‘The only wake-up calls I’m accustomed to are the ones that come from alarm clocks.’ He hadn’t thought about it, but women sleeping in his bed didn’t happen.
‘You mean you’ve never had a night with a woman in your bed? What about holidays?’
‘I don’t do holidays with women.’
Aggie gazed at him in surprise.
‘It’s not that unusual,’ Luiz muttered, shooting her a brooding look from under his lashes. ‘I’m a busy man. I don’t have time for the demands of a woman on holiday.’
‘How on earth do you ever relax?’
‘I return to Brazil. My holidays are there.’ He shrugged. ‘I used to go on holidays with a couple of my pals. The occasional weekend. Usually skiing. Those have dried up over the past few years.’
‘Your holidays were with your guy friends?’
‘How did we end up having this conversation?’ He raked his fingers through his dark hair in a gesture that she had come to recognise as one of frustration.
If this was about sex and nothing more—and he had made it clear that for him it was—then Aggie knew she should steer clear of in-depth conversations. He wouldn’t welcome them. She fancied that it had always been his way of avoiding the commitment of a full-blown relationship, his way of keeping women at a safe distance. If you didn’t have any kind of revealing conversation with someone, then it was unlikely that anyone would ever get close to you. Her curiosity felt like a treacherous step in dangerous waters.
‘There’s nothing wrong with talking to one another.’ She glanced down at the menu and made noises about scrambled eggs and toast.
‘Guys don’t need attention to be lavished on them,’ Luiz said abruptly. ‘We’re all experienced skiers. We do the black runs, relax for a couple of hours in the evening. Good exercise. No one complaining about not being entertained.’
‘I can’t imagine anyone having the nerve to complain to you,’ Aggie remarked, and Luiz relaxed.
‘You’d be surprised, although women complaining fades into insignificance when set alongside your remarkable talent for arguing with me. Not that I don’t like it. It’s your passionate nature. Your extremely passionate nature.’
‘Plus those chalet girls can be very attractive if you decide you miss the entertainment of females …’
Luiz laughed, his dark eyes roaming appreciatively over her face. ‘When I go skiing, I ski. The last thing I’ve ever wanted is any kind of involvement in those brief windows of leisure time I get round to snatching for myself.’
‘And those brief windows have dried up?’
‘My father hasn’t been well,’ Luiz heard himself say. It was a surprising admission and not one he could remember making to anyone. Only he and his mother knew the real state of his father’s health. Like him, his father didn’t appreciate fuss and he knew that his daughters would fuss around him. He was also the primary figurehead for the family’s vast empire. Many of the older clients would react badly to any hint that Alfredo Montes was not in the prime of good health. Whilst for years Luiz had concentrated on his own business concerns, he had been obliged to take a much more active role in his father’s various companies over the past few years, slowly building confidence for the day when his father could fully retire.
‘I’m sorry.’ She reached out and covered his hand with hers. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Forget I said anything.’
‘Why? Is it … terminal?’
Luiz hesitated. ‘He had a stroke a few years ago and never made a full recovery. He can still function, but not in the way he used to. His memory isn’t what it used to be, nor are his levels of concentration. He’s been forced into semi-retirement. No one is aware of his health issues aside from me and my mother.’
‘So … you’ve been overseeing his affairs so that he can slow down?’
‘It’s not a big deal.’ He beckoned across a waitress, closing down the conversation while Aggie fitted that background information about him into the bigger picture she was unconsciously building.
Luiz Montes was a workaholic who had found himself in a situation where he couldn’t afford to stand still. He had no time for holidays and even less for the clutter of a relationship. But, even into that relentless lifestyle, he had managed to fit in this tortuous trip on behalf of his sister. It proclaimed family loyalty and a generosity of spirit that she had not given him credit for.
‘There’s something you need to know,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘Mark finally got through to me this morning. In fact, last night. I left my phone in the bedroom and didn’t check it before I went to sleep. I woke up this morning to find missed calls and text messages for me to call him.’
