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

PASSIONATE

Playboys

THE DEMETRIOS BRIDAL BARGAIN

Kim LAWRENCE

THE MAGNATE’S INDECENT PROPOSAL

Ally BLAKE

HOT NIGHTS WITH A PLAYBOY

Nicola MARSH

www.millsandboon.co.uk

THE DEMETRIOS BRIDAL BARGAIN

Kim Lawrence

About the Author

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

CHAPTER ONE

ANDREOS DEMETRIOS, his erect posture making no concession to the whirling blades of the helicopter from which he had just alighted, looked around, his piercing dark glance moving pointedly over and past his reception committee—a younger man standing beside the helicopter pad.

It was a deliberate snub, but nothing in the waiting man’s expression suggested that he was affronted by the action. His only response at all was the faintest of sardonic smiles as the older man pointedly turned his back to him.

People did not, as a rule, overlook Mathieu Demetrios. It wasn’t just his height—Mathieu topped six four—or his face, though more column inches than he cared to recall had been devoted to his classical profile, which many writers claimed, with what Mathieu considered a lack of originality, could have graced a Greek coin. No, what Mathieu Demetrios had was far less quantifiable; he had that rare indefinable quality—he had presence.

When Mathieu spoke people listened. When he walked into a room heads turned, people watched him—people, that is, who weren’t his father. The same father who was at that moment delivering a string of terse rapid instructions to the bespectacled man who had just disembarked with him from the helicopter.

Mathieu’s patrician features gave no hint of his feelings as, silver eyes narrowing, he silently observed the interchange. He held himself with natural grace, his body language relaxed as an updraft from the helicopter blades plastered his thin shirt against his body revealing the clearly defined musculature of his powerful shoulders and chest, the same squall tugging at his dark hair.

The man nodding respectfully as he listened to Andreos Demetrios was the only one of the trio who was made visibly uncomfortable by the tension and simmering hostility vibrating in the disturbed air.

Keeping one wary eye on his employer, he risked the Greek financier’s wrath by sending the younger man a tentative smile of sympathy before he hurried past him. It was hard to tell whether the gesture was either noticed or appreciated. Unlike his father, Mathieu Gauthier, or Demetrios as they must learn to call him, kept his cards pretty close to his chest and he definitely was not prone to the uncontrolled outbursts of emotion for which Andreos was famed.

If Mathieu Demetrios had been a different sort of man, the sort who looked as if he would appreciate well-meaning advice, he might have taken the younger man to one side and explained that the older man’s mood changes, though abrupt, could sometimes be diverted if you learnt to read the danger signs.

Even simply showing a little reaction to his father’s outbursts, excepting Mathieu’s usual cynical amusement or boredom, would help.

Opinion amongst employees who had to witness the conflict firsthand was split into two camps when it came to the subject of the uneasy relationship between Andreos and his heir apparent. Personally, his logical accountant’s brain could not allow him to believe that anyone would deliberately go out of his way to provoke Andreos Demetrios. No, he joined those who said it was a matter of perception, and someone who had hurled a formula-one car at speed around a track for a living as Mathieu Gauthier had could not be expected to perceive danger the same way normal mortals did.

It was only after the third man had left that the Greek financier faced his son. Andreos had read and reread the comprehensive report he had requested during the flight from the mainland searching for errors.

If there had been flaws in the report he would have found them; there were none. It was clear, concise and drew some unexpected but challenging conclusions, which only seemed obvious once they had been pointed out.

Challenging about summed up his eldest son. A nerve jerked in Andreos’s heavy jaw as his eyes, dark and contemptuous, swept upwards from the feet of the younger man to his face.

Only once in all their years of marriage had Andreos ever broken his vows of fidelity to the wife he adored; it was a moment he had regretted and been ashamed of ever since.

But to have the physical proof of that infidelity appear in the form of a sullen, self-contained male adolescent who did not further endear himself to his reluctant father by outperforming his legitimate half-brother in every way both intellectual and athletic had been a nightmare situation.

Ironically it had been his wronged wife, Mia, not Andreos, who had been able to welcome the motherless boy into their home with genuine warmth.

The noise of the helicopter engine faded at the same moment the men’s eyes locked—smouldering brown with cool grey.

They stayed that way for a long time.

The older man was the first to lower his gaze. A dull angry colour dusted his cheeks and heavy jaw and he addressed his son. He did not waste time on preliminaries.

‘You will cancel your little trip to …’ a spasm of irritation crossed Andreos’s heavy swarthy features as he trawled his memory ‘.wherever it was you were going.’

There was no trace of warmth or affection in his curt demand, but Mathieu did not expect it. His father had never made any pretence of affection, but before Alex’s death Andreos had not been as overtly hostile as he was now. But then before Alex’s death twelve months had been able to go by without father and his elder son meeting.

But Alex’s death had changed that.

It had, Mathieu reflected bleakly, changed a lot of things.

‘Scotland.’

‘Well, you can change your plans.’

It was not a suggestion. But then the head of Demetrios Enterprises, a global giant that had major interests in amongst other things IT and telecommunications—things had moved on since the days the family were merely Greek shipping millionaires—did not make suggestions.

Andreos Demetrios spoke and people jumped.

The recipient of this peremptory decree wasn’t showing any signs of jumping. Mathieu wasn’t doing anything; in fact he achieved a level of stillness that very few people ever managed. His eyes narrowed but it was impossible to tell what emotion lay concealed beneath the mirrored silver surface and his enigmatic expression was equally uninformative.

Not that Andreos in his turn seemed interested in his son’s response. After issuing his pronouncement the older man began to walk briskly up the winding white marble path that led to a massive villa complex that was built into the pink rock above the sparkling turquoise waters of the Aegean.

Andreos had reached the edge of the lush landscaped grounds that surrounded the villa when Mathieu caught up with him.

‘I am going to Scotland to stay with a friend; the plan is not flexible.’

The trip was only partly pleasure; Jamie had asked for his help. The banks were making unhappy noises and the fate of the highland estate his friend had inherited from his father the previous year hung in the balance.

Unless I come up with one hell of a business plan they won’t extend the loans, Mathieu. That means I won’t just be the MacGregor who couldn’t hack it as formula-one driver, I’ll be the MacGregor who lost the estate that has been in the family for five hundred years.

The older man swung back, his expression antagonistic. ‘Were going. Sacha and her mother are arriving tomorrow.’

Mathieu repressed a sigh, reflecting that he really ought to have anticipated this.

‘A fact you neglected to mention when you summoned me.’

