Read Online A Tempestuous Temptation by Cathy Williams - Free Book Online Page B

she said faintly. ‘And once again, I’m so sorry.’
    ‘Stop apologising.’ Luiz’s tone was abrupt. Was he really so controlling that women edited their personalities just to be with him; sipped their wine but left most of it and said no to dessert because they were afraid that he might pass judgement on them as being greedy or uncontrolled? He had broken off with Chloe and had offered her no explanation other than that she would be ‘better off without him’. Strictly speaking, true. But he knew that, in the face of her hysterics, he had been impatient, short-tempered and dismissive. He had always taken it as a given that women would go out of their way to please them, just as he had always taken it as a given that he led a life of moving on; that, however hard they tried, one day it would just be time for him to end it.
    Aggie bristled at his obvious displeasure at her repeated apology. God, what must he think of her? The starting point of his opinions had been low enough, but they would be a hundred times lower now—except when the starting point was gold-digger, then how much lower could they get?
    She was suddenly too tired to give it any more thought. She half-sat up when he approached with a glass of water. She obediently swallowed two tablets and was reassured that she would be right as rain in the morning. More or less.
    ‘Thanks,’ Aggie said glumly. ‘And please wake me up first thing.’
    ‘Of course.’ Luiz frowned, impatient at the sudden burst of unwelcome introspection which had left him questioning himself.
    Aggie fell asleep with that frown imprinted on her brain. It was confusing that someone she didn’t care about should have any effect on her whatsoever, but he did.
    She vaguely thought that things would be back to normal in the morning. She would dislike him. He would stop being three-dimensional and she would cease to be curious about him.
    When she groggily came to, her head was thumping, her mouth tasted of cotton wool and Luiz was slumped in a chair he had pulled and positioned next to her bed. He was fully clothed.
    For a few seconds, Aggie didn’t take it in, then she struggled up and nudged him.
    ‘What are
you
doing here?’
    Belatedly she realised that, although the duvet was tucked around her, she was trouserless and jumperless; searing embarrassment flooded through her.
    ‘I couldn’t leave you in the state you were in.’ Luiz pressed his eyes with his fingers and then raked both hands through his tousled hair before looking at her.
    ‘I wasn’t
in a state
. I … yes … I was … sick but then I fell asleep.’
    ‘You were sick again,’ Luiz informed her. ‘And that’s not taking into account raging thirst and demands for more tablets.’
    ‘Oh God.’
    ‘Sadly, God wasn’t available, so it was up to me to find my way down to the kitchen for orange juice because you claimed that any more water would make you feel evenmore sick. I also had to deal with a half-asleep temper tantrum when I refused to double the dose of painkillers …’
    Aggie looked at him in horror.
    ‘Then you said that you were hot.’
    ‘I didn’t.’
    ‘You threw off the quilt and started undressing.’
    Aggie groaned and covered her face with her hands.
    ‘But, gentleman that I am, I made sure you didn’t completely strip naked. I undressed you down to the basics and you fell back asleep.’
    Luiz watched her small fingers curl around the quilt cover. He imagined she would be going through mental hell but she was too proud to let it show. Had he ever met anyone like her in his life before? He’d almost forgotten the reason she was with him. She seemed to have a talent for running circles round his formidable single-mindedness and it wasn’t just now that they had been thrown together. No, it had happened before. Some passing remark he might have made to which she had taken instant offence, dug her heels in and proceeded to argue with him until he’d forgotten the presence of other