him a jaundiced look and sat back while her baguette, stuffed to bursting, was placed in front of her. Luiz was having nothing; it should have been a little embarrassing, diving into a foot-long baguette while he watched her eat, but she didn’t care. Her stomach was rumbling with hunger. And stranded in awful conditions away from her home turf was having a lowering effect on her defences.
‘I’ll bet that really gets on your nerves,’ Aggie said between mouthfuls, and Luiz had the grace to flush.
‘I tend to go out with women whose conversations fall a little short of riveting.’
‘Then why do you go out with them? Oh yes, I forgot. Because of the way they look.’ She licked some tarragon mayonnaise from her finger and dipped her eyes, missing the way he watched, with apparent fascination, that small, unconsciously sensual gesture. Also missing the way he sat forward and shifted awkwardly in the chair. ‘Why do you bother to go out with women if they’re boring? Don’t you want to settle down and get married? Would you marry someone who bored you?’
Luiz frowned. ‘I’m a busy man. I don’t have the time to complicate my life with a relationship.’
‘Relationships don’t have to complicate lives. Actually, I thought they were supposed to make life easier and more enjoyable. This baguette is delicious; thank you for getting it for me. I suppose we should discuss my contribution to this … this …’
‘Why? You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.’
He drummed his fingers on the table and continued to look at her. Her hair kept falling across her face as she leant forward to eat the baguette and, as fast as it fell, she tucked it behind her ear. There were crumbs by her mouth and she licked them off as delicately as a cat.
‘True.’ Aggie sat back, pleasantly full having demolished the baguette, and she sipped some of her coffee, holding the mug between both her hands. ‘So.’ She tossed him a challenging look. ‘I guess your parents must want you to get married. At least, that’s …’
‘At least that’s what?’
‘None of my business.’
‘Just say what you were going to say, Aggie. I’ve seen you half-undressed and ordering me to fetch you orange juice. It’s fair to say that we’ve gone past the usual pleasantries.’
‘Maria may have mentioned that everyone’s waiting for you to tie the knot.’ Aggie stuck her chin up defiantly because if he could pry into her life, whatever his reasons, then why shouldn’t she pry into his?
‘That’s absurd!’
‘We don’t have to talk about this.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about!’ But wasn’t that why he found living in London preferable to returning to Brazil—because his mother had a talent for cornering him and pestering him about his private life? He loved his mother very much, but after three futile attempts to match-make him with the daughters of family friends he h
ad had to draw her to one side and tell her that she was wasting her time.
‘My parents have their grandchildren, thanks to three of my sisters, and that’s just as well, as I have no intention of tying any knots any time soon.’ He waited for her response and frowned when none was forthcoming. ‘In our family,’ he said abruptly, ‘the onus of running the business, expanding it, taking it out of Brazil and into the rest of the world, fell on my shoulders. That’s just the way it is. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for pandering to a woman’s needs. Aside from the physical.’ He elaborated with a sudden, wolfish smile.
Aggie didn’t smile back. It didn’t sound like that great a trade-off to her. Yes, lots of power, status, influence and money, but if you didn’t have time to enjoy any of that with someone you cared about then what was the point?
She suddenly saw a man whose life had been prescribed from birth. He had inherited an empire and he had never had any choice but to submit to his responsibility. Which, she conceded, wasn’t to say that he didn’t enjoy what he did. But she imagined that being stuck up there at the very top, where everyone else’s hopes and dreams rested on your shoulders, might become a lonely and isolated place.
‘Spare me the look of sympathy.’ Luiz scowled and looked around for a waitress to bring the bill.
‘So what happens when you marry?’ she asked in genuine bewilderment, even though she was sensing that the conversation was not one he had any particular desire to continue. In fact, judging from the dark expression on his face, she suspected that he might be annoyed with himself for having said more than he wanted to.
‘I have no idea what you mean by that.’
‘Will you give over the running of your … er … company to someone else?’
‘Why would I do that? It’s a family business. No one outside the family will ever have direct control.’
‘You’re not going to have much time to be a husband, in that case. I mean, if you carry on working all the hours God made.’
‘You talk too much.’ The bill had arrived. He paid it, leaving a massive tip, and didn’t take his eyes from Aggie’s face.
She, in turn, could feel her temples begin to throb and her head begin to swim. His eyes drifted down to her full mouth, taking in the perfect, delicate arrangement of her features. Yes, he had looked at her before, had sized her up the first time they had met. But had he looked at her in the past like this? There was a powerful, sexual element to his lazy perusal of her face. Or was she imagining it? Was it just his way of avoiding the conversation?
Her breasts were tingling and her thoughts were in turmoil. Aside from the obvious reasons, this man was not her type at all. She might appreciate his spectacular good looks in a detached way but on every other level she had never had time for men who belonged to the striped-suit brigade, whose raison d’être was to live and die for the sake of work. She liked them carefree and unconventional and creative, so why had her body reacted like that just then—with the unwelcome frisson of a teenager getting randy on her first date with the guy of her dreams? God, even worse, was it the first time she had reacted like that? Or had she contrived to ignore all those tell-tale signs of a woman looking at a man and imagining?
‘Yes. You’re right. I do.’ Her breathing was shallow, her pupils dilated.
On a subliminal level, Luiz registered these reactions. He was intensely physical, and if he didn’t engage in soul searching relationships with women he made up for that in his capacity to read them and just know when they were affected by him.