The older man gave a thin-lipped smile. ‘It would be an insult to them if you are not here. There have been links between the Constantine family and ours for generations. My father and—’

‘And,’ Mathieu inserted, interrupting the history lesson, ‘there is no son in this generation to inherit and you hate the idea of the Constantine fortune slipping through your grubby fingers.’

A flash of anger darkened the older man’s heavy features. ‘And I suppose you would turn your nose up at it?’ he grunted.

‘I wouldn’t be prepared to marry a girl of nineteen to get it.’ A girl who had coincidentally been engaged to his younger brother. When he had first heard of the engagement, Mathieu had been inclined to view it with cynicism.

Not so much a marriage as a merger.

But Mathieu’s view had changed once he had seen the two youngsters together. They had been very obviously in love.

‘Sacha is a mature nineteen and you could do a lot worse. That actress, for instance, who was plastered all over you at that première. What was her name?’

Mathieu, not explaining it had been a stunt staged to gain publicity for a low-budget movie, dismissed the young starlet with a contemptuous shrug and admitted, ‘I have not the faintest idea.’

She had been and still was a total stranger, despite her offer to show him how grateful she was, a proposal he had said thanks, but no, thanks to.

His taste had never run to that sort of gratitude. The formula-one racing circuit attracted groupies like a magnet. Women who in his opinion represented everything that was bad about today’s depressing shallow, celebrity-obsessed society.

Mathieu had frequently been tempted to say to them, Go away, get a life, get some self-respect, but he hadn’t—any attention at all they took as encouragement. So he had gained a reputation for being aloof and unapproachable. He had changed careers but the reputation persisted. It was on occasion useful.

‘I read the wedding plans were at an advanced stage.’

Mathieu angled a dark brow at the sarcasm in his father’s voice and retorted lightly, ‘I should review the sort of newspapers you read if I were you, Andreos.’

‘You are not me.’

‘Nor even a paler version.’ He knew he took after his mother; he wondered sometimes if looking at him reminded his father of the young woman he had used and discarded.

‘So there is no one—you are not in love?’

Mathieu was not in love or actively seeking it. On the contrary, if he saw it coming he had every intention of running or at least walking swiftly in the opposite direction.

What was the all-consuming attraction of love anyway? A form of temporary insanity that made your happiness reliant on someone else’s smile?

The allure baffled him.

And anyway, the people he loved had a habit of dying.

No, falling in love was not on Mathieu’s list of things to do.

The only person he relied on was himself and that was the way he liked it.

‘I fail to see what business that is of yours, regardless of which I can think of few worse fates than to be married to a teenager, even a mature teenager.’

Andreos’s face darkened with displeasure. ‘I am not telling you to marry the girl.’

‘But you wouldn’t exactly be displeased if I did either, and in the meantime you will take every opportunity to throw us together. You are embarrassingly transparent.’

Andreos looked at him, his face dark with frustration. ‘The girl is Vasilis’s only child, his heir. Her husband would—’

Mathieu lifted a hand to still the flow. ‘I hardly need it spelt out; you are empire-building.’ His lips thinned in distaste. ‘Does the girl have any say in this?’

‘Do not look down your nose at me,’ Andreos barked. ‘And do not pretend you could not make this girl love you if you chose to do so. I have seen you with women.’

‘She is not a woman; she is a child.’

‘She was good enough for your brother.’

‘They were in love.’

‘You have taken everything else of his—why not his woman?’

The words hung in the air, building the tension between the two men, until Mathieu shrugged. ‘I never wanted anything of Alex’s.’

Except a share of their father’s love, but that desire had only lasted until Mathieu was sixteen. He had been living with his father for a year when an overheard conversation had made him recognise that was never going to happen.

Mathieu’s thoughts drifted back to the occasion in question. He had been walking past a half-open door. It was hearing his own name and the anger and frustration in his normally softly spoken stepmother’s voice that had made him pause outside …

‘The boy tries so hard, does everything you ask of him and more. Could you not just occasionally give him a word of encouragement? Would it kill you, Andreos, to smile at him? All Mathieu wants is your approval. He’s desperate for it. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at you. It breaks my heart.’

‘What you see in his eyes is naked ambition, Mia. Why can you not see that? The boy is hard, he is confrontational—’

‘You say you wish that Alex would stand up to you more.’

‘That is not the same thing. Mathieu doesn’t need love and kisses; he needs a strong hand.’

‘Not one raised in anger, I have told you that. If you ever—’

‘No, of course not. I told you I was sorry about that, Mia. You know I have never raised a hand to Alex; it’s just Mathieu lied and then, caught out in the lie, refused to apologise.’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Andreos, are you blind? It was Alex who broke your precious statuette and he was too scared to own up so Mathieu took the blame.’

‘No, no, you’re wrong! I don’t know what story he has told you, but—’

‘Not Mathieu, he didn’t say a word. It was Alex who told me about the beating and the broken statuette.’

‘Oh, goddamn that boy … he made me … the thing is, Mia, when he looks at me all I can think is that I wish he’d never been born.’

He had heard enough. Mathieu had moved on, in more ways than one. It had hurt at the time to hear the truth, but it was better to face bitter reality than live in false hope.

‘You will have to pass on my apologies. I’m expected in Scotland.’

A dark mottled colour rose up the older man’s neck until his face was suffused with angry colour. Mathieu watched the effect of his words with clinical detachment.

The truth of it was he had returned just over a year ago at his stepmother’s request, not his father’s. ‘Give it a year, Mathieu,’ she begged. ‘Your father needs you, though he’d never admit it.’

Mathieu was reluctant to shatter the illusion that he cared what his father needed, especially when she added, ‘And when I am gone he will need you even more. The company and the family,’ she reflected with a rueful roll of her eyes as she spoke of the Demetrios clan. ‘They both need a strong hand at the helm. He was grooming your brother for the role …’

A memory had surfaced in Mathieu’s head—Alexander sliding his small hand in his and saying earnestly, ‘I want to be just like you when I am older, Mathieu, even if it means Father doesn’t like me.’

‘Alex would have done it well,’ Mathieu lied.

Mia smiled and shook her head. ‘I appreciate your loyalty, but we both know that isn’t true. Alex hated business. He tried, of course, to please his father, but …’ She shrugged. ‘One day Andreos would have had to accept that Alex would never take his place, but sadly for us all that day never came.’

As Mathieu moved to enfold her in a comforting embrace, hiding his shock at the fragility of her birdlike frame, she grasped his hand tight and said fiercely, ‘Promise me, Mathieu, to help him even if he doesn’t want your help.’

So Mathieu had promised, and he had stayed after his promise to her had been fulfilled, not out of a sense of duty, but because against all the odds he was enjoying what he was doing.

