CATHY WILLIAMS - The Ultimate Persuasion - A Tempestuous Temptation / The Notorious Gabriel Diaz / The Truth Behind his Touch

‘It’s Saturday. Besides, it would do me good to stretch my legs. Believe it or not, chairs don’t make the most comfortable places to sleep.’

‘You’re not going to let me forget that in a hurry, are you?’

‘Would you if you were in my shoes?’

Aggie had the grace to blush.

‘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.’