know what they say about anger, don’t you, Rose? It’s only fear turned inwards.’
Fear as in fear of the consequences was not a bad thing—not if it stopped you doing something really stupid. ‘Very profound,’ she snapped, giving him a slow handclap. ‘Where did you get that one from, Mathieu, a Christmas cracker?’
‘You’re mad because you think I kissed you for Sacha’s benefit?’
There were two tell-tale patches of colour on her cheeks as she rolled her eyes and said in a voice laced with sarcasm, ‘No, I think you kissed me because I’m totally irresistible to the opposite sex.’ At that moment she would have settled for being irresistible to one man, just to have the pleasure of rejecting him.
Sure, that’s really likely.
Ignoring the snide voice in her head, she gave a contemptuous sniff and folded her arms tight across her chest, the action unintentionally pushing her breasts together and drawing his eyes to the modest neckline of her dress.
‘I can’t speak for the rest of the male sex, but you do have a seriously destructive influence on my self-control.’
Rose loosed a scornful laugh. ‘What’s the punchline?’
There was a pause as their eyes locked. Mathieu’s voice was flat apart from a slight ironic inflection as he said, ‘It isn’t a joke.’
Or maybe it was, he mused. A joke on a man who had always prided himself on never being a slave to his basic instincts being so fascinated by a woman who, given the perversity of female psychology, was probably still hung up on a man who had broken her heart.
His jaw clenched as he struggled to contain the irrational explosion of anger that surged through his body at the thought of her still craving another man, he covered the space between them in one stride.
He pinned her with a molten stare and as he cupped one side of her face with his hand some of the anger seeped from him. Her skin was soft and warm … she was soft and warm. His thumb moved across the curve of her satiny cheek and with a tiny cry she pulled away.
‘And you feel the same way,’ he said as she swung away from him.
Rose froze, then slowly, sparks of anger flying from her eyes, she turned slowly back and planted her hands on her hips as she lifted her chin. ‘Don’t you dare tell me how I feel,’ she snapped. ‘You haven’t the faintest—’
‘Please,’ he begged, cutting her off mid-rant. ‘Don’t give me that garbage about knowing Sacha was there; there could have been a twenty-person choir in full voice and you wouldn’t have noticed.’
She bit her lip, knowing that no matter what she said the mortified heat was going to rush to her cheeks. Who still blushed at her age, and why wasn’t there a pill to deal with this affliction?
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