The Ultimate Persuasion. Cathy Williams

was so shocked by that insufferably arrogant command that she shut up.

      She wouldn’t have admitted it in a million years but it felt good to be carried like this, because her legs had been feeling very wobbly. In fact, she really had been on the point of wanting to sink to the ground just to take the weight off them before he had swept her off her feet.

      She felt him nudge the front door open with his foot, which meant that it had been left ajar. It was humiliating to think of Mrs Bixby seeing her like this and she buried herself against Luiz, willing herself to disappear.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ Luiz murmured drily in her ear. ‘Our friendly landlady is nowhere to be seen. I told her to go to bed, that I’d make sure I brought you in in one piece.’

      Aggie risked a glance at the empty hall and instructed him to put her down.

      ‘That dumb suggestion again. You’re drunk and you need to get to bed, which is what I told you before you decided to prove how stubborn you could be by ignoring my very sound advice.’

      ‘I am not drunk. I am never drunk.’ She was alarmed by a sudden need to hiccup, which she thankfully stifled. ‘Furthermore, I am more than capable of making my own way upstairs.’

      ‘Okay.’ He released her fast enough for her to feel the ground rushing up to meet her and she clutched his jumper with both hands and took a few deep breaths. ‘Still want to convince me that you’re more than capable of making your own way upstairs?’

      ‘I hate you!’ Aggie muttered as he swept her back up into his arms.

      ‘You have a tendency to be repetitive,’ Luiz murmured, and he didn’t have to see her face to know that she was glaring at him. ‘And I’m surprised and a little offended that you hate me for rescuing you from almost certainly falling flat on your face in the snow and probably going to sleep. As a teacher, you should know that that is the most dangerous thing that could happen, passing out in the snow. While under the influence of alcohol. Tut, tut, tut. You’d be struck off the responsible-teacher register if they ever found out about that. Definitely not a good example to set for impressionable little children, seeing their teacher the worse for wear…’

      ‘Shut up,’ Aggie muttered fiercely.

      ‘Now, let’s see. Forgotten which room is yours…Oh, it’s coming back to me—the only one left with the en suite! Fortuitous, because you might be needing that…’

      ‘Oh be quiet,’ Aggie moaned. ‘And hurry up! I think I’m going to be sick.’

       CHAPTER FOUR

      SHE made it to the bathroom in the nick of time and was horribly, shamefully, humiliatingly, wretchedly sick. She hadn’t bothered to shut the door and she was too weak to protest when she heard Luiz enter the bathroom behind her.

      ‘Sorry,’ she whispered, hearing the flush of the toilet and finding a toothbrush pressed into her hand. While she was busy being sick, he had obviously rummaged through her case and located just the thing she needed.

      She shakily cleaned her teeth but lacked the energy to tell him to leave.

      Nor could she look at him. She flopped down onto the bed and closed her eyes as he drew the curtains shut, turned off the overhead light and began easing her boots off.

      Luiz had never done anything like this before. In fact, he had never been in the presence of a woman quite so violently sick after a bout of excessive drinking and, if someone had told him that one day he would be taking care of such a woman, he would have laughed out loud. Women who were out of control disgusted him. An out-of-control Chloe, shouting hysterically down the phone, sobbing and shrieking and cursing him, had left him cold. He looked at Aggie, who now had her arm covering her face, and wondered why he wasn’t disgusted.

      He had wet a face cloth; he mopped her forehead and heard her sigh.

      ‘So I guess I should be thanking you,’ she said, without moving the hand that lay across her face.

      ‘You could try that,’ Luiz agreed.

      ‘How did you know where to find me?’

      ‘I watched you from the dining room. I wasn’t going to let you stay out there for longer than five minutes.’

      ‘Because, of course, you know best.’

      ‘Staggering in the dark in driving snow when you’ve had too much to drink isn’t a good idea in anyone’s eyes,’ Luiz said drily.

      ‘And I don’t suppose you’ll believe me when I tell you that this is the first time I’ve ever…ever…done this?’

      ‘I believe you.’

      Aggie lowered her protective arm and looked at him. Her eyes felt sore, along with everything else, and she was relieved that the room was only lit by the small lamp on the bedside table.

      ‘You do?’

      ‘It’s my fault. I should have said no to that second bottle of wine. In fact, I was barely aware of it being brought.’ He shrugged. ‘These things happen.’

      ‘But I don’t suppose they ever happen to you,’ Aggie said with a weak smile. ‘I bet you don’t drink too much and stagger all over the place and then end up having to be helped up to bed like a baby.’

      Luiz laughed. ‘No, can’t say I remember the last time that happened.’

      ‘And I bet you’ve never been in the company of a woman who’s done that.’

      No one would dare behave like that in my presence, was what he could have said, except he was disturbed to find that that would have made him sound like a monster.

      ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘And now I’m going to go and get you some painkillers. You’re going to need them.’

      Aggie yawned and looked at him drowsily. She had a sudden, sharp memory of how it had felt being carried by him. He had lifted her up as though she weighed nothing and his chest against her slight frame had been as hard as steel. He had smelled clean, masculine and woody.

      ‘Yes. Thank you,’ 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,