Read Online After Their Vows by Michelle Reid - Free Book Online Page A

he’s been doing with the credit card had not been exposed? Do you think he did not notice the ring box?’ he pushed on relentlessly, even as she dropped weakly back onto the bed.
    ‘He resisted the rings because the credit card was easier. He has more nous than you,
meu querida,
because I think he worked it out that selling the famous de Calvhos diamond would bring him more trouble than it was worth. And what the
hell
were you doing, tossing such a valuable object into a drawer as if it was a cheap piece of junk?’
    ‘I know.’ On an agonised groan she lifted up a hand to cover her face. ‘I’m very sorry.’
    Roque released a growl like an angry and frustrated snarling animal. The atmosphere in the room hit incendiary levels because he did not want her apology—he wanted—
    Ramming the ring box into his pocket, he reached down and lifted her back to her feet. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘this is what is going to happen.’ He gave her a gentleshake in case she wasn’t listening to him. ‘You are going to pack a bag and come back home with me.’
    The
home
bit sent her lips parting and her chest rising on an intake of air, ready to object.
    ‘Then,’ he continued uncompromisingly, ‘there is going to be a new order of things in our marriage, where I take full control of your brother and you willingly hand that control over to me.’
    ‘If you hurt Alex in any way I will never forgive you!’ Angie instantly choked out.
    ‘I don’t want to hurt him. I want to teach him how to be a man before it’s too damn late!’
    When she blinked, as if he’d shocked the hell out of her, Roque made himself tug in a controlling breath.
    ‘I will tell you something, Angie,’ he continued, less harshly. ‘I think Alex craves to be taught that lesson. I saw the need burning in his eyes when we faced up to each other today. He hates me, but he would love to be me—why do you think he chose to gamble on the stockmarkets in this current financial climate, when only the hardy dare touch it? I am his role model. The only successful male role model he’s had any real contact with. He would have loved to have thrown the credit card and a stack of profited money at me and then told me to go to hell today.’
    ‘Instead you sent him to m-me, with his tail between his legs.’
    ‘Exactly where his tail deserved to be,’ Roque delivered without a hint of regret. ‘It was his first lesson in facing up to his actions.’
    To her own surprise, Angie let out a strangled snatch of a laugh. ‘You would not be saying that if you’d heard what he had to say about you.’
    ‘I’m a big boy. I can take his insults.’
    ‘At a price.’ Angie slipped out of his grasp and moved away from him.
    As if someone had cued the precise moment it was to happen, her phone starting ringing. Turning back to the bed, where she’d dropped her bag when she’d come in here, Angie hunted through it and came out with her mobile phone.
    ‘It’s Alex.’ She knew that it would be. ‘I promised to—’
    ‘Don’t answer it.’
    About to connect with the call, Angie lifted her head up in shock. ‘But he—’
    ‘Let him stew.’
    There was a stony cool in the way Roque said that which sent a chill chasing down Angie’s back. Her fingertip hovered over the appropriate button on the phone, but her gaze clung to Roque’s grim, hard and inflexible expression while she battled with a desire to defy his instruction and the helpless knowledge that he was right.
    As if Roque had planned this whole wretched scene, a police car’s siren whined past her bedroom window as it sped down the street. In her hand her phone sang out its insistent melody, and her mouth began to tremble, her eyes began to sting.
    On a hiss of impatience, as if he wasn’t happy at all about what he was going to do next, Roque reached out and took the phone from her. ‘I will talk to him.’
    Was that supposed to make her feel better? ‘Please, Roque.’ Angie burst into speech.