‘You ingrate, you will do as I say or … or …’ Andreos raised his clenched fists from his sides and glared at the younger man with every appearance of loathing.

Mathieu, his calmness increasing in direct proportion to his father’s furious incoherence, raised a satirical brow. ‘You will disinherit me?’ he suggested.

‘And do not think I won’t.’

‘That is your decision.’

‘You expect me to believe you don’t care?’ Andreos let out a loud bellow of scornful laughter and shook his head. ‘That you don’t care about losing an empire worth billions?’

‘I don’t ask you to believe anything,’ Mathieu responded calmly. ‘Your empire is yours to give to whom you wish. I know you wanted to give it to Alex—’

‘Don’t you dare say his name. He was worth ten of you.’

Mathieu continued seamlessly in the same even voice as though there had been no interruption. ‘That is no longer possible. Alex is dead.’ An image of his half-brother’s smiling face flashed into his head and for a moment his sense of loss was so acute that he could not speak.

Alex, the indulged and adored only son, could have, should have, resented the bastard older brother who had suddenly appeared like a cuckoo in the gold-lined nest. But he had not. Alex’s disposition had been as sunny and generous as his smile.

‘I am the only son you have left,’ he said bleakly. ‘You wish to mould me into someone you think is fit to carry on your line.’ Mathieu’s smile revealed his total lack of regard for the illustrious family name he had inherited in his mid-teens. He had deliberately chosen to use his mother’s name when he began his racing career to distance himself from that name.

‘Well, I think we owe one another some honesty. I am not interested in your name, your line … your empire. I have a name of my own, and I am not some malleable child, Father. I was moulded, for better or worse, into what I am today a long time ago.’

The ruddy colour on the older man’s cheeks deepened to an alarming purple. ‘It is not my fault I did not know you existed … your mother … I brought you into my home after her death.’

Like a surgical knife Mathieu’s deep, clear voice cut across the older man’s blustering protest. ‘Her name was Felicite, and you will not speak of my mother. You lost that right years ago.’

The older man’s jaw dropped. He was not accustomed to being on the receiving end of commands. Nor was he used to seeing the glow of passion in the eyes of the son he had not known existed until he was fifteen years old.

‘I gave you everything …’

Except love. ‘I am not the son you want.’ Mathieu gave a philosophical shrug. ‘And you are not the father I would have chosen. But the fact is,’ he continued calmly, ‘I am the only son you have.’

The older Greek flinched as though struck and Mathieu added in a softer voice, ‘We both wish it otherwise.’

Anger flared in the older man’s eyes. ‘Wish it otherwise?’ he echoed, his lips twisted in a scornful grimace. ‘Your brother being killed as he was left you the sole heir … yes, your tears were most apparent at the time,’ he observed bitterly.

This was a subject they had tiptoed along the edge of many times and this time, like the others, it was Mathieu who drew back, though emotion surfaced and flared for a moment like silver fire in his heavy-lidded eyes before he responded with a moderate, ‘We both wish it otherwise but this is the situation we find ourselves in. I suggest we both learn to live with it.’

‘How dare you speak to me this way?’

Mathieu had learnt the hard way that showing emotion gave people the upper hand, but for once his iron control slipped and his emotions spilled out. ‘You mean not like the puppet dancing to your tune?’

Andreos visibly recoiled from the blaze of fury written in every line of his son’s patrician features. ‘I have given you everything.’

‘And everything you gave was given out of a sense of reluctant duty. You tolerate me only because it was Mia’s dying wish. Has it not occurred to you … Father, that my actions are similarly constrained?’

It was clear from the older man’s expression that he had not.

‘She was always kind to me even though my very existence must have caused her pain.’ He sucked in air through his flared nostrils and fought to regain his control. ‘And it is only in respect of her wishes that I did not leave after her death.’

Both men were silent as they simultaneously recalled the last painful months of her life, which Mia had endured with cheerful dignity that had humbled those who had been lucky enough to be around her.

‘As far as I am concerned the only thing you ever had going for you was the fact that a woman like that could love you. She must have seen something in you that I have not.’

‘I will be leaving for Scotland tomorrow. You must do as you wish, Father …’

CHAPTER TWO

HER family’s and friends’ opinions were unanimous; Rose had lost her mind. Only a total lunatic, they reasoned, would leave a comfortable life in the capital where she had friends, family and a stimulating job she enjoyed to bury herself miles away from anything that remotely resembled civilisation, not to mention any place that served a halfway decent coffee.

Her twin sister had been particularly vocal in her opposition. In fact, initially Rebecca had been unable to believe her twin was serious about the move. Then, faced with the black-and-white reality of her sister’s letter of resignation, she had stopped being amused and adopted a firm manner.

‘This is a massive overreaction, Rose. You fell in love with your boss.’ She lifted her slender shoulders in a so-what shrug. ‘Who hasn’t?’

Rose winced at the casual reference to Steven Latimer, protesting, ‘Becky!’ as her twin, who did dramatic with style, ripped up the letter and held out her hands as though her action settled the matter.

And Rose could see why she might think so. It was a classic case of someone believing their own press. Since they were children, people had been calling the more flamboyant Rebecca the dominant twin. It was probably only Rebecca’s husband, Nick, who recognised the true dynamics of the twins’ relationship.

‘Sure, Rose gives in to Becky, but haven’t you noticed it’s only on the little things?’ the shrewd New Yorker had observed. ‘Things that don’t actually matter. When it comes to something important, that she cares about, Rose could give a mule lessons in stubborn, though you don’t realise it because she says no with such a sweet smile.’ He had flashed his sister-in-law one of his own laconic smiles and winked.

At that moment—Rebecca had dragged him along to convince Rose of the error of her ways—he earned himself a black look by observing when appealed to for support by his wife that it was pretty much up to Rose what she did.

Rose would have been more grateful if he hadn’t added, for the record, that, yes, he did think that Steven Latimer was a lower form of human life.

Rose glared at her brother-in-law and picked up a piece of torn paper from the floor. ‘All I have to do is print out another copy, Becky.’

‘Is this about Latimer, Rosie?’ Nick interrupted. ‘Are you leaving because he is putting pressure on you? Because you don’t have to put up with it, honey. Nowadays employers take a very dim view of sexual harassment.’

Rose shook her head firmly. ‘Steven isn’t like that, Nick. He’s a very honourable man.’

‘I wonder if your marvellous Steven would be quite so honourable if his wife wasn’t the boss’s daughter?’

‘Becky, that’s not fair.’

‘Was it fair of him to tell you he was desperately in love with you?’

‘It wasn’t something he planned.’

