A Tempestuous Temptation (19 page)

‘It’s not that easy, I’m afraid.’

She noticed that the hesitation was back and it chilled her once again to the core.

‘I’m stronger than you think,’ she said, bracing herself. ‘I can handle whatever you have to tell me. You don’t need to get me to some fancy restaurant to break the news.’

‘We’re not going to a fancy restaurant. I know you well enough by now not to make the mistake of taking you somewhere fancy unless you have at least an hour to get ready in advance.’

‘It’s not my fault I still get a little nervous at some of those places you’ve taken me to. I don’t feel comfortable being surrounded by celebrities!’

‘And it’s what I like about you,’ Luiz murmured. That, along with all the thousands of other little quirks which
should have shown him by now the significance of what he felt for her. He had always counted himself as a pretty shrewd guy and yet, with her, he had been as thick as the village idiot.

‘It is?’ Aggie shamefully grasped that barely audible compliment.

‘I want to show you something.’ The traffic was free-flowing and they were driving quickly out of London now, heading towards the motorway. For a while, Aggie’s mind went into freefall as she recollected the last time she had been in a car heading out of London. His car. Except then, the snow had been falling thick and fast and little had she known that she had been heading towards a life-changing destiny. If, at the time, she had been in possession of a crystal ball, would she have looked into it and backed away from sleeping with him? The answer, of course, was no. For better or for worse she had thought at the time, and she still thought so now, even though the better had lasted for precious little time.

‘What?’ Aggie pressed anxiously.

‘You’ll have to wait and see.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Berkshire. Close enough. We’ll be there shortly.’

Aggie fell silent but her mind continued playing with a range of ever-changing worst-case scenarios, yet she couldn’t imagine what he could possibly have to show her outside London. She hadn’t thought there was much outside the city that interested him although, to be fair, whenever he spoke of his time spent on that fateful journey, his voice held a certain affection for the places they had seen.

She was still trying to work things out when the car eventually pulled up in front of a sprawling field and he reached across to push open the door for her.

‘What … what are we doing here?’ She looked at him in
bewilderment and he urged her out, leading her across the grass verge and into the field which, having been reached via a series of twisting, small lanes, seemed to be surrounded by nothing. It was amazing, considering they were still so close to London.

‘Do you like it?’ Luiz gazed down at her as she mulled over his question.

‘It’s a field, Luiz. It’s peaceful.’

‘You don’t like me buying you things,’ he murmured roughly. ‘You have no idea how hard it is for me to resist it but you’ve made me see that there are other ways of expressing … what I feel for you. Hell, Aggie. I don’t know if I’m telling you this the way I should. I’m no good at … things like this—talking about feelings.’

Aggie stared up at his perfect face, shadowed with doubt and strangely vulnerable. ‘What are you trying to say?’

‘Something I should have said a long time ago.’ He looked down at her and shuffled awkwardly. ‘Except I barely recognised it myself, until you turned me away. Aggie, I’ve been going crazy. Thinking about you. Wanting you. Wondering how I’m going to get through life without you. I don’t know if I’ve left it too late, but I can’t live without you. I need you.’

Buffeted in all directions by wonderful waves of hope, Aggie could only continue to stare. She was finding it hard to make the necessary connections. Caution was pleading with her not to jump to conclusions but the look in his eyes was filling her with burgeoning, breathless excitement.

Luiz stared into those perfect blue eyes and took strength from them.

‘I don’t know what you feel for me,’ he said huskily. ‘I turned you on but that wasn’t enough. When it came to women, I wasn’t used to dealing in any other currency
aside from sex. How was I to know that what I felt for you went far beyond lust?’

‘When you say
far beyond …
’

‘I don’t know when I fell in love with you, but I did and, fool that I am, it’s been a realisation that’s been long in coming. I can only hope not too long. Look, Aggie …’ He raked long fingers through his hair and shook his head in the manner of someone trying hard to marshal his thoughts into coherent sentences. ‘I’m taking the biggest gamble of my life here, and hoping that I haven’t blown all my chances with you. I love you and … I want to marry you. We were happy once, we had fun. You may not love me now, but I swear to God I have enough love for the two of us and one day you’ll come to …’

‘Shh.’ She placed a finger over his beautiful mouth. ‘Don’t say another word.’ Tears trembled, glazing over her eyes. ‘I turned down your marriage proposal because I couldn’t cope with the thought that the man I was …
am …
desperately in love with had only proposed because he thought it was the thing he should do. I couldn’t face the thought of a reluctant, resentful husband. It would have meant my heart breaking every day we were together and that’s why I turned you down.’ She removed her finger and tiptoed to lightly kiss his lips.

‘You’ll marry me?’

Aggie smiled broadly and fell into him, reaching up to link her hands behind his neck. ‘It’s been agony seeing you and talking to you,’ she confessed. ‘I kept wondering if I had done the right thing.’

‘Well, it’s good to hear that I wasn’t the only one suffering.’

‘So you brought me all the way out here to tell me that you love me?’

‘To show you this field and hope that it could be my strongest argument to win you back.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Like I said.’ Luiz, with his arm around her shoulders, turned her so that they were both looking at the same sprawling vista of grass and trees. ‘I know you don’t like me buying you things so I bought this for us. Both of us.’

‘You bought … this field?’

‘Thirty acres of land with planning permission to build. There are strict guidelines on what we can build but we can design it together. This was going to be my last attempt to prove to you that I was no longer the arrogant guy you once couldn’t stand, that I could think out of the box, that I was worth the gamble.’

‘My darling.’ Aggie turned to him. ‘I love you so much.’ There was so much more she wanted to say but she was so happy, so filled with joy that she could hardly speak.

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.
Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© Cathy Williams 2012

eISBN: 978-1-408-97459-9