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

‘Then you were a …’

‘A bastard—yes, I am.’ Her embarrassed flush brought his mocking smile to the surface.

‘And you had no contact with him … your father … when you were young?’ A pucker appeared on her smooth brow. ‘Surely he gave your mother financial support.’

‘It was only after my mother’s death that I learned who my father was.’

‘Didn’t you ask? Weren’t you curious?’ It seemed inconceivable to Rose that anyone would not want to know their roots.

He shook his dark head, his expression remote as though his thoughts were in another time and place. ‘We were fine as we were, just the two of us.’

‘Did he know?’

‘About me? Apparently not. I went to live with him six months after she died.’ He related the information in a flat, expressionless tone … well, having revealed this much there seemed very little point holding back now. Dieu , what was it about this woman that activated some previously dormant soul-bearing gene in his make-up?

She met his eyes. All she could see was her own reflection in the mirrored silver surface. His expression, in stark contrast to the blaze of white-hot emotion that had been written there moments earlier, was inscrutable. ‘It is sad, your mother being alone …’

‘She wasn’t alone; she had me.’

‘How old were you when she died?’

‘Nearly fifteen.’

‘And that six months before you went to live with him?’

Mathieu ran a hand over his jaw and nodded. It was years since he had even allowed himself to think about that time in his life. There was something almost liberating about allowing himself to share these private recollections.

‘I stayed on in the flat and I worked as a construction labourer to pay the rent.’ These were things he had never told anyone— not even Jamie, his best friend.

‘But you were fifteen,’ Rose exclaimed, her eyes round with shock.

‘I was tall for my age.’

‘That’s not what I meant. You were a child—you shouldn’t have been alone that way. You should have been at school.’

‘I didn’t go to school when she got ill, and afterwards …’ He gave a careless shrug. ‘I suppose I fell through the cracks. Look,’ he said, changing the subject abruptly, ‘whether you believe it or not, I am sorry you lost your job, but I have no vacancy that would suit your qualifications.’

‘I’m a qualified librarian, but I haven’t always worked with books.’ As she looked at him Rose was unable to shake the image from her head of him as a lonely little boy forced first to care for his dying mother and then to fend for himself. Her tender heart ached when she thought about it.

‘I know what you’re good at,’ he said, his eyes lingering on her lush mouth as he once again was overwhelmed with the urge to kiss it, ‘and that I can get it for free.’

Mathieu moved his head to one side just a split second before her hand would have connected with his cheek. He caught her wrist and surprised her almost as much as he did himself by bringing it up to his mouth and brushing the smooth blue-veined inner aspect of her wrist with his lips.

Eyes wide, she released a small cry and pulled back. Mathieu released his hold and watched as she nursed her hand against her heaving breasts.

‘Sorry, that was a cheap crack.’ And he had made it to drive the look of compassion from her face. If there was one thing he could not tolerate, it was pity.

Rose’s head came up; he had sounded genuinely regretful.

‘And not true,’ he continued. ‘Nothing is for free in this world.’

This cynical outlook caused her brow to furrow, but she bit back her instinctive protest.

‘We all of us do things we regret in life. It is not helpful to be reminded of them constantly, especially when you have obviously made an effort to turn your life around.’

My God, this was priceless. Rose Hall, the fallen woman, trying to live down her past … what would he say if he knew the truth?

Rose would have laughed if her ironic appreciation hadn’t been severely dented by her response to the light seductive touch of his lips on her skin. Being this close to him short-circuited any sense of self-preservation she had left.

She pulled her hand away, but the sensitised skin of her wrist carried on tingling.

‘You’re offering me some sort of grudging pardon?’

Forgiveness from Mathieu Demetrios. A man who by all accounts had hardly led a blameless existence.

‘That’s really big of you,’ she responded with a smile of dazzling insincerity. ‘But for your information I haven’t done anything I’m ashamed of … well, not the anything you’re talking about anyway.’ She stopped. ‘Are you listening to me?’

The disturbing smile twitched the corners of his lips as he shook his head and confessed, ‘No … I was having a Eureka moment.’

‘What are you looking at me like that for?’

‘I have thought of a position that you might be suited for. Yes, the more I think about it …’ His narrowed eyes travelled from the tip of her glossy fair head to her toes and back again. He slowly nodded. ‘Yes, you might just do.’

‘Do what? What are you talking about?’

‘You need a job; I need …’ He paused, a smile that filled her with deep distrust spreading across his lean features. ‘I have a vacancy.’

‘A vacancy for what?’ She had demanded a job on impulse and had not for an instant expected him to come up with the goods. She still wasn’t sure he wasn’t just messing with her.

‘You’re choosy suddenly.’

‘What is this position?’

‘I need a fiancée.’

In the act of brushing a strand of hair from her cheek, she froze dead. ‘You need a fiancée?’ she repeated flatly. He said it the same way someone else would say they needed more petrol.

‘Before you get excited …’ Too late, she already was if the heaving bosom was any indicator. ‘The position,’ he explained, dragging his reluctant gaze upwards, ‘is purely temporary.’

Rose pointed to her face with a not quite steady hand. ‘What you are seeing is not excitement,’ she told him. ‘This is fear of being in the same room as an insane person.’

The man was quite definitely off his head, but, that being a given, his mental state was apparently more stable than her own. For a split second there she had almost allowed herself to consider his offer. Not in a serious way but thinking about it in any way at all was worrying.

‘If you need a fiancée I suggest you put an ad in the situations vacant column.’

Or announce it on any street corner and you’ll be mobbed, she thought, watching as his lips curved into a smile that was almost as dangerous as the gleam in his incredible metallic eyes. As her eyes lingered on the sensual curve of his lips heat exploded somewhere deep in her belly and radiated outwards and downwards.

Deeply ashamed of the heavy ache low in her pelvis, she struggled to school her features into a bland mask that gave no hint—she hoped—of the physical reaction over which she had no control. The wave of colour that washed over her skin she couldn’t hide; she just hoped he attributed it to anger.

‘Let me explain …’

Rose didn’t want explanations; she wanted the nervous excitement fluttering in her stomach and causing her mouth to grow dry to subside.

Feeling the panic rise, Rose assured herself what was happening was no big deal. It was normal. He was an incredible-looking man. It was just shallow physical attraction, nothing to get worked up about … just biology. Something over which you had no control, like a sneeze.

Think sneeze, Rose.

It wasn’t easy to stand there and think sneeze when you were looking up at someone who was just possibly the most incredible-looking man on the planet.