‘In my opinion Steven Latimer plans everything. The man hasn’t a spontaneous bone in his body—which I admit isn’t bad.

He’s also the most calculating person I’ve ever met … and I’ve met a few.’

‘Steven might come over as a little ambitious sometimes.’

Her twin didn’t mince her words. ‘He’d sell his grandmother for a seat on the board.’

‘He went to Eton with a guy I know.’

Rose turned her head at the interruption. ‘Eton?’ Anyone else she might have accused of lying, but her brother-in-law was as straight as they came. ‘No, your friend must be mistaken. Steven went to an inner-city state school.’

‘Is that what he told you?’ Rebecca snorted, bending to pick up the shredded paper from the rug. Looking at her twin, she began to thread it between the perfectly manicured fingers of her right hand.

‘Why would he lie?’

‘Because he isn’t a nice man. The man you fell in love with only exists in your head, Rose,’ Rebecca said, tapping the side of her own blonde head with its new gamine crop. ‘He’s a self-serving bastard and you’re such a hopeless romantic.’ She sighed. ‘You know, I think you prefer a tragic unrequited love because it’s safer than the real thing—you’re a coward, Rose!’

Rose shook her head. This had been a hard decision to make but she knew it was the right one, no matter how Rebecca tried to twist things.

‘I’ve always wanted to go to the Scottish Highlands,’ she reminded her sister.

‘Go, not live,’ Rebecca exploded, running a frustrated hand over the hair. ‘I can’t believe you’re actually serious.’

‘I just need a break. This man needs his book collection catalogued. I only fell into the marketing job. I originally trained as a librarian—’

Rebecca gave an impatient snort. ‘Don’t try and pretend this is about musty old books, because we both know it isn’t. You’re running away; it’s a big mistake. For God’s sake, it’s not like anything happened …’ She stopped and gave her sister a sharp look. ‘Is it …?’

‘He’s married.’

Rose’s outraged expression had seemed to amuse her sister. ‘It has been known, Rose, for married people to have affairs,’ she taunted gently. ‘You do know you’re something of a rarity in the twenty-first century, don’t you?’

Rose had been stung by her sister’s affectionate mockery. ‘Because I won’t sleep with a married man?’

‘No, actually that doesn’t make you totally unique—even with my colourful history I might have a few qualms about that.’

Despite the levity in her sister’s tone Rose knew that she had strayed on sensitive ground. Rebecca could be pretty touchy about what she liked to call her ‘summer to forget’. It was a subject that by tacit agreement neither referred to.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that you’re …’

‘That I’m an abandoned hussy?’ Rebecca suggested with a twinkle. ‘Relax, Rosie, Nick knows all about my chequered history, don’t you, darling?’

Her tall husband stretched laconically and offered her a lopsided grin with his nod of wry agreement. ‘A paragraph,’ he announced with a hint of complacence. ‘My past would fill several volumes.’

Behind his teasing there was profound love and commitment that brought an emotional lump to Rose’s throat. Her sister had found the man of her dreams too. Why couldn’t Rebecca recognise that the only difference between them was that Nick had been available?

Was everything in life merely down to timing?

‘The Scottish Highlands! You know I can’t believe you’re actually serious about this. You’re mad, totally insane!’

Rose had defended her sanity but as a second sickening splintering sound issued from under her feet and the crack in the ice spread rapidly she was forced to consider the very real possibility Rebecca might have had a point.

Mathieu had risen early, long before anyone else in the house was awake. He enjoyed solitude, time to recharge his batteries and gather his thoughts without the distractions of phones and faxes, but moments like this one had become increasingly rare over the past months.

Not that he was complaining. Against all the odds he found he loved what he was doing, and he was learning all the time.

It was a steep learning curve, but he relished the challenge and knew that even if it ultimately proved impossible for him to work with Andreos he would take these new skills with him when he left.

And, on a less charitable note, in the meantime he had the pleasure of knowing Andreos, who had never disguised the fact that he didn’t think his bastard son had what it took, was struggling to hide his frustration when he hadn’t fallen flat on his face.

Yet, he corrected himself with a mocking grin. You know what they say about pride and falls, Mathieu.

Someone had recently asked if he hadn’t found the restrictions of riding a desk after the freedom of the racing circuit crushing. They had not understood why he had laughed, but like many they hadn’t had the faintest idea of the sort of physical and mental discipline both required to compete at the level he had.

They saw the glamour but not the struggle to remain at the peak in a competitive environment.

He slipped his rucksack from one shoulder to the other and rotated his neck to ease the tension that still remained in his shoulders. The chair in Jamie’s study was not designed with human posture in mind and he had worked long into the night, poring over the accounts, a flattering description for the collection of papers and illegible scribbles in the ledgers that Jamie had supplied him with.

They did not make for happy reading. Far from exaggerating the situation as he had suspected, Jamie had if anything underplayed the seriousness of his position.

It had been dawn when he had tackled the climb so, with any luck—his glance skimmed his watch—yes, he ought to make it back in time for breakfast and to place a few calls.

The post-climb general sense of well-being combined with the dregs of the adrenaline rush were still circulating in his blood as he made his way to the spot where he had parked the Land Rover. He glanced once more at the metal-banded watch on his wrist and quickened his pace already planning his strategy, though he suspected it would come down in the end to plan B. it was always good to have a plan B.

He was about half a mile from the Land Rover when movement in the periphery of his vision made him turn his head in time to see a red-hatted figure moving below. Someone else who enjoyed the morning, he thought, moving off again. He had reached a steep slope of scree directly above the loch when some instinct made him stop and seek out the distant figure.

‘Nobody is that stupid …’ He held his breath for a moment as the figure stepped out onto what he knew to be paper-thin ice.

He hit the ground running. He didn’t waste his breath shouting, knowing the person below would never hear him above the wind that whistled through the valley.

He was fifty yards away when the stillness was rent first by a loud cracking sound, then a woman’s scream. A final sprint brought him to the edge of the ice in seconds.

A girlfriend had once accused him of having too little imagination to be sensibly scared of anything, but she was wrong.

He just saw little benefit under the circumstances of wasting time to linger on the lurid details of death by drowning in cold, icy water. Instead as he pulled off his light padded outer jacket he scanned the ice estimating his chances.

His actions were swift but not hurried, his brain working out all the factors. It was his ability to think clearly in situations like this that had made him a successful racing driver. That combined with lightning reflexes, nerves of steel and, according to some of his competitors, more than his fair share of ruthless cunning.

Mathieu didn’t think of it in those terms, but he did know that his thought processes were at their sharpest when the stakes were high. Right now they were as high as they got—a life.