‘And?’
‘They’re not in the Lake District after all. They’re in Las Vegas.’
‘So they did it. They tied the knot, the bloody fools.’ Luiz didn’t feel the rage he had expected. He was still dwelling on the uncustomary lapse in judgement that had allowed him to confide in her. He had never felt the need to pour his heart and soul out to anyone. Indeed, he had always viewed such tendencies as weaknesses, but strangely sharing that secret had had a liberating effect. Enough to smooth over any anger he knew he should have been feeling at his niece doing something as stupid as getting married when she was still a child herself.
‘I never said that.’ Aggie grinned and he raised his eyebrows enquiringly.
‘Share the joke? Because I’m not seeing anything funny from where I’m sitting.’ But he could feel himself just going through the motions.
‘Well, for a start, they haven’t got married.’
Luiz looked at her in silence. ‘Come again?’
‘Your sister was obviously worried for no good reason. Okay, maybe Maria confided that she loved my brother. Maybe she indulged in a bit of girlish wishful thinking, but that was as far as it went. There was never any plan to run away and get married in the dead of night.’
‘So we’ve spent the past few days on a fool’s errand? What the hell are they doing in Las Vegas?’ Less than a week ago, he would have made a sarcastic comment about the funding for such a trip, but then less than a week ago he hadn’t been marooned with this woman in the middle of nowhere. Right at this moment in time, he really couldn’t give a damn who had paid for what or who was ripping whom off.
He found himself thinking of that foster home—the atmosphere of cheeriness despite the old furnishings and the obvious lack of luxuries. He thought of Aggie’s dingy rented house. Both those things should have hit him as evidence of people not out to take what they could get.
‘Mark’s over the moon.’ Aggie rested her chin in the palm of her hand and looked at Luiz with shining eyes. ‘He got a call when they’d only just left London. He said that he was going to call me but then he knew that he wasn’t expected back for a few days and he didn’t want to say anything just in case nothing came of it. But through a friend of a friend of a friend, a record producer got to hear one of his demos and flew them both over so that they could hear some more. He’s got a recording contract!’
‘Well, I’ll be damned.’
‘So …’ Aggie sat back to allow a plate of eggs and toast to be put in front of her. ‘There’s no point carrying on any further.’
‘No, there isn’t.’
‘You’ll be relieved, I bet. You can get back to your work, although I’m going to preach at you now and tell you that it’s not healthy to work the hours you do, even if you feel you have no choice.’
‘You’re probably right.’
‘I mean, you need to be able to enjoy leisure time as much as you enjoy working time. Sorry? What did you say?’
Luiz shrugged. ‘When we get back to London.’ He hadn’t intended on having any kind of relationship with her, but after last night he couldn’t foresee relinquishing it just yet. ‘A slight reduction in the workload wouldn’t hurt. It’s the Christmas season. People are kicking back. It’s not as frenetic in the business world as it u
sually is.’
‘So you’re going to take a holiday?’ Aggie’s heart did a sudden, painful flip. ‘Will you be going to Brazil, then?’
‘I can’t leave the country just yet.’
‘I thought you said that you were going to have a break.’
‘Which isn’t to say that I’m suddenly going to drop out of sight. There are a couple of deals that need work, meetings I can’t get out of.’ He pushed his plate away and sat back to look at her steadily. ‘We need to talk about … us. This.’
‘I know. It wasn’t the wisest move in the world. Neither of us anticipated that … that …’
‘That we wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off one another?’
How easy it was for him to think about it purely in terms of sex, Aggie thought. While she could only think of it in terms of falling in love. She wondered how many women before her had made the same mistake of bucking the guidelines he set and falling in love with him. Had his last girlfriend been guilty of that sin?