Usually, it was a simple game with a foregone conclusion, and the women who ended up in his bed were women who understood the rules of the game. He played fair, as far as he was concerned. He never promised anything, but he was a lavish and generous lover.
So what, he wondered, was this all about? What the hell was going on?
She was standing up, brushing some crumbs off her jumper and slinging back on the worn, too-thin coat, pulling the woolly hat low down on her head, wriggling her fingers into her gloves. She wasn’t looking at him. In fact, she was doing a good job of making sure that she didn’t look at him.
Like a predator suddenly on the alert, Luiz could feel something inside him shift gear. He fell in beside her once they were outside and Aggie, nervous for no apparent reason, did what she always did when she was nervous. She began talking, barely pausing to draw breath. She admired the Christmas lights a little too enthusiastically and paused to stand in front of the first shop they came to, apparently lost in wonder at the splendid display of household items and hardware appliances. Her heart was thumping so hard that she was finding it difficult to hold on to her thoughts.
How had they ended up having such an intensely personal conversation? When had she stopped keeping him at a distance? Why had it become so easy to forget all the things she should be hating about him? Was that the power of lust? Did it turn your world on its head and make you lose track of everything that was sensible?
Just admitting to being attracted to him made her feel giddy, and when he told her that they should be getting back because she looked a little white she quickly agreed.
Suddenly this trip seemed a lot more dangerous than it had done before. It was no longer a case of trying to avoid constant sniping. It was a case of trying to maintain it.
CHAPTER FIVE
BY THE Monday morning—after two evenings spent by Aggie trying to avoid all personal conversation, frantically aware of the way her body was ambushing all her good intentions—the relentless snow was beginning to abate, although not sufficiently for them to begin the last leg of their journey.
The first thing Aggie did was to telephone the school. As luck would have it, it was shut, with just a recorded message informing her that, due to the weather, it would remain shut until further notice. She didn’t know if it was still snowing in London, but the temperatures across the country were still sub-zero and she knew from experience that, even if the snow had stopped, sub-zero temperatures would result in frozen roads and pavements, as well as a dangerously frozen playground. This routinely happened once or twice a year, although usually only for a couple of days at most, and Health and Safety were always quick to step in and advise closures.
Then she looked at the pitiful supply of clothes remaining in her bag and said goodbye to all thoughts of saving any money at all for the New Year.
‘I need to go back into town,’ she told Luiz as soon as she had joined him in the dining room, where Mrs Bixby was busy chatting to the errant guest who had returned the evening before and was complaining bitterly about his chances of doing anything of any use. Salesmen rarely appreciated dire weather.
‘More fresh air?’
‘I need to buy some stuff.’
‘Ah. New coat, by any chance?’ Luiz sat back, tilting his chair away from the table so that he could cross his legs.
‘I should get another jumper … some jeans, maybe. I didn’t think that we would be snowed in when we’re not even halfway through this trip.’
Luiz nodded thoughtfully. ‘Nor had I. I expect I’ll be forced to get some as well.’
‘And you’re missing your … meetings. You mentioned that deal you needed to get done.’
‘I’ve telephoned my guys in London. They’ll cover me in my absence. It’s not perfect, but it’ll have to do. This evening I’ll have a conference call and give them my input. I take it you’ve called the school?’
‘Closed anyway.’ She sat back as coffee was brought for them, and chatted for a few minutes with their landlady, who was extremely cheerful at the prospect of having them there longer than anticipated.
‘So your school’s closed. How fortuitous,’ Luiz murmured. ‘I’ve tried calling the hotel where your brother is supposed to be holed up with Maria and the lines are down.’
‘So is there any point in continuing?’ Aggie looked at him and licked her lips. ‘They were only going to be there for a few days. We could get up there and find they’ve already ca
ught the train back to London.’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘Is that all you have to say?’ Aggie cried in an urgent undertone. ‘It’s a possibility? Neither of us can afford to spend time away from our jobs on a possibility!’ The thought of her cold, uncomfortable, Luiz-free house beckoned like a port in a storm. She didn’t understand why she was feeling what she was, and the sooner she was removed from the discomfort of her situation the better, as far as she was concerned. ‘You have important meetings to go to. You told me so yourself. Just think of all those poor people whose livelihoods depend on you closing whatever deal it is you have to close!’
‘Why, Aggie, I hadn’t appreciated how concerned you were.’
‘Don’t be sarcastic, Luiz. You’re a workaholic. It must be driving you crazy being caught out like this. It would take us the same length of time to return to London as it would to get to the Lake District.’
‘Less.’
‘Even better!’
‘Furthermore, we would probably be driving away from the worst of the weather, rather than into it.’
‘Exactly!’
‘Which isn’t to say that I have any intention of returning to London without having accomplished what I’ve set out to do. When I start something, I finish it.’
‘Even if finishing it makes no sense?’
‘This is a pointless conversation,’ Luiz said coolly. ‘And why the sudden desperation to jump ship?’
‘Like I said, I thought I would be away for one night, two at most. I have things to do in London.’
‘Tell me what. Your school’s closed.’
‘There’s much more to teaching than standing in front of the children and teaching them. There are lessons to prepare, homework to mark.’
‘And naturally you have no computer with you.’
‘Of course I haven’t.’ He wasn’t going to give way. She hadn’t really expected that he would. She had known that he was the type of man who, once embarked on a certain course, saw it through to the finish. ‘I have an old computer. There’s no way I could lug that anywhere with me. Not that I thought I’d need it.’
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