The situation did not allow for further preliminary evaluation so, sucking in a breath, he tucked his ice axe into the belt of his trousers and lay down flat on his belly to distribute his weight as evenly as possible on the thin ice. Then Mathieu began to crawl as quickly as possible towards the hole that stood like a gaping black wound in the silvered surface of the frozen water.

He saw the top of a red hat surface, heard the stifled yell and pushed himself faster regardless of the warning creaks of the fragile ice underneath him. He reached the edge of the gash in the ice in time to see the white hand vanish beneath the water.

He hauled himself to the edge of the hole and thrust his ice axe into the water. Relief flooded through him as it snagged on something. His face set in lines of grim determination, the sinews in his neck pulling taut, he began to pull.

Even as she opened her mouth to scream for help Rose was very aware that the chance of anyone being around to hear her was, at the most optimistic, remote.

The second scream of visceral fear remained locked in her throat as the ice beneath her feet opened up and she fell. She had never imagined that cold could be this extreme. It enveloped her, freezing the air in her lungs, its icy tentacles infiltrating every cell of her body. After the first paralysing shock she began to struggle, kicking out wildly in panic as she fought her way to the surface.

Rose was a good swimmer but the extremely low temperature of the water sapped her strength within minutes.

‘Help me,’ she screamed as she felt herself sliding beneath the surface. Cocooned in the icy darkness, aware only of the heavy thud of her own heartbeat as it continued to pump the oxygen-starved blood around her body, she refused to accept the inevitable.

I am not going to drown.

But she was.

Still Rose refused to accept the reality of it. Clinging stubbornly to the last flicker of hope, she kicked weakly for the surface even though she knew she wasn’t going to make it.

Only she did. Just as she had used up the last reserves of strength and her lungs were burning she felt something snag in her coat, then she was being dragged upwards.

Holding the bedraggled girl’s head above the icy water, Mathieu could just about make out her muffled words. The damsel in distress had reached the inevitable ‘what happened?’ phase. He didn’t waste his breath replying, though if she asked, ‘Who am I?’ he would have a harder time restraining himself. People called him a risk-taker, but any risks he took were of the clear-headed, calculated variety. If this girl wasn’t suicidal to pull a stunt like this she was … she had to be one of the most criminally stupid women ever to draw breath!

‘It is important to stay calm and not struggle,’ Rose heard the deep voice above her say.

Struggle. Was he joking? At the moment breathing required all her energy and each raw breath she dragged in through blue lips hurt.

‘When I pull you clear …’

Now that sounded like a good idea. It was also good that he hadn’t suggested she do this herself as her limbs were not responding to any requests; she couldn’t even feel them.

‘I’m just going to—’

‘Wait!’ Rose protested, lifting her head in panic as she felt herself pushed briefly clear of the relative security of the ice. ‘N-no … don’t.’

Her warning went unheeded.

‘I’m just going to put this rope around you. It’s all right, just be still.’

Rose felt the rope her rescuer had just looped under her arms tighten.

‘That’s it, you’re perfectly safe now.’ Mathieu said this with a confidence he did not feel.

He shot a glance over his shoulder towards the shore and safety. As he had crawled out there had been several moments when the ice underneath him had threatened to give way.

She could feel the heat of her rescuer’s breath on her icy cheek as he bent closer. Her nostrils flared in response to the clean male scent of his body overlaid with a light citrusy scent. He represented safety but she really felt she ought to warn him that pulling her out of the water might not be so easy.

‘S … s … seven to ten p … pounds …’ Shut up, Rose, you sound unbalanced.

‘Seven …?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Still, it would be kind of ironic in a dark sort of way if the amount of excess the magazines said she needed to shed if she wanted any shot at happiness in this world was the amount that tipped the balance.

What if her determination not to end up a victim to the prevailing fashion for unrealistically thin women ended up being the reason for her demise?

She laughed and above her a man’s voice advised her once more to stay calm. She opened her mouth to tell him she wasn’t the type to have hysterics when the ice gave another loud warning creak and she changed her mind.

Perhaps she was the type to have hysterics? Under these circumstances perhaps everyone was the type. Then she remembered the sound of her rescuer’s deep, calm voice, and thought maybe he was the exception, which was lucky for her.

The situation was better than he had dared hope—there were no new major cracks visible. However, only an insane optimist would expect this situation to last for long. The window of opportunity for this rescue was small.

He took a deep breath and, totally focused on the task ahead, smiled slightly. He knew what he had to do; there were no fuzzy lines, no protocol or politics to consider. It was a simple matter of survival; these were factors he felt comfortable working with.

Mathieu braced his knees on the thin ice beside the woman who had given a scared whimper. ‘Let’s do this.’ She had reason to be scared. He probably ought to be, but the adrenaline pumping in his bloodstream sharpened his reactions and dulled his caution.

Do what? Rose thought.

‘Are you ready?’

Roused by the sheer inanity of this comment, Rose lifted her head. ‘No, I’m not ready!’ The indignation died from her face as her full lower lip quivered. ‘I don’t want to die …’ Her voice trailed away as her eyes connected with those of her rescuer.

They were the palest grey, almost silver, slanted upwards in the corners, the heavy lids fringed by long, curling, sooty lashes. Even this close to descending into gibbering fear she registered in some portion of her brain that they were the most excruciatingly beautiful eyes she had ever seen in her life.

The sort of eyes that a doctor might prescribe for someone who had just had a near-death experience to look into: beautiful. The rest of his face was a blur as she concentrated on those beautiful eyes, but she had the impression of sharp angles and intriguing hollows.

There was a fractional pause before he responded calmly and for a moment she imagined she saw something flicker in the silvered enigmatic depths … recognition …? Which made no sense, because if she had ever met a man with those eyes she would not have forgotten!

‘Nobody is going to die. I’m going to lift you out of the water.’

He made it sound so easy. She nodded, thinking again of that seven to ten pounds. ‘What do you want me to—? Oh!’ The breath huffed out of her chest in a noisy gasp as she landed face down on the ice. She lay there and felt the tears leak from her eyes. ‘I’m not going to drown.’

‘Not if you do exactly what I say,’ came the not exactly comforting response. ‘Are you injured? Do you have pain?’

She lifted her head, wiping the water-darkened strands of hair from her cheek … the shore seemed an awful long way away. She shook her head. ‘Just cold and tired. If I could just rest for a minute …’

A hand under her chin jerked her head up. ‘Open your eyes. Now!’

She obeyed the imperative command and saw the man with the beautiful eyes was totally unmoved by the tears that welled up in her own eyes. She blinked; she wasn’t after a sympathy vote.

