Sanity had returned about two-thirty in the morning when she had sat bolt upright in bed, a horrified groan escaping her lips.
The only crumb of comfort she could take from this momentary madness was that Mathieu would never, ever know the underlying reason she had agreed to go along with his scheme. Neither he nor anyone else would ever know that she had ever got it into her head that she would throw caution to the wind and sleep with a man she didn’t love, and not just any man, this man. She schooled her features into a smile and lied. ‘No, I’m fine. Am I overdressed?’ she asked, hating that she was asking for his approval, but it was preferable to saying she was immobilised with lust.
Mathieu’s eyes, concealed from her behind the dark fringe of his lashes, slid down her body.
In his opinion she was overdressed only in that she was wearing anything at all.
He toyed briefly with and almost immediately discarded the idea of explaining to her that she was the sort of woman who looked better without clothes.
It was quite irrational to keep a guard on his tongue around a woman who he knew was more than capable of adopting the male role of sexual predator. Maybe it was because the air of wholesome sexuality she seemed unaware she exuded was tinged with vulnerability.
It was not as if he would be telling her something she did not already know. Something many men had told her before him. The thought of these faceless men who had looked with lustful longing at her lush curves brought a frown of dissatisfaction to his face.
‘You look fine. I thought we’d dine somewhere casual the first night. The rest of the week, I thought … in fact, here—I made you a copy of the itinerary.’
‘Itinerary?’ she echoed, staring at the paper he’d handed her as she stepped out into the corridor after him.
‘Unfortunately I’ve a full diary, the next ten days or so, but we should be able to take in a première, dinner three nights and a couple of lunches.’
‘But won’t people see us?’ she asked as the lift door closed behind them. She took a deep breath. Oh, God, but enclosed spaces with him in were so much more, well, enclosed.
Mathieu looked down at her with the advantage of his superior height and shrugged. ‘Being seen, Rose, is the idea. This is about photo opportunities, establishing us as a credible couple before you meet my family.’
‘Oh …’
‘What did you think it was about—getting to know the real me?’
The angry colour flew to her cheeks. ‘Well, if you’re as two-dimensional as you seem that shouldn’t take long.’
‘Well, if you struggle, the back page has a few pertinent facts.’
‘You think of everything,’ she snapped irritably. It was a good thing she had given up on the idea of seduction because Mathieu seemed to have this job laid out along very formal, businesslike lines with no room for anything more spontaneous. ‘But actually you don’t. I have nothing to wear at these sort of places,’ she pointed out, tapping the top sheet of his so-called intinerary with her forefinger.
‘The new wardrobe should be delivered in the morning.’
Her chin came up. ‘New wardrobe?’
He seemed not to notice the dangerous note in her voice, though several people they passed as they stepped out of the lift did.
‘If there’s anything else you need don’t hesitate …’
Outside in the air Rose took a deep sustaining breath and counted to ten. She’d have still been mad if it had been ten thousand. ‘Listen, because I’m only saying this once, but I’m not taking clothes from you. I’m not taking anything from you.’
Mathieu threw back his head and laughed. ‘Why, you sweet old-fashioned thing, you. But relax, ma petite, this is not a gift— it is a uniform. Don’t get me wrong. I like the sexy librarian look, but not everyone has my imagination,’ he drawled. ‘And they will expect you as my future wife to look a certain way. When we are alone you can wear what you wish … or nothing at all … though we will have little time to be alone before we leave for Nixias.’
She could hear his laughter as she got into the waiting car. She clenched her teeth and didn’t stop clenching them all evening until he said goodnight at the door of her suite.
‘No, I won’t come in,’ he said.
‘I wasn’t about to ask.’
‘But you did think I’d expect it?’ His cynical smile deepened at her expression. ‘I want my father to realise that you are not a casual pick-up, but the woman I want to be my wife.’
‘You don’t intend to have sex with the woman you marry?’
‘After an appropriate courtship I intend to have a great deal of sex.’
Rose, her face aflame, almost threw herself through the door. ‘Not with me, you’re not,’ she yelled, before slamming the door in his grinning face.
Rose discovered Mathieu hadn’t been joking. Other than the events he had listed in his precious intinerary she barely saw him at all and as on all of those occasions they had been in the full glare of the press—she had blinked at more flash bulbs than she would have dreamt existed—it had not been exactly relaxing.
The morning of their journey to Nixias arrived and there had been only one occasion when she had seen a tiny glimpse of the real man. Or was that wishful thinking on her part?
They had been getting into a car after a meal, the paparazzi had been snapping happily, when a stray dog had appeared from nowhere. One of the photographers had tried to kick the mangy creature out of his path and that was probably the last thing he had known until Mathieu had hauled him off his feet, practised smile gone as he’d said something that had made the man’s colour retreat.
‘I take it you like dogs.’
Mathieu had smiled grimly and said simply, ‘I dislike men who kick anything that is weaker or unable to hit back.’
If that night he had suggested coming in when they got back to her hotel suite she would have said yes, but he hadn’t.
* * *
They reached the airport around ten in the morning. One brow lifted as Mathieu’s silver eyes swept her face before he took hold of her left hand. ‘You are not wearing your ring.’
‘Not my ring … the ring. If it was my ring I’d be keeping it when this contract is over. I didn’t wear it for the journey because it is obviously valuable … what if I lose it?’
‘Then obviously you will spend the rest of your life paying me back,’ he said, leading the way towards the terminal building.
Trotting on her four-inch heels to catch him up, she caught his sleeve. ‘I’m serious, Mathieu,’ she said. ‘People who walk around with jewellery like this have bodyguards.’
‘What makes you think I’m not serious?’
She