‘The circumstances were peculiar,’ Aggie said, keen to be as light-hearted about what happened between them as he was. ‘It’s a fact that people can behave out of character when they’re thrown into a situation they’re not accustomed to. I mean, none of this would have happened if we hadn’t … found ourselves snowbound on this trip.’
‘Wouldn’t it?’ His dark eyes swept thoughtfully over her flushed face.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I like to think I’m honest enough not to underestimate this attraction I feel for you. I noticed you the first time I saw you and it wasn’t just as a potential gold-digger. I think I was sexually attracted to you from the beginning. Maybe I would never have done anything about it but I wouldn’t bet on that.’
‘I didn’t notice you!’
‘Liar.’
‘I didn’t,’ Aggie insisted with a touch of desperation. ‘I mean, I just thought you were Maria’s arrogant uncle who had only appeared on the scene to warn us off. I didn’t even like you!’
‘Who’s talking about like or dislike? That’s quite different from sexual attraction. Which brings me back to my starting point. We’ll head back down to London as soon as we’ve finished breakfast, and when we get to London I want to know what your plans are. Because I’m not ready to give this up just yet. In fact, I would say that I’m just getting started …’
Just yet. Didn’t that say it all? But at least he wasn’t trying to disguise the full extent of his interest in her; at least he wasn’t pretending that they were anything but two ships passing in the night, dropping anchor for a while before moving on their separate journeys.
When Aggie thought of her last boyfriend, he had been fond of planning ahead, discussing where they would go on holiday in five years’ time. She had fancied herself in love, but like an illness it had passed quickly and soon after she had realised that what she had really loved was the feeling of permanence that had been promised.
Luiz wasn’t promising permanence. In fact, he wasn’t even promising anything longer than a couple of weeks or a couple of months.
‘You’re looking for another notch on your bedpost?’ Aggie said lightly and he frowned at her.
‘I’m not that kind of man and if you don’t think I’ve been honest with you, then I can only repeat what I’ve said. I’m not looking for a committed relationship, but neither do I work my way through women because I have a little black book I want to fill. If you really think that, then we’re not on the same page, and whatever we did last night will remain a one-time memory.’
‘I shouldn’t have said that, but Luiz, you can’t really blame me, can you? I mean, have you ever had a relationship that you thought might be going somewhere?’
‘I’ve never sought it. On the other hand, I don’t use women. Why are we discussing this, Aggie? Neither of us sees any kind of future in this. I thought we’d covered that.’ He looked at her narrowly. ‘We have covered that, haven’t we? I mean, you haven’t suddenly decided that you’re looking for a long-term relationship, have you? Because, I repeat, it’s never going to happen.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ Aggie snapped. ‘And, believe me, I’m not on the hunt for anything permanent either.’
‘Then what’s the problem? Why the sudden atmosphere?’ He allowed a few seconds of thoughtful silence during which time she tried to think of something suitably dismissive to say. ‘I never asked,’ he said slowly. ‘But I assumed that when you slept with me there was no one else in your life …’
Aggie’s blue eyes were wide with confusion as she returned his gaze, then comprehension filtered through and confusion turned to anger.
‘That’s a horrible thing to say.’ She felt tears prick the back of her eyes and she hurriedly stared down at her plate.
Luiz shook his head, shame-faced and yet wanting to tell her that, horrible it might be, but it wouldn’t be the first time a woman had slept with him while still involved with another man. Some women enjoyed hedging their bets. Naturally, once he was involved, all other men were instantly dropped, but from instances like that he had developed a healthy dose of suspicion when it came to the opposite sex.
But, hell, he couldn’t lump Aggie into the same category as other women. She was in a league of her own.
Cheeks flushed, Aggie flung down her napkin and stood up. ‘If we’re leaving, I need to go upstairs and get my packing done.’
‘Aggie …’ Luiz vaulted to his feet and followed her as she stormed out of the dining room towards the staircase. He grabbed her by her arm and pulled her towards him.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It matters. I … I apologise for what I said.’