As her misty vision cleared she registered properly several more details of her rescuer’s appearance beyond his spectacular eyes. The hair that waved smoothly back from a broad brow and fell silky straight to his collar—had he been wearing one—was dark. The sable shade echoed in his dark winged eyebrows was complemented by a clear olive-toned complexion.

His patrician face was long with high, razor-sharp cheekbones and an angular jaw that was lightly dusted with a dark shadow of stubble. His nose was strong and aquiline and his mouth wide and mobile. Rose found the overtly sensual outline of his lips almost cruel.

He was the most incredibly good-looking male she had ever seen or even imagined and yet when she looked at him she found herself almost repelled by his male beauty. Well, what other emotion could be responsible for the uncomfortable, lurching, shivery sensation in her belly when she looked at his saturnine face?

‘You will not fall asleep.’

Rose wanted to ask if he really thought she was that stupid. But she didn’t have the energy and, besides, he probably did think just that. Instead she just nodded and asked, ‘What do I do?’

‘Keep flat, move slowly.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Trying is not good enough if you don’t want to kill us both. I will be behind you, but it is most important that we distribute our weight evenly, stay low and flat …’ he made a sweeping horizontal motion with one hand to indicate how he wanted her to move ‘… commando-style.’

‘Commando?’ Rose repeated, wondering if he did something along those lines for real.

Her glance skimmed the muscle-packed length of him. He had that lean, hard look that made it easy to imagine him being part of some élite group trained for covert operations. And then there was the air of authority. Not many people could give, let alone maintain, that kind of authority when lying belly down on thin ice!

‘You understand?’

She nodded. ‘But the rope … is it such a good idea …?’ She looked from the rope looped around her waist and followed it to his washboard-flat middle. ‘If anything goes wrong we are tied together.’ She didn’t want to be responsible for pulling this good Samaritan into the icy water.

‘Then we shall just have to make very sure that nothing goes wrong, won’t we?’ he inserted with the impatient air of someone not used to having his instructions questioned. ‘You are ready?’

She nodded, thinking there were some things a person was never ready for, but he had made it pretty clear she had very little choice.

The progress they made seemed torturously slow, though she knew it couldn’t have taken as long as it felt. Each time she felt she could go no further because her legs were shaking or she just couldn’t feel them her rescuer was there, encouraging her, though his encouragement at times bordered on coercion.

CHAPTER THREE

FINALLY on solid land, Rose simply lay there for several moments, too euphoric at being safe to even register the cold that every flutter of wind was driving deeper into her bones. Then, pulling her shaking knees up to her chest, she heaved herself into a sitting position, hugging her arms around her body.

The dark stranger was beside her. He had hunkered down to her level and was casually balancing on his heels with the inbred grace of a natural athlete.

‘Thank you so much; you saved my life.’

She found it slightly off-putting that there was not a flicker of expression in the spooky silver-grey eyes trained on her face.

‘I’m Rose, by the way, Mr …?’

Mathieu looked into the incredible amber eyes brimming with gratitude and innocent as a kitten, which could not be more different from the reckless, sexual challenge he recalled last seeing in those same eyes. If she intended to pretend they did not know one another it was nothing to him. He supposed it was just possible that she didn’t—his upper lip curled in fastidious contempt—she had been very drunk that night.

The win had clinched him the champion’s medal for the fourth year running. So for that reason alone the evening of the gala reception at the embassy would have lingered on in his memory, even if he hadn’t returned to his hotel room later that night to find a naked woman in his bed.

A woman who had smooth skin like cream, long hair the colour of pale caramel and golden eyes.

The golden eyes that were looking at him now.

‘Can you walk?’

She blinked at the abruptness of his question and the smile faded from her face. She was philosophical about the hostility in his manner. His life had just been put at risk because of her. He was bound not to look too kindly on the person responsible for his close encounter, although the level of cold disdain in his body language did seem excessive. He was looking at her as though she were something offensive on his shoe!

She attempted to struggle clumsily to her feet. ‘Of course.’

Mathieu, who had realised the moment he had formed the question that she could probably barely feel her limbs, never mind walk, ignored her optimistic assertion and bent to scoop her up. As he gathered her to him he was aware first of softness, then, before he had time to wonder at the heat that exploded inside him—cold, icy cold.

A glance revealed her skin had an unhealthy bluish tinge, which was hardly surprising considering what she had been through. He was well aware of the danger of hypothermia. It was imperative that she warmed up quickly.

‘I … what are you doing?’ Rose stuttered as she found herself slung unceremoniously over his shoulder.

‘Preventing you getting hypothermia. The Land Rover’s parked just up on the track,’ he explained, mentally assessing the time it would take him to reach it.

He didn’t say anything. Not another word until they reached the vehicle, which did not surprise her. What man could speak with an overweight—and that was dry—blonde over his shoulder? What did surprise her was that he could keep up a brisk running pace the entire way and still not be breathing very hard.

Pulling open the door, Mathieu dumped his shaking burden in the back seat before going around to the driver’s side and switching on the engine, sliding the thermostat on the heater to full.

‘Get the wet things off.’ He barely glanced in her direction before leaving the front of the Land Rover.

He returned a moment later carrying a metallic survival blanket and a heavy cable-knitted sweater, which he flung in the seat beside her. His dark brows drew into a straight line as he assessed her progress.

‘Did you not hear me? I said take those things off,’ he said, sliding into the driver’s seat and turning around.

Heater on full, the cab was hot, but Rose was still shaking. She actually couldn’t imagine ever stopping, ever being warm again. ‘Sorry. My fingers,’ she said, holding out the slim, pale tapering items under discussion apologetically; like the rest of her they were shaking. ‘I can’t f-feel them.’

His dark eyes slid from her face to her fingers. There was a tiny pause before he heaved a sigh that suggested exasperation. ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to do it for you.’

‘Do what?’ The dumb routine was a self-defence mechanism, because she knew if she let herself consider in any serious way what having this man remove her clothes, even in a totally clinical, I’m-saving-your-life sort of way, might feel like, she might do or say something terminally embarrassing.

There was a blast of cold air in response to her question, then another as the passenger door opened and he slid in beside her so close that their thighs touched and slammed the door shut.

The thigh beside her own had all the give of a steel bar. He was an extremely tall, athletically built man and pretty much all of him looked equally hard. He was the sort of man who could make an auditorium seem small!

This was not an auditorium, it was a hot, steamy tin box on wheels, and it wasn’t just his physical presence that made it uncomfortable to share the enclosed space with him, it was the raw sensual energy that cloaked him like a second skin. Though she couldn’t help noticing that his first skin was pretty special.

