Michelle Reid - After Their Vows

W HAT do you want me to do about it?

Seated behind his desk, engrossed in the business report spread open in front of him, Roque de Calvhos responded impassively, You do nothing.

Mark Lander continued to hover like a man in a quandary, frowning behind his spectacles because doing nothing was not an option his employer could afford to take.

She could make trouble, he dared to offer, all too aware that the younger man did not take kindly to interference into decisions he made about his private life.

Roque de Calvhos was a chip off the old block when it came to a cut-throat mentality. When Eduardo de Calvhos had become ill and died suddenly three years ago, no one had expected his notorious playboy son to calmly stride in here and start making his presence felt, with far-sweeping decisions most people had believed were a precursor to the quick demise of de Calvhos power.

They now knew better. What Roque had done with the huge network of diverse companies which made up the de Calvhos business empire had put his fathers colossal success in the shade. Now obsequious respect shadowed the thirty-two-year-olds every elegant footstep. If the financial industry could give out such awards, Roque de Calvhos would have sprouted wings. He was also remarkably good-looking, insufferably laid-back, and so impossible to read that there were still some fools out there who dared to underestimate himonly to learn the hard way what a huge mistake they had made.

His estranged wife was not one of those people. At the moment she is citing irreconcilable differences. Think about it, Roque, Mark advised. Angie is basically letting you off the hook here.

Giving up on the report, Roque sat back in his chair to look up at the older man. Eyes as black as the neatly groomed hair on his head revealed nothing as he studied the lawyers concerned face.

You are about to remind me that my wife signed no pre-nup, Roque predicted. Take it from me, Mark, Angie is not greedy. I trust her not to attempt to skin me alive, okay?

That depends on what you mean by skinning you alive, his lawyer responded dryly. That she doesnt want your money? Okay, I will agree with you that Angie does not want your money, or she would have been demanding a large cut of it long before now. I would, however, be willing to lay odds that she does not feel the same way about skinning you of your honour and pride. She wants this divorce, Roque. Mark stated it firmly. If the only way she can get it is by playing dirty then you have to consider if you are going to like her citing adultery on your part to get what she wants. If she does decide to go down that route there is just no way we will be able to keep it out of the public arena, and you know as well as I do the old can of worms she will be opening if that happens.

Roque set his teeth together in frustration behind the moulded shape of his lips because he knew that Mark was right. The Playboy and the Two Supermodels headlines were bound to start up again. Last time, the slick, character-slaying stories had run for weeks, trawling out his cavalier playboy past and quoting phrases about leopards and spots.

He released a sigh, hating it that Mark was right.

Taking that sigh as an indication that he could go on, Mark Lander took in a deep breath and went for broke. Angie has hard evidence that you slept with Nadia Sanchez. The stupid woman gave her the evidence herself because she wanted to break up your marriage.

She succeeded, Roque confirmed flatly.

You were damn lucky back then that Angie decided to keep silent about the affair in an effort to save her own face.

There was a lot more to Angies motivations than mere saving face, Roque mused, using the luxuriant swoop of his eyelashes to shade his eyes so that the lawyer could not read his thoughts. Angie was hurting. Angie was nursing the worst kind of broken heart a woman could nurse. Angie blamed him and hated him for causing it.

Angie had also caused a minor sensation when shed walked away from her modelling career and hadnt been seen again for months. Hed had teams of trackers out looking for her all over Europe without one of them managing to flush her out. Hed hounded her kid brother, hoping that Alex would relent and tell him where Angie was. The then eighteen-year-old had told him nothing and enjoyed watching him suffer. When Angie had eventually turned up again, shed strolled blithely into CGM Management and asked her old boss Carla for an ordinary office job. Now she fronted the desk at the famous modelling agency, and not once in the whole lousy year of their separation had she acknowledged that he was even alive.

Now she was coming at him with a divorce petition, as if she expected him to jump on it with glee. Roque shaded his eyes by another millimetre, the dark iris glittering calculatingly behind the guard of his eyelashes as he considered the unfinished business he had with his very hurt, very English, runaway wife.

The kind of business which involved Angie crawling on her knees and begging him to take her back. His pride and his badly bruised ego demanded it. And unfortunately for Angie he had the perfect tool with which to make it happenhe was thinking of a matter Mark knew nothing about, which hed been keeping a close, watchful eye on.

No divorce, he announced, making the lawyer start in surprise as he sat forward and returned his attention to the business report.

So youre just going to ignore it? Mark said in disbelief.

I will deal with it, he promised, but in my own time and way.

Not liking the sound of that, Mark shifted his stance. I think it would besafer to keep this impersonal and go the legal route.

A esperana a ltima que morre, Roque murmured, unaware that he had slipped into his own language until after hed quoted the old Portuguese proverb with a dryness only he understood.

Hope is the last one to die, he translated silently, for no other reason than it felt good to know he had that much faith in Angie coming round to his way of thinking.