Passionate Playboys: The Demetrios Bridal Bargain / The Magnate's Indecent Proposal / Hot Nights with a Playboy

‘And I can’t believe you actually care,’ she cut back. ‘But I really don’t see why the concept is so hard to get your head around. What did you expect my boss to do when you told him I was a groupie—give me a raise?’ Her lip wobbled and a tear escaped from the corner of her eye. ‘Damn,’ she muttered, brushing it away. ‘Why does this happen when I’m mad?’ Her head dropped as she fought to regain her composure.

As he studied her bent head and watched her hunched slender shoulders shake Mathieu experienced an alien and compelling urge to take her in his arms. It was followed by an almost equally violent need to throttle her idiot employer.

‘I did not relate the story.’ He half expected her to resist when he put a hand in the narrow of her back and steered her towards the nearest chair, but she didn’t. ‘Sit down before you fall down.’ Impatience masked the concern he didn’t want to be feeling.

Why should he feel responsible? It was not his fault that she had worked for someone who was parochial and intolerant. Neither, despite what she thought, had he been telling tales.

‘I did not relay the story at all. I suppose it’s possible he simply overheard something that Jamie said.’ Mathieu looked doubtful.

‘Jamie …?’ Brushing her hair from her face with her forearm, Rose tilted her head and looked up at him, rolling her eyes in disbelief. ‘My God, is there anyone you didn’t tell?’

‘Jamie was in the hotel that night. He heard me complaining about the hotel security and he wormed the story out of me. When he saw you he guessed …’

‘Guessed,’ she echoed. ‘You must have dropped some pretty heavy clues.’

‘I didn’t need to. Jamie doesn’t miss much. If it’s any comfort, as a consequence of seeing you my standing in his eyes has plummeted.’

With a dry laugh she lifted her head. ‘That I doubt.’

‘It was me, I think.’

Both turned in unison as the door swung inwards to reveal Fiona standing there. Jamie’s sister looked the picture of guilt.

Mathieu’s brows twitched into a straight line of disapproval. ‘Fiona, have you been eavesdropping?’

‘Yes …no, that is, it wasn’t deliberate the other time.’

Mathieu’s brows lifted. ‘Other time?’

Fiona’s eyes slid from his as she shuffled her feet miserably and mumbled, ‘I heard you and Jamie talking about Monaco and the hotel and …’ her eyes lifted to Rose ‘… you. Grace said—’

‘Grace?’ Mathieu ran a hand along his jaw, looking impatient. ‘Who is Grace?’

‘Who is Grace?’ Fiona echoed, sounding indignant. ‘You know who she is. She’s been my best friend for ever, or since we were four anyway … her dad runs the climbing centre. I texted her and, well, she might have texted Ellie and Ellie probably sent an email to a few other people.’

‘Oh, my God,’ Rose breathed shakily. ‘I think the mystery of how Mr Smith knows the story is solved,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘The only mystery is how there’s anybody left this side of Inverness who doesn’t know.’ Hearing the note of hysteria in her voice, she bit her lip.

Presumably Mathieu heard it too, because he looked at her oddly before he jerked his head at the teenager and snapped, ‘Out.’ A tearful Fiona fled and he walked across to a bureau, out of which he produced a bottle and a glass. ‘Jamie’s best malt,’ he said, filling the glass.

‘If that’s for me,’ Rose said, shaking her head as he walked towards her, ‘I don’t like whisky.’

‘It’s medicinal,’ he said, handing it to her.

With a sigh of irritation she took the glass. ‘I’ve lost my job. I’m angry, not ill.’

‘It’s true, you know. Take a sip, it’ll steady your nerves.’

Not while you’re standing this close, she thought, lifting the liquid to her lips. ‘What’s true?’ she asked, giving a shudder at the taste the sip of peaty malt left in her mouth.

‘It’s true Jamie thinks that any man who threw you out of his bed needs therapy.’ Maybe he was right, Mathieu thought as his eyes were drawn once more to the soft lush outline of her pink lips.

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ she mused, staring into the bottom of the glass, ‘if I had actually done anything.no, actually, I would mind,’ she burst out, levelling a burning resentful glare at Mathieu. ‘So long as I did my job well, my personal life is none of his business, the narrow-minded, pompous little bigot. He said people might get the wrong idea about our relationship. Can you imagine?’ she asked, her voice rising in an incredulous note, before she added with a bitter laugh, ‘Sleep with that cold fish. God,’ she muttered, ‘I’d rather sleep with you!’

‘I’m flattered.’

Rose put down the glass very carefully. This interview was not going as planned; by now she ought to be making a grand sweeping exit. The alcohol and fire, she decided, were having an undesirable mellowing effect.

‘Don’t be,’ she advised. ‘If there’s one thing I despise more than a sanctimonious prig, it’s a man who can’t resist boasting about his conquests to the boys.’

‘Conquest?’ His dark brows rose. ‘Your memory of the occasion is no doubt hazy, but we didn’t actually—’

‘No, because I wasn’t good enough for you!’ Almost before the words were out of her mouth Rose was struck by the incongruity of her reaction to his jibe.

While she felt indignant about the rejection on her twin’s behalf, she also felt relieved. Relieved that Mathieu had resisted Rebecca’s advances, because if he hadn’t. Her thoughts skittered to a halt as a look of stupefied shock spread across her face.

I’d have been jealous!

She skimmed a look up at the man responsible for this foreign emotion. She had never been jealous of her twin even though there had been ample cause. Rebecca was always the talented one, the slim one, the passionate one. The one that men were drawn to.

But Mathieu hadn’t been.

‘You were drunk.’ Mathieu dragged his eyes from the heaving contours of her bosom at that moment outlined in heather-blue angora.

‘It wasn’t me,’ she snarled through gritted teeth. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? My God, but you are so judgemental. Haven’t you ever done anything you regret?’

‘I suppose it is something that you can regret it.’

‘Did it ever occur to you that there might be a reason for her behaviour? A reason that had nothing to do with you being totally irresistible for what she did that night? Did it ever occur to you that she might have been going through a really traumatic time in her life? That she might have found out the man she was engaged to, the man who dumped her at the altar, was gay?’

Mathieu watched as she stopped to catch her breath. Presumably her use of the third person was part of the denial thing she had going on.

‘You were engaged to be married?’ There was an inflection in his deep voice that she couldn’t quite pin down, but Rose immediately knew that she had made a tactical error.

Her instinctive desire to offer an explanation for Rebecca’s uncharacteristic behaviour had only resulted in him believing she was trying to excuse herself.

Eyes shut tight, she groaned in sheer frustration as she bellowed, ‘Not me; we are not talking about me.’

Mathieu, it seemed, was.

‘Of course not.’

This was said with such obvious insincerity that she wanted to scream.

Mathieu looked down at his hands and saw they were bunched into fists at his sides. It was irrational to feel the sort of violent antagonism he was experiencing for a total stranger. He took a deep breath and forced his tensed muscles to relax.

‘Who was he?’

‘Look, I really don’t want to discuss my personal life with you.’