Passionate Playboys: The Demetrios Bridal Bargain / The Magnate's Indecent Proposal / Hot Nights with a Playboy. Элли Блейк
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‘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.’
‘At least you now admit it is your personal life.’
Rose rolled her eyes in frustration. What was the point denying it when he obviously wasn’t going to listen?
‘I can see that it must have been a shock, but I’m sure you will agree in retrospect that getting drunk and sleeping with strangers was not the wisest response,’ he continued.
‘You have obviously never been in love.’ She studied his lean face with dislike, and thought it was a safe bet that there had been droves of women who fancied themselves in love with him.
Blinded by his exotic heritage, dark devastating looks and charismatic smile, not to mention the raw sex appeal he exuded from every pore.
‘You feel equipped to make this assumption because …?’
Rose blinked. ‘You’ve been dumped?’ She gave a laugh of total incredulity as her glance travelled up the long, lean length of him. ‘Now that I don’t believe.’
His lips twitched and a gleam that she deeply distrusted entered his dark eyes. ‘It might be that not everybody finds me as irresistible as you do.’
‘For a man with power, position and money a lot of women would be willing to overlook a good many flaws.’
‘You are not very charitable to your sisters.’
‘I doubt if I have anything in common with your lovers.’ Thinking of them did not improve her mood. ‘You know, it would serve you right if I went around telling everyone that you were awful in bed …’ If she had a reputation she might as well use it.
Rose was startled when her threat drew what seemed like a totally genuine laugh from him … genuine and attractive, she thought, very conscious of the butterfly-wings sensation low in her belly. It was the brandy on an empty stomach, she told herself.
‘You think I’m joking?’ she asked him belligerently. ‘I would, you know.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’m sure you would. The only problem is I think you’re assuming I have a fragile male ego. I don’t. I imagine,’ he mused, not smiling, ‘it is partly to do with genetics and—’
‘And partly,’ she cut in contemptuously, ‘to do with every woman in your life telling you how perfect you are.’ Poor deluded idiots. ‘Newsflash, Mathieu, women lie.’
‘You being the exception.’
‘Well, I’m not about to tell you you’re perfect,’ she promised grimly as she rose to her feet with slightly wobbly dignity. ‘I’ve said what I came to, I’m going now and I just … no.’ She broke off and lifted her blazing eyes to his before placing her shoulder bag very firmly on top of her case beside the chair. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ No way, that would be letting him off too easily.
She had come here to vent her feelings and hopefully prick his conscience, but she could see now that it had been naïve of her to expect him to exhibit some remorse. The man was a total stranger to compassion.
‘You messed up my life—you can put it right.’
The smile was wiped from his face. A spasm of distaste contorted the perfectly proportioned contours of his lean features. ‘And how much will this putting right cost me?’
‘Cost?’ She stared up at him in bewilderment. Then as his meaning sank in the colour left her cheeks as a wave of revolted fury washed over her. This hateful man couldn’t open his mouth without insulting her.
‘You think I’m asking you for cash? I wouldn’t take money off you if I were dead,’ she declared in a quivering voice.
He looked down at her for a moment, his expression considering. ‘If that were the situation money wouldn’t do you much good, but as you are very much alive …’ His eyes moved from the sparkling scorn in her bright eyes, and touched the soft fullness of her lips before sliding slowly across the smooth opalescent skin of her slender throat.
‘I don’t want your money; I want a job,’ she declared.
He looked perplexed by her explanation. ‘A job?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘YES, I want a job, the thing I had until you decided to slander me to anyone that would listen.’
‘I haven’t slandered you to anyone, I told you—’
Rose cut off his weary explanation with a bored wave of her hand. ‘Yeah, yeah … It seems to me that under the circumstances it’s the least you could do.’
‘Slander is a crime.’
Rose shrugged, lowered her eyes from his lean face and thought looking sinfully seductive and dangerous ought to be one too.
‘And I’m sure you have a team of lawyers who make damned sure that nothing you don’t like ever gets said or printed about you.’
‘That might not be such a bad idea,’ he conceded.
‘Are you laughing at me?’ she asked, studying his solemn expression