Passionate Playboys: The Demetrios Bridal Bargain / The Magnate's Indecent Proposal / Hot Nights with a Playboy. Элли Блейк
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other matters have been brought to my attention.’
‘What matters?’
He started moving objects around his desk, not quite meeting her eyes. ‘I have given the matter some thought since yesterday.’ He gave a sigh and lifted his head. ‘And unfortunately I have concluded it would be quite unsuitable for a woman of your …’ He stopped, clearing his throat.
‘A woman of my what?’
Lips pursed, his eyes cold behind the horn-rimmed glasses as they slid from hers, he said, ‘This is a small community; there are no secrets. Your exploits, Rose, will soon be common knowledge.’
‘Exploits?’ Rose echoed, still in the dark.
‘The people here are old-fashioned and as an incomer I have to respect their values. I did have some concern initially about having such a young woman living here,’ he admitted, and Rose thought, God, does every man I meet think I’m out to ravish him? ‘But as you are well qualified I put my concerns to one side. Now, of course, that is out of the question given your dubious history …’
Rose laughed. She couldn’t help herself, the idea was so ludicrous. Then it hit her in a blinding flash. Her eyes narrowing, she asked in a dangerously calm voice, ‘Have you been talking to Mathieu Demetrios?’ So much for ‘your secret is safe with me’— he hadn’t been able to wait five minutes to spread his vile lies.
The worm! Not content with humiliating her personally, he had set out with what had to be deliberate malice to ruin her reputation, or, as it happened, Rebecca’s. What a sly, vindictive bastard. If she had ever needed confirmation on her decision not to reveal the case of mistaken identity, she had it.
All she stood to lose was her job and she had.
‘Of course, I will pay you until the end of the month.’
She would have been the first to advise anyone who found themselves in a similar situation to maintain a dignified silence, take the money that she was due and put the entire episode down to experience.
It was excellent advice, but Rose had found herself unable to refrain from telling her erstwhile employer that she wouldn’t touch his money with a bargepole, and he wasn’t likely to repeat the offer—not after she had been pretty frank when she had offered her opinion of him.
Rose asked the driver to wait, which was probably reckless considering her financial situation, but when she made her big exit she didn’t want to have it fall flat because she had to beg a lift to the station.
It was not a uniformed flunky who opened the vast oak-studded door, but Jamie MacGregor’s sister home for the school holiday. Her look of shock when she saw Rose morphed into a wary smile.
‘Oh, hi. I saw you yesterday. You might not have seen me,’ she added awkwardly.
Rose was too preoccupied to wonder at the teenager’s odd manner. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘You work for Mr Smith.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Do you want Jamie?’
‘I want Mathieu.’
The young girl registered Rose’s gritted teeth, angry eyes and flushed teeth and gave a nervous giggle.
‘I’m afraid … the thing is I don’t think that …’
Rose cut across her. ‘I don’t give a damn if he’s busy or unavailable or anything else because I intend to see him whether he wants to see me or not.’
‘I, really, they’re—’
‘I want Mathieu.’
‘I am quite naturally flattered.’
‘You shouldn’t be,’ Rose snapped, tilting her head up to a combative angle to glare at the tall figure that had materialised at the girl’s shoulder.
She blinked as her gaze travelled up from his gleaming handmade leather shoes to his glossy head. This was the first time she had seen him dressed in anything so formal as a suit and tie. And not just any suit. She was no expert, but it was obvious even to Rose that the dark grey single-breasted number was no more off the peg than the body it covered, and she had to admit Mathieu looked nothing short of breathtakingly spectacular in it.
Some men relied on power suits to give them presence. Mathieu didn’t need to; he had more presence than any man ought to be allowed.
Enough presence to make her slightly dizzy when she stared at him.
Then don’t stare.
Damned good recommendation, but not one Rose could observe. It would have been nice, she thought wistfully, to find something … one tiny flaw she could criticise.
But there was none.
He looked tall and impressive, the discreet tailoring of the dark, beautifully cut jacket emphasising the powerful breadth of his shoulders. It hung open revealing a crisp white shirt made of a fabric fine enough to show a faint shadow of the body hair on his chest, sending her stomach into a lurching dive.
‘What are you doing lurking like that?’ Her nerves found release in snapping antagonism.
He arched one brow sardonically. He loosened his tie and allowed his eyes—actually, it was not something over which he had much control—to wander over her soft feminine curves before explaining. ‘I’m on my way to Edinburgh.’
There were occasions when being a Demetrios had its advantages, and he had the financial clout that went with the name to arrange a meeting at a few hours’ notice with the bank that was threatening to pull the plug on Jamie and the ailing estate.
The phone calls had gone pretty much as he had anticipated. The money men had been negative initially. They’d liked his plan, called it innovative and daring, but the bottom line, they had explained, was it was too late in the day.
‘Of course, Mr Demetrios, if someone else was willing to invest … share the risk the bank has already taken …?’
That too had been a response Mathieu had anticipated. He had made only one stipulation. Jamie, he had explained to them, must never know who his new investor was.
Mathieu looked thoughtfully down at the flushed angry face of his visitor and bent his head. ‘Fiona, I think Jamie was looking for you,’ he said without taking his eyes off Rose.
With a show of reluctance and several curious looks the young girl left them.
‘Can I come in or should I go around to the tradesmen’s entrance?’
He bowed slightly from the waist and stepped back for her to enter the hallway. ‘I think, yes,’ he said, pushing open one of the heavy doors that led off the vaulted hallway, ‘we can be private in here.’
‘Oh, very big on confidentiality all of a sudden, aren’t we?’ she muttered, following him inside the room.
She vaguely registered the oak-panelled walls, and the obligatory stag’s head on the wall, but her attention was concentrated on the figure who preceded her.
Nothing she could say was likely to make him feel guilty; wrecking lives was probably one of the highlights of his day.
She watched as he bent to throw a log from the stack beside the vast stone fireplace on the fire that brightened the gloomy room.
The log crackled into fiery life. So did her temper when he turned around, set his shoulders to the jutting stone mantle and said politely, ‘Is there something I can help you with, Rose?’
‘You could drop dead.’ She clamped her lips to prevent any further childish retorts that gave him the opportunity to look down at her in that superior way from escaping.
‘How things change,’ he bemoaned, his eyes glimmering mockery as he casually pulled the tie from around his neck. ‘And I thought you were different, Rose.’