A Tempestuous Temptation by Cathy Williams Read Free Book Online

expensive restaurants were a waste of money when all over the world people were going without food … But hell, I don’t want to get into this. It’s hard enough trying to concentrate on not going off the road without launching into yet another pointless exchange of words. You’re going to have to look out for a sign.’
    Of course, he had no interest in her personally, not beyondwanting to protect his family and their wealth from her, so she should be able to disregard everything he said. But he had still managed to make her feel like a hypocrite and Aggie shifted uncomfortably.
    ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer to share the driving,’ she muttered, to smooth over her sudden confusion at the way he had managed to turn her notions about herself on their head. ‘But I don’t have my driving licence.’
    ‘I wouldn’t ask you to drive even if you did,’ Luiz informed her.
    ‘Because women need protecting?’ But she was half-smiling when she said that.
    ‘Because I would have a nervous breakdown.’
    Aggie stifled a giggle. He had a talent for making her want to laugh when she knew she should be on the defensive. ‘That’s very chauvinistic.’
    ‘I think you’ve got the measure of me. I don’t make a good back-seat driver.’
    ‘That’s probably because you feel that you always have to be in control,’ Aggie pointed out. ‘And I suppose you really are always in control, aren’t you?’
    ‘I like to be.’ Luiz had slowed the car right down. Even though it was a powerful four-wheel drive, he knew that the road was treacherous and ungritted. ‘Are you going to waste a few minutes trying to analyse me now?’
    ‘I wouldn’t dream of it!’ But she was feverishly analysing him in her head, eaten up with curiosity as to what made this complex man tick. She didn’t care, of course. It was a game generated by the fact that they were in close proximity, but she caught herself wondering whether his need for absolute control wasn’t an inherited obligation. He was an only son of a Latin American magnate. Had he been trained to see himself as ruler of all he surveyed? It occurred to her that this wasn’t the first time she hadfound herself wondering about him, and that was an uneasy thought.
    ‘Anyway, we’re here.’ They were now in a village and she could see that it barely encompassed a handful of shops, in between and around which radiated small houses, the sort of houses found in books depicting the perfect English country village. The bed and breakfast was a tiny semi-detached house, very easily bypassed were it not for the sign swinging outside, barely visible under the snow.
    It was very late and the roads were completely deserted. Even the bed and breakfast was plunged in darkness, except for two outside lights which just about managed to illuminate the front of the house and a metre or two of garden in front.
    With barely contained resignation, Luiz pulled up outside and killed the engine.
    ‘It looks wonderful,’ Aggie breathed, taken with the creamy yellow stone and the perfectly proportioned leaded windows. She could picture the riot of colour in summer with all manner of flowers ablaze in the front garden and the soporific sound of the bees buzzing between them.
    ‘Sorry?’ Luiz wondered whether they were looking at the same house.
    ‘ ’Course, I would rather not be here with
you
,’ Aggie emphasised. ‘But it’s beautiful. Especially with the snow on the ground and on the roof. Gosh, it’s really deep as well! That’s the one thing I really miss about living in the south. Snow.’
    On that tantalising statement, she flung open the car door and stepped outside, holding her arms out wide and her head tilted up so that the snow could fall directly onto her face.
    In the act of reaching behind him to extract their cases, Luiz paused to stare at her. She had pulled some fingerlessgloves out of her coat pocket and stuck them on and standing like that, arms outstretched, she looked young,