‘You’re so suspicious of everyone! What kind of world do you live in, Luiz Montes? You’re suspicious of gold-diggers, opportunists, women who want to take advantage of you …’
‘It’s ingrained, and I’m not saying that it’s a good thing.’ But it was something he had never questioned before. He looked at her, confused, frowning. ‘I want to carry on seeing you when we get back to London,’ he said roughly.
‘And you’ve laid down so many guidelines about what that entails!’ Aggie sighed and shook her head. This was so bad for her, yet even while one part of her brain acknowledged that there was another part that couldn’t contemplate giving him up without a backward glance. Even standing this close to him was already doing things to her, making her heart beat faster and turning her bones to jelly.
‘I’m just attempting to be as honest as I can.’
‘And you don’t have to worry that I’m going to do anything stupid!’ She looked at him fiercely. If only he knew how stupid she had already been, he would run a mile. But, just as she had jumped in feet first to sleep with him and damn the consequences, she was going to carry on sleeping with him, taking what she could get like an addict too scared of quitting until it was forced upon them.
She wasn’t proud of herself but, like him, she was honest.
Luiz half-closed his eyes with relief. He only realised that he had been holding his breath when he expelled it slowly. ‘The drive back will be a lot easier,’ he said briskly. His hand on her arm turned to a soft caress that sent shivers racing up and down her spine.
‘And are you still going to … talk to Mark when they get back from London? Warn him off Maria?’
Luiz realised that he hadn’t given that any thought at all. ‘They’re not getting married. Crisis defused.’ He looked at her and grinned reluctantly. ‘Okay. I’ve had other things on my mind. I hadn’t given any thought to what was going to happen next in this little saga. Now I’m thinking about it and realising that Luisa can have whatever mother-to-daughter chat she thinks she needs to have. I’m removing myself from the situation.’
‘I’m glad.’
She smiled and all Luiz could think was that he was chuffed that he had been responsible for putting that smile on her face.
Once, he would not have been able to see beyond the fa
ct that any relationship where the levels of wealth were so disproportionately unbalanced was doomed to failure, if not worse. Once the financial inequality would have been enough for him to continue his pursuit, to do everything within his power to remove Aggie’s brother from any position from which he could exert influence over his niece. Things had subtly changed.
‘So,’ she said softly. ‘I’m going to go and pack and I’ll see you back here in half an hour or so?’
Luiz nodded and she didn’t ask for any details of what would happen next. Of course, they would return to her house, but then what? Would they date one another or was that too romantic a notion for him? Would he wine and dine her, the way he wined and dined the other women he went out with? She was sure that he was generous when it came to the materialistic side of any relationship he was in. What he lacked in emotional giving, he would more than make up for in financial generosity. He was, after all, the man who had suggested buying her a laptop computer because she happened not to possess one. And this before they had become lovers.
But, if he had his ground rules, then she had hers. She would not allow him to buy anything for her nor would she expect any lavish meals out or expensive seats at the opera or the theatre. If his approach to what they had was to put all his cards on the table, then she would have to make sure that she put some of her own cards on the table as well.
As if predicating for a quick journey back to London, as opposed to the tortuous one they had embarked upon when they had set off, the snow had finally dwindled to no more than some soft, light flurries.
The atmosphere was heavy with the thrill of what lay ahead. Aggie was conscious of every movement of his hands on the steering wheel. She sneaked glances at his profile and marvelled at the sexy perfection of his face. When she closed her eyes, she imagined being alone with him in a room, submitting to his caresses.
Making small talk just felt like part of an elaborate dance between them. He was planning on visiting his family in Brazil over the Christmas period. She asked him about where he lived. She found that she had an insatiable appetite for finding out all the details of his background. Having broken ground with his confidences about his father, he talked about him, about the stroke and the effect it had had on him. He described his country in ways that brought it alive. She felt as though there were a million things she wanted to hear about him.
A Tempestuous Temptation Page 13
