‘Okay,’ Rosie began. ‘I know what you’re going to say and I’m sorry.’
‘First, you have no idea what I’m going to say, and secondly, if you’re sorry now, then you’re going to be a whole lot sorrier when I’m through with you and your accomplice.’
‘Accomplice?’ She gazed at him, bewildered, and then wished she hadn’t because he seemed to have the most peculiar effect on her. He made her feel as though the room was beginning to spin and if she didn’t sit down fast she would topple to the ground in an undignified heap.
‘The blonde with a voice that could shatter glass. Sit.’
A voice that could shatter glass? That was a first when it came to a description of her sister. Of either of her sisters, for that matter. Both were tall, sophisticated and impossibly beautiful in an ice-queen kind of way. Whereas she was... Rosie: short, way too plump because of the siren call of chocolate and all things sweet, with shoulder-length blonde hair that refused to be tamed, breasts far too abundant to be fashionable...
She recalled the heat of his hand so close to her breast and shivered.
Conscious of each and every one of t
hose downsides, and aware of those cool, cool eyes on her, she haltingly headed for the closest chair and dropped into it, little knowing what was coming but all too ready to take the blame.
‘If that little scene was some half-baked attempt to screw money out of me then you messed with the wrong guy,’ he said flatly. He didn’t raise his voice or move a muscle but for all that the single sentence was imbued with threat and Rosie shivered and licked her lips.
‘I came here to do a deal that means a great deal to me,’ he continued, in the same deathly subdued, almost conversational tone. ‘Which is why I played along with whatever game you fancied you’d set in motion. I’m going to play along just until my deal is done, and then, let’s just say you’ll understand the meaning of regret.’
‘You can’t threaten me,’ Rosie objected weakly. ‘And that woman was my sister, not an accomplice!’
‘Can’t threaten you? No, you’ve got that wrong, I’m afraid. Here’s the thing, whoever the hell you are—whatever scheme you and your sister or whoever she was have concocted, you can bury it, because there’s no money at the end of this particular rainbow.’
‘Money?’
‘Did you really think that you would create a public scene to grab my attention, hurl baseless accusations against me to grab the public’s attention and then somehow manoeuvre me into a place where I would part with hard cash to shut the pair of you up?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t play games with me, miss!’
‘I’m not playing games! I honestly have no idea what you’re getting at! Are you saying that you think my sister and I are out to get money from you? Why would we want to do that?’
Matteo clicked his tongue with blatant incredulity, reached into his pocket and extracted a card from his wallet, which he tossed onto her lap. Then he sat back and crossed his legs.
‘How rude!’ Rosie exploded, her face bright red. ‘Is this how you treat women? How dare you just...just fling something at me?’
‘Spare me the self-righteous outrage,’ he returned smoothly. ‘Why don’t you have a look at the card?’
Still fuming, Rosie looked at the card, which had just a name on it and three telephone numbers. She politely reached forward to return it.
‘I’m sorry but this doesn’t mean anything to me. Well, I guess it’s your name. Matteo Moretti.’ She sighed. He’d taken the card back and was obviously waiting for her to expand. His expression was unreadable and she got the impression that this was a man who knew how to conceal what was in his head and that it was something he was accustomed to doing. He emanated a certain amount of menace but she wondered whether that hint of menace wasn’t amplified by the fact that she was just so conscious of him in a way she had never been conscious of any man in her life before.
Suddenly very much aware of her physical shortcomings, she fidgeted in the chair and tried to get herself into a suitably more elevated, commanding position.
‘I suppose you’re someone important, which is why you think I should recognise your name, but I don’t know who’s who in the world of business. You must be rich, because you think that I’m some kind of master criminal who wants your money, but you’re wrong.’
‘Your sister knew my name,’ Matteo said bluntly. ‘Care to explain?’
‘Her name is Candice.’
‘Irrelevant. Just answer my question. Time is money.’
Sinfully good-looking he might be but Rosie was beginning to think that he was the most odious guy she had ever encountered. Rude didn’t begin to cover it.
‘I teach skiing here,’ she said stiffly. ‘For the season. I happened to meet your...your friends on the slopes. Pierre was supposed to be giving them a lesson but he went out last night with his girlfriend and he didn’t show up for—’
‘Get to the point!’