of a disturbingly fathomless black held hers steady. ‘That makes it two lies you’ve told me.’
Angie tugged in a breath. ‘I decided it was time I made you pay for the months of hell I endured being your stupid blind wife.’
‘Blind? ‘ he echoed musingly, indecently long eyelashes lowering slightly. ‘Mmm,’ he confirmed, ‘very blind.’
Angie looked away from him, feeling hot suddenly, and agitated when she’d been so determined to feel nothing at all. Pushing her bag to one side, she spied Roque’s fountain pen lying on his blotter and reached for it. Aware that he was watching her every move, she opened the chequebook and bent over it to write.
What happened next threw her totally. In her own way she had been so fixed on what she intended to do that she had not given a thought as to how Roque might react. So his hand suddenly arriving to grasp her wrist, long brown fingers closing like a clamp and then tightening their grip, surprised her into uttering a sharp squeaking gasp.
‘Drop the pen,’ he gritted.
Angie’s fingers tightened in direct objection to his command. ‘I was just—’
‘I know what you were doing,’ he cut in thinly. ‘And I, as you see, am stopping you. So drop the pen, Angie.’
When she still refused to comply, the air left his lungs on a hiss. In a smooth snaking move he had completely surrounded her with his hard body as he rose up to swing in behind her, his other hand reaching out to snatch the pen from her, then tossing it away in contempt across the desk.
‘Y-you—’
‘Shut up,’ he growled.
Still holding her wrist imprisoned, he picked up her chequebook next, so he could read what she’d managed to write. Another hiss of anger shot from him, making Angie quiver, because his warm breath had seared across her already burning cheek.
She gave a yank of her wrist and managed to free it, then spun around to glare at him. ‘I’m not into cavemen!’
‘My apologies.’ He took a step back.
Her heart was thumping heavily and her breathing was clipped short. There was a terrible quiver going on inside her and— ‘Then what was all that about?’ she shook out.
Roque was still frowning at her hurried scribble, all hint of lazy humour wiped clean from his face. He threw out a few tart lucid curses, tossed the chequebook back down on the desk, then spun on his heel to pace away from her like a big prowling cat spoiling for a good fight.
Jerking up her hand to rub at her wrist where it still burned and tingled, Angie watched him warily, still feeling shaken and really uncertain of her ground now— because she had seen Roque angry before but never like this.
‘Twenty damn thousand,’ she heard him mutter, as if the sum was an insult.
‘It’s all I have right now!’ she cried out. ‘I mean to pay you the rest when—when I can. I just need—’
‘It is not your debt, Angie!’ He swung round on her forcefully.
Green eyes shimmered, ‘What does it matter to you so long as you get your money back?’
Roque scowled, his black satin eyebrows fusing together across the bridge of his long, thin flaring nose. ‘I did not allow for this,’ he muttered.
‘Allow for what?’ Angie demanded in bewilderment. ‘That I might still have some money of my own left?’
‘And this is it? ‘ The look he seared her brought her lips together with a tingling tremor of a snap. ‘Twenty lousy thousand is all you have left from your modelling days? Where has the rest gone, Angie?’ He strode back towards her in a way that sent her sinking backwards against the desk, but all he did was stop in front of her. ‘You were earning big money when I met you. The kind of money even your high-maintenance brother could not spend, given the chance.’
Angie moved a narrow shoulder. ‘I b-bought my f-flat—’
‘Cash?’ he fired at her.
Having found her dry lips had stuck together, Angie nodded.
‘Cash …’ Roque made a sound of disgust. ‘Only you would hand over that amount of money in cash!’
‘At least I did not go into debt, like most people do.’ She defended her strict principles.
Like a man unsure what he wanted to do next, Roque swung away again—only to swing straight back, catching Angie out so that she blinked.
‘No, you don’t have a clue what it is like to go into debt, do you? Which is why you believed you could stroll in here like a holier-than-thou prima donna and calmly hand me an instalment on your stupid brother’s debt and it would make everything all right!’
‘I am not playing the prima donna!’ Angie protested.
His expressive eyebrows rose to a sardonic arch. ‘Enter the betrayed wife, with her beautiful chin held up high and her sensational green eyes turned to ice. “I have nothing to say to you, Roque.’” He gave a wincingly good mimic of her cool boarding school accent, bringing an uncomfortable flush to Angie’s cheeks. ‘I was then treated to that fabulous supermodel walk through the apartment, the long sexy glide and the sizzling fire hair aimed to hook me into following you like a panting puppy dog—’
‘A puppy dog?’ She was glad to get her teeth into something. ‘You were never anyone’s panting puppy dog, Roque. You came into this world a fully grown, womanising wolf! ‘
In a totally unexpected turn of mood, a shaft of pure amusement spread across his face, and he bared his perfectly even flashing white teeth, then uttered a low, sexy growl in response.
Angie received that growl with a burst of indignant fury which set her eyes sparking and her slender body tensing away from the desk.
The sting Roque felt hit his loins was hot. She was going to launch a physical attack on him. He could read her like an open book. When he flipped the mood over between them like this she never could resist rising to the bait. Every muscle he possessed went on alert, ready to catch her when she attacked. The inside of his mouth moistened in anticipation, his lips filling with warm pulsing blood.
He watched her take a step towards him, sensational in anger, so beautiful to look at, and so much his woman he—
Then he saw her remember, watched her eyes darken and her flushed cheeks wash white. In an abrupt movement she spun back round to face the desk again.
Disappointment grabbed at every alerted instinct inside him and closed them all down into a single tight clench. Once, just once, he had called her bluff when she’d firmly put her brother between them. If he’d ever wondered what it was like to stumble into a deep black hole of his own damn making then he’d found out that long and miserable night.
Anger and guilt rolled around Roque’s chest in equal measures, followed by a bitterness that thankfully overshadowed the other two feelings—because the devil if he was going to apologise, he told himself harshly. The devil if he was going to explain himself or the motives of that foolish bitch Nadia now, when it was twelve
