A Tempestuous Temptation (15 page)

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 fact 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.

Mark and Maria would not be returning to the country for a few days yet, and as they approached the outskirts of London he said in a lazy drawl that already expected agreement to his proposal, ‘I don’t think you should carry on living in that dump.’

Aggie laughed, amused.

‘I’m not kidding. I can’t have you living there.’

‘Where would you have me living, Luiz?’

‘Kensington has some decent property. I could get you somewhere.’

‘Thanks, but I think we’ve already covered the problem of rent in London and how expensive it is.’

‘You misunderstand me. When I say that I could get you somewhere, I mean I could
buy
you somewhere.’

Aggie’s mouth dropped open and she looked at him in astonishment and disbelief.

‘Well?’ Luiz prompted, when there was silence following this remark.

‘You can’t just go and
buy somewhere
for a woman you happen to be sleeping with, Luiz.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s not right.’

‘I want you to live somewhere halfway decent. I have the money to turn that wish into reality. What could be more right?’

‘And just for the sake of argument, what would happen with this halfway decent house when we broke up?’

Luiz frowned, not liking the way that sounded. He knew he was the one who’d laid down that rule, but was there
really any need to underline it and stick three exclamation marks after it for good measure?

‘You’d keep it, naturally. I never give a woman gifts and then take them away from her when the relationship goes sour.’

‘You’ve had way too much your own way for too long,’ Aggie told him. It was hardly surprising. He had grown up with money and it had always been second nature to indulge his women with gifts. ‘I’m not going to accept a house from you. Or a flat, or whatever. I’m perfectly happy where I am.’

‘You’re not,’ Luiz contradicted bluntly. ‘No one could be perfectly happy in that hovel. The closest anyone could get to feeling anything about that place is that it’s a roof over your head.’

‘I don’t want anything from you.’ After the great open spaces of up north, the business of London felt like four walls pressing down on her.

That was not what Luiz wanted to hear, because for once he
wanted
to give her things. He wanted to see that smile on her face and know that he was responsible for putting it there.

‘Actually,’ Aggie continued thoughtfully, ‘I think we should just enjoy whatever we have. I don’t want you giving me any presents or taking me to expensive places.’

‘I don’t do home-cooked meals in front of the television.’

‘And I don’t do lavish meals out. Now and again, it’s nice to go somewhere for dinner, but it’s nice not to as well.’ Aggie knew that she was treading on thin ice here. Any threat of domesticity would have him running a mile, but how much should she sacrifice for the sake of love and lust?

‘I’m not into all that stuff,’ she said. ‘I don’t wear jewels and I don’t have expensive tastes.’

‘Why are you so difficult?’

‘I didn’t realise I was.’

‘From a practical point of view, your house is going to be a little cramped with your brother there and my niece popping her head in every three minutes. I’m not spending time at your place with the four of us sitting on a sagging sofa, watching television while my car gets broken into outside.’

Aggie laughed aloud. ‘That’s a very weak argument for getting your own way.’

‘Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.’

But he wished to God he had tried a little harder when they finally arrived back at her dismal house in west London. Snow had turned to slush and seemed to have infused the area with a layer of unappealing grey.

Aggie looked at him as he reviewed the house with an expression of thinly concealed disgust and she smiled. He was so spoiled, so used to getting everything he wanted. It was true that he had not complained once at any of the discomforts he had had to endure on their little trip, at least at any of the things which in his rarefied world would have counted as discomforts. But it would be getting on his nerves that he couldn’t sort this one out. Especially when he had a point. Mr Cholmsey couldn’t have created a less appealing abode to rent if he had tried.

She wondered how she could have forgotten the state of disrepair it was in.

‘You could at least come back with me to my apartment,’ Luiz said, lounging against the wall in the hallway as Aggie dumped her bag on the ground. ‘Indulge yourself, Aggie.’ His voice was as smooth as chocolate and as tempting. ‘There’s nothing wrong with wanting to relax
in a place where the central heating doesn’t sound like a car backfiring every two minutes.’

Aggie looked helplessly at him, caught up in a moment of indecision. He bent to kiss her, a sweet, delicate kiss as he tasted her mouth, not touching her anywhere else, in fact hardly moving from his indolent pose against the wall.

‘Not fair,’ she murmured.

‘I want to get you into my bath,’ Luiz murmured softly. ‘My very big, very clean bath, a bath that can easily fit the both of us. And then afterwards I want you in my bed, my extra-wide and extra-long king-sized bed with clean linen. And if you’re really intent on us doing the telly thing, you can switch on the television in my bedroom; it’s as big as a cinema screen. But before that, I want to make love to you in comfort, and then when we’re both spent I want to send out for a meal from my guy at the Savoy. No need for you to dress up or go out, just the two of us. He does an excellent chocolate mousse for dessert. I’d really like to have it flavoured with a bit of you …’

‘You win,’ Aggie said on a sigh of pure pleasure. She reached up and pulled him down to her and in the end they found themselves clinging to one another as they wended an unsteady path up to her bedroom.

Despite Luiz’s adamant proclamations that he wanted to have her in his house, she was so damned delectable that he couldn’t resist.

Her top was off by the time they hit the top of the stairs. By the bedroom door, her bra was draped over the banister and she had wriggled out of her jeans just as they both collapsed onto the bed which, far from being king-sized, was only slightly bigger than a single.

‘I’ve been wanting to do this from the second we got into my car to drive back to London,’ Luiz growled, in a manner that was decidedly un-cool. ‘In fact, I was very
tempted to book us into a room in the first hotel we came to just so that I could do this. I don’t know what it is about you, but the second I’m near you I turn into a caveman.’

Aggie decided that she liked the sound of that. She lay back and watched as he rid himself of his clothes. This was frantic sex, two slippery bodies entwined. Leisurely foreplay would have to wait, he told her, he just needed to feel himself inside her, hot and wet and waiting for him.