The Ultimate Persuasion. Cathy Williams

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 even more 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 people.

      ‘Well…thank you for that. I…I’d like to get changed now.’ She addressed the wall and the dressing table in front of her, and heard him slap his thighs with his hands and stand up. ‘Did you manage to get any sleep at all?’

      ‘None to speak of,’ Luiz admitted.

      ‘You must be exhausted.’

      ‘I don’t need much sleep.’

      ‘Well, perhaps you should go and grab a few hours before we start on the last leg of this journey.’ It would be nice if the ground could do her a favour and open up and swallow her whole.

      ‘No point.’

      Aggie looked at him in consternation. ‘What do you mean that there’s no point? It would be downright foolhardy for you to drive without sleep, and I can’t share any of the driving with you.’

      ‘We’ve covered that. There’s no point because it’s gone two-thirty in the afternoon, it’s already dark and the snow’s heavier.’ Luiz strode towards the window and pulled back the curtains to reveal never-ending skies the colour of lead, barely visible behind dense, relentlessly falling snow. ‘It would be madness to try and get anywhere further in weather like this. I’ve already booked the rooms for at least another night. Might be more.’

      ‘You can’t!’ Aggie sat up, dismayed. ‘I thought I’d be back at work on Monday! I can’t just disappear. This is the busiest time of the school year!’

      ‘Too bad,’ Luiz told her flatly. ‘You’re stuck. There’s no way I intend to turn around and try and get back to London. And, while you’re busy worrying about missing a few classes and the Nativity play, spare a thought for me. I didn’t think that I’d be covering half the country in driving snow in an attempt to rescue my niece before she does something stupid.’

      ‘Meaning that your job’s more important than mine?’ Aggie was more comfortable with this: an argument. Much more comfortable than she was with feverishly thinking about him undressing her, taking care of her, putting her to bed and playing the good guy. ‘Typical! Why is it that rich people always think that what they do is more important than what everyone else does?’ She glared at him as he stood by the door, impassively watching her.

      For one blinding moment, it occurred to her that she was in danger of seeing beyond the obvious differences between them to the man underneath. If she could list all the things she disliked about him on paper, it would be easy to keep her distance and to fill the spaces between them with hostility and resentment. But to do that would be to fall into the trap of being as black-and-white in her opinions as she had accused him of being.

      She paled and her heartbeat picked up in nervous confusion. Had he been working his charm on her from the very beginning? When he had drawn grudging laughs from her and held her reluctantly spellbound with stories of his experiences in foreign countries; when he had engaged her interest in politics and world affairs, while Maria and Mark had been loved up and whispering to each other, distracted by some shared joke they couldn’t possibly resist. Had she already begun to see beyond the cardboard cut-out she wanted him to be?

      And, stuck together in a car with him, here in this bed and breakfast. Would an arrogant, pompous, single-minded creep really have helped her the way he had the night before, not laughing once at her inappropriate behaviour? Keeping watch over her even though it meant that he hadn’t got a wink of sleep? She had to drag out the recollection that he had offered her money in return for his niece; that he was going to offer her brother money to clear off; that liking or not liking someone was not something that mattered to him because he was like a juggernaut when it came to getting exactly what he wanted. He had loads of charm when it suited him, but underneath the charm he was ruthless, heartless and emotionless.

      She felt a lot calmer once that message had got to her wayward, rebellious brain and imprinted itself there.

      ‘Well?’ she persisted scornfully, and Luiz raised his eyebrows wryly.

      ‘I take it you’re angling for a fight. Is this because you feel embarrassed about what happened last night? If it is, then there’s really no need. Like I said…these things happen.’

      ‘And, like you also said, you’ve never had this experience in your life before!’ Aggie thought that it would help things considerably if he didn’t look so damn gorgeous standing there, even though he hadn’t slept and should look a wreck. ‘You’ve never fallen down drunk, and I’ll bet that none of your girlfriends have either.’

      ‘You’re right. I haven’t and they haven’t.’

      ‘Is that because none of your girlfriends have ever had too much to drink?’

      ‘Maybe they have.’ Luiz shrugged. ‘But never in my presence. And, by the way, I don’t think that my job is any better or worse than yours. I have a very big deal on the cards which is due to close at the beginning of next week. A takeover. People’s jobs are relying on the closure of this deal, hence the reason why it’s as inconvenient for me to be delayed with this as it is for you.’

      ‘Oh,’ Aggie said, flustered.

      ‘So, if you need to get in touch with your school and ask them for a day or so off, then I’m sure it won’t be the end of the world. Now, I’m going to have a shower and head downstairs. Mrs Bixby might be able to rustle you up something to eat.’

      He closed the door quietly behind him. At the mention of food, Aggie’s stomach had started to rumble, but she made sure not to rush her bath, to take her time washing her hair and using the drier which she found in a drawer in the bedroom. She needed to get her thoughts together. There was no doubt that the fast-falling snow would keep them in this