‘I’m sure you still have an entourage of hangers-on and people willing to treat your every stupid pronouncement as wise and wonderful. Men like you always do.’
‘Have you known a lot of men like me?’
‘No, I’ve been lucky that way, though if I saw any coming I’d cross to the other side of the street.’
He pursed his lips and loosed a long silent whistle. ‘Someone got out of bed the wrong side this morning.’
‘This morning I had a bed.’
He levered himself off the stone mantle and took a step towards her. ‘And you don’t now?’
‘No, I don’t. No bed, no job.’
‘You quit?’
‘No, I was sacked.’
‘Smith sacked you.’ He shook his head, his expression one of mild contempt as he thought of the other man. ‘I didn’t see that one coming.’ That certainly explained her mood, but not her presence.
The rueful amusement in his expression made her see red. ‘Liar!’
He froze, the lines of his lean face moulding into a mask of chilling hauteur. ‘What did you call me?’
Rose lifted her chin to a belligerent angle and placed her hands on her hips. She had no intention of allowing herself to be intimidated, even though he did have the look of a jungle predator about to pounce.
‘You heard me.’ She lifted her chin and ignored the sound of hissing outrage that escaped through his clenched white teeth. ‘You’re many things, but you’re not stupid.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, his voice dripping with mockery.
‘You must have thought of the consequences when you told everyone I’m a drunken nymphomaniac?’
‘I did not tell anyone anything of the sort …’ He stopped, an expression of pained comprehension passing across his face as he slapped a hand to his forehead and swore.
Rose’s head came up with a jerk. ‘Well, it’s the sort of thing that could slip anyone’s mind, I suppose.’
He bit back a cutting response to her sarcasm and watched, his expression softening, as she rubbed a hand wearily across her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘I hope, incidentally, that it makes an amusing after-dinner anecdote.’
‘I can’t believe he actually sacked you.’ He regarded her with frowning concern.
‘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