After Their Vows Read Free Page B

effect.
    He’d lost all patience with her, and perhaps she’d deserved it, Angie acknowledged—but enough to send him into the arms of another woman?
    And not just any woman, his
ex
woman.
    ‘Will you go and see him? ‘
    Having to blink to bring herself back from where she had gone off to, Angie swallowed thickly and gave a nod of her head.
    ‘Thanks.’ Her brother heaved in a long breath. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’
    So did Roque, thought Angie.
    ‘Look …’ Alex shuffled his feet. ‘It’s already seven o’clock, so I’ll go now, sh-shall I? So you can—get ready …’
    Desperate to escape now he’d done what he’d come here to do, Alex was already heading for the door when Angie stopped him.
    ‘The credit card?’ she prompted. ‘Where is it?’
    She watched his shoulders give a wincing twitch. ‘Roque took it.’
    ‘Good,’ Angie murmured, and watched him flinch again as her meaning struck home.
    Alex now knew he had lost her trust in him. Her home had always been his home—he had his own bedroom here, his own key. He’d had the same things at the apartment she’d shared with Roque. He was family. You should be able to trust family.
    As if he knew what she was thinking, Alex twisted round to aim her a glancing look of remorse. ‘I really— really am sorry, Angie,’ he husked out painfully. ‘I’m sorry for all of it—but especially for dropping this part on to you.’
    He’d done that because he had no other option. He’ddone it because she’d always been there to fight his battles for him.
    ‘I promise you on my life I won’t ever do anything like this again.’
    Looking up at him, Angie saw their father’s hair and nose and their mother’s eyes and mouth. The aching urge to just get up and go over there to hug him, reassure him that everything was going to be okay, almost got the better of her. But for the first time since she’d taken responsibility for him she controlled the urge.
    ‘I’ll call you later,’ was all she said, and after a few more seconds of helpless hovering he turned and slunk away, leaving her alone with Roque’s business card and that oh-so brief message to stare at.
    Eight o’clock. The apartment. Don’t be late.
    Angie felt a pang of wry appreciation for his slick, short way of getting his message across. She wasn’t a fool. She knew the divorce papers would have landed on Mark Lander’s desk today, and this was Roque’s response to them—with her brother sent along to deliver it and add a bit of clout.
    A lot of clout, she extended.
    Eight o’clock. The apartment. Don’t be late …
    Angie drew in a deep, fortifying breath. Well, she could do that, she told herself, aware that she really didn’t have a choice. However, she would not be turning up in the role of a wimpy victim Roque was expecting to see, she determined grimly as she rose to her feet. Her brother might see her as a pathetic creature withall the stuffing knocked out of her, but she was not and would never be that feeble! She’d spent too many years fighting her own battles to let fear of what Roque could do to Alex grind her to a quivering pulp now.
    On that bracing reminder, Angie tossed her hair back over her narrow shoulders and stepped across the kitchen to catch up her bag. A minute later she was standing in her hall, dragging on her coat as she followed her brother out of the door.

CHAPTER TWO
    F RESH from the shower, Roque took a call from the lobby informing him that his wife had arrived in the building with a flicker of surprise.
    She was half an hour early.
    A deliberate ploy on her part aimed to back-foot him, or was she just running scared? he mused curiously as he rubbed his wet hair with a towel. He was under no illusion that she had rushed over here because she was eager to see him. Only two things fired up Angie enough to make her expose any hint of weakness like this—her brother and money.
    If he left out the other thing she always fired up for,