‘He won’t.’
‘Come again?’
‘I mean,’ Aggie ventured weakly, because she knew that the bloodless, heartless man in front of her wasn’t going to warm to what she was about to tell him, ‘he and Maria decided to have a few days away. A spur-of-the-moment thing. A little pre-Christmas break…’
‘Tell me I’m not hearing this.’
‘They left yesterday morning.’
She started as he vaulted upright without warning and began pacing the room, his movements restless and menacing.
‘Left to go where?’ It was a question phrased more like a demand. ‘And don’t even think of using your looks to pull a fast one.’
‘Using my looks?’ Aggie felt hot colour crawl into her face. While she had been sitting there in those various restaurants, feeling as awkward and as colourless as a sparrow caught up in a parade of peacocks, had he been looking at her, assessing what she looked like? That thought made her feel weirdly unsteady.
‘Where have they gone?’ He paused to stand in front of her and Aggie’s eyes travelled up—up along that magnificent body sheathed in clothes that looked far too expensive and far too hand-made for their surroundings—until they settled on the forbidding angles of his face. She had never met someone who exuded threat and power the way he did, and who used that to his advantage.
‘I don’t have to give you that information,’ she said stoutly and tried not to quail as his expression darkened.
‘I really wouldn’t play that game with me if I were you, Agatha.’
‘Or else what?’
‘Or else I’ll make sure that your brother finds himself without a job in the foreseeable future. And the money angle? Off the cards.’
‘You can’t do that. I mean, you can’t do anything to ruin his musical career.’
‘Oh no? Please don’t put that to the test.’
Aggie hesitated. There was such cool certainty in his voice that she had no doubt that he really would make sure her brother lost his job if she didn’t comply and tell him what he wanted.
‘Okay. They’ve gone to a little country hotel in the Lake District,’ she imparted reluctantly. ‘They wanted a romantic, snowed-in few days, and that part of the world has a lot of sentimental significance for us.’ Her bag was on the ground next to her. She reached in, rummaged around and extracted a sheet of paper, confirmation of their booking. ‘He gave me this, because it’s got all the details in case I wanted to get in touch with him.’
‘The Lake District. They’ve gone to the Lake District.’ He raked his fingers through his hair, snatched the paper from her and wondered if things could get any worse. The Lake District was not exactly a hop and skip away. Nor was it a plane-ride away. He contemplated the prospect of spending hours behind the wheel of his car in bad driving conditions on a search-and-rescue mission for his sister—because if they were thinking of getting married on the sly, what better time or place? Or else doing battle with the public transport system which was breaking under the weight of the bad weather. He eliminated the public-transport option without hesitation. Which brought him back to the prospect of hours behind the wheel of his car.
‘You make it sound as though they’ve taken a trip to the moon. Well, I guess you’ll want to give Maria a call…I’m not sure there’s any mobile-phone service there, though. In fact, there isn’t. You’ll have to phone through to the hotel and get them to transfer you. She can reassure you that they’re not about to take a walk down the aisle.’ Aggie wondered how her brother was going to deal with Luiz when Luiz waved a wad of notes in front of him and told him to clear off or else. Mark, stupidly, actually liked the man, and stuck up for him whenever Aggie happened to mention how much he got on her nerves.
Not her problem. She struggled to squash her instinctive urge to look out for him. She and Mark had been a tight unit since they were children, when their mother had died and, in the absence of any father, or any relatives for that matter, they had been put into care. Younger by four years, he had been a sickly child, debilitated by frequent asthma attacks. Like a surrogate mother hen, she had learnt to take care of him and to put his needs ahead of her own. She had gained strength, allowing him the freedom to be the gentle, dreamy child who had matured into a gentle, dreamy adult—despite his long hair, his earring and the tattoo on his shoulder which seemed to announce a different kind of person.
‘Well, now that you know where they are, I guess you’ll be leaving.’
Luiz, looking at her down-bent head, pondered this sequence of events. Missing niece. Missing boyfriend. Long trip to locate them.
‘I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming,’ he mused. ‘Having a few days away would be the perfect opportunity for your brother to seal the deal. Maybe my presence on the scene alerted him to the fact that time wouldn’t be on his side when it came to marrying my niece. Maybe he figured that the courtship would have to be curtailed and the main event brought forward…a winter wedding. Very romantic.’
‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!’
‘I’d be surprised if you didn’t say that. Well, it’s not going to happen. We’ll just have to make sure that we get to that romantic hideaway and surprise them before they have time to do anything regrettable.’
‘We?’
Luiz looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘Well, you don’t imagine that I’m going to go there on my own and leave you behind so that you can get on the phone and warn your brother of my impending arrival, do you?’
‘You’re crazy! I’m not going anywhere with you, Luiz Montes!’
‘It’s not ideal timing, and I can’t say that I haven’t got better things to do on a Friday evening, but I can’t see a way out of it. I anticipate we’ll be there by tomorrow lunchtime, so you’ll have to pack enough for a weekend and make it quick. I’ll need to get back to my place so that I can throw some things in a bag.’
‘You’re not hearing what I’m saying!’
‘Correction. I am hearing. I’m just choosing to ignore what you’re saying because none of it will make any difference to what I intend to do.’
‘I refuse to go along with this!’
‘Here’s the choice. We go, I chat to your brother, I dangle my financial inducement in front of him…A few tears all round to start with but in the end everyone’s happy. Plan B is I send my men up to physically bring him back to London, where he’ll find that life can be very uncomfortable when all avenues of work are dried up. I’ll put the word out in the music industry that he’s not to be touched with a barge pole. You’d be surprised if you knew the extent of my connections. One word—vast. I’m guessing that as his loyal, devoted sister, option two might be tough to swallow.’
‘You are…are…’
‘Yes, yes, yes. I know what you think of me. I’ll give you ten minutes to be at the front door. If you’re not there, I’m coming in to get you. And look on the bright side, Agatha. I’m not even asking you to take time off from your job. You’ll be delivered safely back here by Monday morning, in one piece and with a bank account that’s stuffed to the rafters. And we’ll never have to lay eyes on each other again!’
‘I JUST can’t believe that you would blackmail me into this,’ was the first thing she said as she joined him at the front door, bag reluctantly in hand.
‘Blackmail? I prefer to call it persuasion.’ Luiz pushed himself off the wall