Embarrassed by the direction of her thoughts, she flicked a sideways glance at his classical profile, her nostrils quivering as she tried not to inhale the subtle male scent of his body. His presence made it impossible to concentrate on anything else but … well, anything but him!

He was totally overpowering and not at all, she reflected, trying to co-ordinate her actions, a comfortable man to be around. When their glances connected, his slightly impatient, she looked away biting her lip because she knew she was acting like some gauche schoolgirl.

For God’s sake, Rose, anyone would think from the way you’re acting that the man is trying to seduce you.

She swallowed and lifted her head determined to match his pragmatic manner as he shifted in his seat so that they were facing one another.

She suddenly laughed.

One dark brow lifted. ‘What is so funny?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ It was hardly the right moment to inform him that she’d just realised this was the first time she’d been in the back seat of a car with a man.

Rebecca would say her education had been sadly neglected. Rebecca would probably have a point. Some people were simply not born with the reckless, exciting gene and she was one of them. Neither was she particularly highly sexed.

This man probably knew his way around the back seat of a car, she mused, studying his lean, autocratic face through the shield of her lashes, though he had probably moved on from the nursery slopes of fumbling long ago. Nowadays she doubted her imagination stretched to cover the things he could find his way around.

It was some comfort that he definitely didn’t seem as if he wanted to do any of those things with her. She stared at his sinfully sexy mouth. Of course, she didn’t want him to leap on her or anything, but she wouldn’t mind knowing just once what it would feel like to be the sort of woman who made a man’s mind turn to such things.

She could always ask Rebecca, who was such a woman, or maybe lose half a stone.? His terse voice broke into her rambling thoughts.

‘Lift up your arms.’

Rose would have broken contact with those disturbing eyes if she could have but they exerted a strange, almost hypnotic hold.

‘Look, this really won’t be necessary.’ She was dismayed to hear her voice emerge as a breathy whisper without a trace of the amused competence she had intended to inject into it. ‘I’ll change when I get home.’

To her consternation, instead of taking the opportunity to rid himself of her, his body language having made perfectly clear that was what he wanted, he sketched a cynical smile that lifted the corners of his wide mobile mouth.

‘Don’t worry, yineka mou, I’m quite willing to take it as read that you’re incredibly modest.’

Rose was bewildered both by the smile and the distinct undercurrent of scorn in his voice. But the drawled endearment explained the fascinating but faint foreign inflection in his voice she would have puzzled over later when reliving the encounter.

He was Greek, and rude.

Her smile was warmer than it might have been because the latter observation made her feel pretty much an ungrateful wretch—if it hadn’t been for this rude Greek she would most likely now be in a watery grave.

The acknowledgement sent a shiver, stronger than the others that intermittently overcame her, down the length of her spine. She looked at his mouth—it was frankly hard not to—and smiled without as much conviction this time because somehow she found his mouth deeply disturbing, and said, ‘You’re Greek?’

‘Half Greek, half French … did you not read my bio?’

‘Your bio …?’ she parroted, no longer even trying to follow him.

She closed her eyes and leaned back with a weary sigh. Even though she was no longer looking at him she was still very aware of his presence. Considering she had only studied his features briefly, she appeared to have memorised every detail of his extraordinary face. Even with her eyes closed every strong angle and plane was etched into her brain.

‘Most do,’ he observed drily.

And having read all the stuff on the websites, and the reams of nonsense that were printed about him, these women thought they knew him.

He had never fathomed why these women were so drawn to celebrity; something, he reasoned, had to be missing in their own lives that they spent so much of their time fantasising about a total stranger.

‘Sorry, I don’t read as much as I’d like to. If you could just drop me off …’ Her voice trailed off.

Curses sounded like curses in any language and presumably the ones that fell fluently from his lips would have made a less unrestrained Greek blush.

He dragged a hand through his dark hair and regarded her closed eyes with exasperation tinged by concern. ‘You cannot fall asleep!’

‘Sorry … no, of course.’ Her blue-veined eyelids lifted as she gave her head a little shake. ‘I’m really grateful, you know,’ she told him as she tucked her hands under her legs. The circulation was returning to her fingers, and they were throbbing painfully.

‘I think you saved my life,’ she said, rocking forward as the throbbing intensified.

‘What you did was criminally stupid.’

Rose bit her lip, but she supposed that under the circumstances he had earned the right to speak to her as though she were some not too bright child.

‘I’d ask what you were thinking of, but clearly you weren’t thinking.’

‘There was a fox …’ She could only assume that when the ice had cracked it had escaped, or maybe it had never even been stuck …?

‘I saw no fox.’ He dismissed the animal in question with a regal wave of his hand. Clearly he hadn’t seen it, so it couldn’t have been there—not a man who spent a lot of time agonising over self-doubt.

‘Which doesn’t mean it wasn’t there,’ she pointed out.

‘I saw no animal.’ Just a woman determined, it seemed, to end her life. Mathieu relived the moment he had seen her vanish beneath the icy water and his simmering anger surged. ‘What sort of person would walk out onto paper-thin ice to rescue a fox?’

The sort of person who had to switch channels when there was a wildlife programme where the makers did not intervene—and they could have—even though the weak, injured or just unlucky animal was about to meet a slow, lingering or occasionally violent and savage end.

She could have explained this, but she doubted he would be interested. Clearly what he wanted, and given the circumstances deserved, was a grovelling apology along the lines of, ‘I’m insane and you’re incredible.’ Which he was if your taste ran to macho alpha males.

‘If this was some sort of stunt to get my attention again …? It worked.’

‘Stunt?’ she echoed, blinking up at him. ‘Again?’ she added, her voice lifted in confused enquiry.

‘I’m assuming this act is because I hurt your pride?’

‘Pride …?’ She was too confused to do anything more than echo what he said as she met his laserlike stare warily. The man really did have eyes that looked as though they could see into your skull and read your thoughts, which was disturbing because some of the thoughts that popped into her head when she looked at him were not ones she would have felt comfortable sharing.

Least of all with the person they concerned.

Did he inspire lust in all women he met or was she particularly susceptible? Maybe a person could only suppress their libido for so long before it rebelled?

‘When I threw you out,’ he prompted. It was a pity she had not displayed a little of this pride when she had offered herself to him.

Her eyes widened. ‘Threw me out …?’

‘Of my hotel room, my bed …’

Her jaw hit her chest and for a moment she forgot about her throbbing fingers. ‘Why would I be in your room or …’ she swallowed and gulped ‘… bed? I don’t even know you.’

‘Look, I’m willing to humour you and pretend if that is what you wish—we’ve never met before, OK.’ The scornful smile that twisted his lips vanished as he added, ‘But I’m not willing to let you die of hypothermia, not after all the effort to get you out of the loch.’

