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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.’
‘Amazing. I think we’ve discovered common ground.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Chloe went from obliging to demanding in record time.’ They had finally cleared London and Luiz realised that unless they continued driving through the night they would have to take a break at some point along the route. It was also beginning to snow. For the moment, though, that was something he would keep to himself.
‘Never a good trait as far as I am concerned.’ He glanced at Aggie and was struck again by the extreme ultra-femininity of her looks. He imagined that guys could get sucked in by those looks only to discover a wildcat behind the angelic front. Whatever scam she and her brother had concocted between them, she had definitely been the brains behind it. Hell, he could almost appreciate the sharp, outspoken intelligence there. Under the low-level sniping, she was a woman a guy could have a conversation with and that, Luiz conceded, was something. He didn’t have much use for conversation with women, not when there were always so many more entertaining ways of spending time with them.
Generally speaking, the women he had gone out with had never sparked curiosity. Why would they? They had always been a known quantity, wealthy socialites with impeccable pedigrees. He was thirty-three years old and could honestly