After Their Vows. Michelle Reid

suddenly grabbed at her insides, burning a hole in her ability to hold back from recalling that final showdown, when she and Roque had stood toe to toe like mortal enemies instead of loving husband and wife.

       ‘I am warning you, Angie, go chasing off to your brother’s aid this time and I will find someone else to take your place tonight. ‘

      She’d gone. He’d found Nadia. Marriage over.

      Pulling back from where those memories wanted to suck her, Angie sat back in the chair. ‘So, how does he expect you to pay him back?’ she asked heavily, already suspecting what was coming before her brother loped over to the table and produced something from the back pocket of his jeans.

      ‘He said to give you this …’

      He was holding out a business card, which he set down on the table in front of Angie. Looking down at it, she saw ‘Roque Agostinho de Calvhos,’ printed in elegant black script below the de Calvhos family crest, which crowned just about everything in Roque’s world— from his high-end international investment empire to some of the finest vineyards in his native Portugal and vast tracts of inherited land in Brazil.

      ‘He wrote something on the back,’ her brother indicated awkwardly.

      Reaching out, Angie flipped the card over with a set of ice-cold fingers. ‘Eight o’clock. The apartment. Don’t be late,’ Roque had scrawled there.

      If she’d had it in her Angie would have scratched out a dry, mocking laugh.

      The underscored don’t was the ultimate command from a man who’d grown very intimate with her most besetting sin—an innate lack of good time-keeping. She’d kept him waiting at airports and restaurants. She’d kept him kicking his heels in their apartment while she rushed around like a headless chicken, getting ready to go out. She caught a sudden sharp glimpse of him waiting for her, looking tall, dark and fabulously turned out for a night at the theatre, lounging stretched out in a chair with his eyes closed, his silky black eyelashes resting against his high-sculpted cheekbones, his wide, full and sensual mouth wearing the look of long-suffering patience he could pull off with such excruciating effect.

      He’d lost all patience with her, and perhaps she’d deserved it, Angie acknowledged—but enough to send him into the arms of another woman?

      And not just any woman, his ex woman.

      ‘Will you go and see him? ‘

      Having to blink to bring herself back from where she had gone off to, Angie swallowed thickly and gave a nod of her head.

      ‘Thanks.’ Her brother heaved in a long breath. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’

      So did Roque, thought Angie.

      ‘Look …’ Alex shuffled his feet. ‘It’s already seven o’clock, so I’ll go now, sh-shall I? So you can—get ready …’

      Desperate to escape now he’d done what he’d come here to do, Alex was already heading for the door when Angie stopped him.

      ‘The credit card?’ she prompted. ‘Where is it?’

      She watched his shoulders give a wincing twitch. ‘Roque took it.’

      ‘Good,’ Angie murmured, and watched him flinch again as her meaning struck home.

      Alex now knew he had lost her trust in him. Her home had always been his home—he had his own bedroom here, his own key. He’d had the same things at the apartment she’d shared with Roque. He was family. You should be able to trust family.

      As if he knew what she was thinking, Alex twisted round to aim her a glancing look of remorse. ‘I really— really am sorry, Angie,’ he husked out painfully. ‘I’m sorry for all of it—but especially for dropping this part on to you.’

      He’d done that because he had no other option. He’d done it because she’d always been there to fight his battles for him.

      ‘I promise you on my life I won’t ever do anything like this again.’

      Looking up at him, Angie saw their father’s hair and nose and their mother’s eyes and mouth. The aching urge to just get up and go over there to hug him, reassure him that everything was going to be okay, almost got the better of her. But for the first time since she’d taken responsibility for him she controlled the urge.

      ‘I’ll call you later,’ was all she said, and after a few more seconds of helpless hovering he turned and slunk away, leaving her alone with Roque’s business card and that oh-so brief message to stare at.

       Eight o’clock. The apartment. Don’t be late.

      Angie felt a pang of wry appreciation for his slick, short way of getting his message across. She wasn’t a fool. She knew the divorce papers would have landed on Mark Lander’s desk today, and this was Roque’s response to them—with her brother sent along to deliver it and add a bit of clout.

      A lot of clout, she extended.

       Eight o’clock. The apartment. Don’t be late …

      Angie drew in a deep, fortifying breath. Well, she could do that, she told herself, aware that she really didn’t have a choice. However, she would not be turning up in the role of a wimpy victim Roque was expecting to see, she determined grimly as she rose to her feet. Her brother might see her as a pathetic creature with all the stuffing knocked out of her, but she was not and would never be that feeble! She’d spent too many years fighting her own battles to let fear of what Roque could do to Alex grind her to a quivering pulp now.

      On that bracing reminder, Angie tossed her hair back over her narrow shoulders and stepped across the kitchen to catch up her bag. A minute later she was standing in her hall, dragging on her coat as she followed her brother out of the door.

      CHAPTER TWO

      FRESH from the shower, Roque took a call from the lobby informing him that his wife had arrived in the building with a flicker of surprise.

      She was half an hour early.

      A deliberate ploy on her part aimed to back-foot him, or was she just running scared? he mused curiously as he rubbed his wet hair with a towel. He was under no illusion that she had rushed over here because she was eager to see him. Only two things fired up Angie enough to make her expose any hint of weakness like this—her brother and money.

      If he left out the other thing she always fired up for, which was him. His hands and his mouth on her body, her complete lack of self-control when it came to the pleasure he could inflict on her smooth silken flesh. She knew it too, which was why she had spent the last twelve months avoiding all contact with him.

      Or it was one of the reasons, he amended with a frown as he strode into his dressing room and came out again a minute later, still flipping shut the last few buttons on a pale blue shirt across the deeply tanned contours of his taut stomach.

      He heard the warning ping telling him that the lift was arriving as he put a comb through his still damp hair. He headed out of the bedroom onto the elegant spread of the mezzanine landing which looked down on the spacious luxury of open-plan living backed by panoramic views of London’s skyline and his long, graceful stride took him down the stairway and across an expanse of rich dark teak wood flooring to the squared opening that led to the inner foyer which housed his private lift.

      His confidence that he had Angie exactly where he wanted her was absolute. He did not even question that belief. Angie might prefer to run in the opposite direction but she could not, because the chains of loyalty to her brother were too heavy and too tight. In a few seconds she was going to step out of the lift into his waiting clutches, having dragged herself and those chains across London to get here. An hour after that she would be back in his bed, where she belonged, chains and all, he promised himself.

      With that very satisfying moment to look forward to, Roque propped a shoulder up against