Rose swallowed. He really did have the hardest eyes she had ever seen. ‘I think you must have mistaken me for someone else.’ She struggled not to show her concern.

Had she just got into a car with a dangerous lunatic? It was starting to seem like a strong possibility.

A hissing sound of exasperation escaped his white, clenched teeth. ‘Look, if you want to pretend you did not bribe your way into my hotel room, that is fine by me, and I’m not suggesting for a moment that you don’t do this gushing, sweet, innocent act very well,’ he conceded nastily. ‘But it might be more productive if you save it for a man who hasn’t seen you naked.’

‘What? Naked?’ Her hands came up in a protective gesture across her breasts. It would take a woman who was either very brave, or very beautiful, to parade naked in front of a man as physically perfect as this man.

And she was not that woman.

‘You have never seen me naked.’ It didn’t matter how many near-death experiences she had, that was something she would not have forgotten.

‘Well, if you’re going to be pedantic I wasn’t counting the stockings and stilettos.’

The visual image in her head that accompanied his husky concession sent the mortified blood rushing to her cold cheeks. ‘Look at me.’ Her shrill invitation was unnecessary because he already was and not in a way she liked. ‘I’ve never worn stockings in my life, not even hold-ups …’ He’s accusing you of being a predatory tart and you take the time to tackle the stockings issue—sure, that makes perfect sense, Rose.

‘I do not forget a face or a body,’ he added, his eyes dropping to the upper slopes of her full creamy breasts. ‘Your body has … ripened,’ he admitted. ‘And the blush is a new addition to your repertoire … it’s good.’

‘I do not have a repertoire.’ The smouldering sexual insolence in his bold stare started a chain reaction that began low in her belly. In a matter of seconds her entire body was involved. If she hadn’t been sitting down her legs would have folded under her. She couldn’t believe that she had reacted this way to a casually lecherous stare.

‘The weight suits you.’ The woman in his bed at the hotel had possessed the lean, angular, borderline androgynous build that models aspired to. It had crossed his mind at the time that she would have undoubtedly looked more attractive with her clothes on.

The same could not be said now.

‘Look, you’ve had your joke, but enough is enough,’ she said, even though one look at his expression made it clear he hadn’t. It seemed probable, going on what she had seen of him so far, that he wouldn’t know a joke if he fell over it.

‘We’ve never met, I promise you.’

‘I’ve encountered a lot of groupies but you stood out.’

‘Groupie …’ Best to treat this all as a joke. Co-operate, keep him happy and the quicker she’d be back at Dornie House, and after that she’d never have to see this man again.

She wasn’t getting very far with denial so she tried a different tack. ‘Sure, I eat men like you before breakfast.’ Her mocking grin slipped as an erotic image flashed into her head.

A man, his face hidden by the curtain of hair of the woman who sat astride him, lying naked on the tumbled silken bedclothes of a vast bed. His fingers were wound into the bars of a metal headboard and entwined with those of the woman. Deep fractured moans were issuing from his throat as the bed creaked under their combined weight. The woman’s hair fell back and.

Rose sucked in a sharp breath. Oxygen starvation, that was the only explanation she could think of for the lurid erotic fantasy that had crawled out of her subconscious.

‘But you’ll be pleased to hear that drowning has had a dampening effect on my libido.’

Mathieu, dragging his eyes from the heaving outline of her breasts, swallowed. It was a pity he could not say the same for his own libido. He could only assume it was the adrenaline that was still circulating in his blood now the danger was past … though adrenaline caused a flight-or-fight reaction and he felt no compelling urge to do either.

‘It’s put me right off my daily diet of reluctant men. So you’re quite safe.’

He gave a triumphant smile. ‘So you admit that you are that woman.’

She clamped her lips together. ‘No, I damned well don’t.’

‘There’s no need to yell. Your secret is safe with me. Relax.’

Was he mad? ‘Would you relax if someone suggested you were their rejected one-night stand?’

‘What do you object to—the one-night-stand tag or the rejection? And for the record I do not do one-night stands.’

She saw the spark of anger in his eyes and thought, Great, it’s all right for him to take offence. ‘That’s what I’m saying, neither do I. I don’t …’ She stopped, remaining immobile as he bent forward and unzipped her jacket.

He lifted his head and their eyes connected. Without a word he slid it off her shoulders.

‘Lift up your arms.’

Without thinking Rose obeyed his command this time and her sodden sweater was peeled away. Brushing a heavy hank of water-darkened caramel-blonde hair from her eyes, she looked at the sweater as it fell onto the floor of the Land Rover. The tee shirt she had worn underneath had come away with it.

She was sitting there stripped to the waist in nothing but what felt like acres of bare goose-pimpled flesh and her pink lace bra that had definitely seen better days. She saw his eyes drop and like a tide the hot, mortified colour washed over her skin.

Mathieu’s gaze slid upwards over her body. By the time he reached her heavy breasts encased in a light lacy bra through which the dark circles of her nipples were clearly visible the dull throb of blood in his temples had become a pounding roar.

Every instinct Rose possessed made her want to cover herself but that would be as good as saying she was not comfortable with her own body, that she had something to be ashamed of, whereas it was him, the sleaze, she thought wrathfully, who should feel guilty for ogling.

‘I thought you’d seen it all before,’ she snapped when the moment of paralysing embarrassment had passed.

His head came up with a jerk. Rose registered the dark colour scoring the crests of his sculpted cheekbones and then their eyes connected.

His smoky stare sent a fresh quiver of sexual awareness through her body. This had to be about the near-death experience; she didn’t react like this to men … not even Steven. And they had worked in close proximity most days.

Very close sometimes, which was part of the reason she had left. But a small part, because she had never feared not being able to control herself. The real reason was she felt guilty, ashamed because she had feelings for a married man.

If she had to work with this man on a daily basis, have his hand brush hers, feel his breath on her neck as he bent over her desk to read a report as Steven had done many times …? Rose shuddered. The horrifying imaginary scenario made her want to crawl out of her skin.

‘Don’t be embarrassed. The extra padding has gone to all the right places.’

Padding! Rose gritted her teeth. She was comfortable with her weight. She knew she was never going to be a size eight, basically because she would never starve herself and become a gym junkie like Rebecca to achieve it, but there was a line. And he had just crossed it.

She embraced the anger, gritting her teeth, and gave him a steady look. ‘You’re too kind.’

‘No, I’m not. I’m not kind at all.’

Looking into his spooky pale eyes, Rose believed him. She shivered and lowered her gaze.