Passionate Playboys: The Demetrios Bridal Bargain / The Magnate's Indecent Proposal / Hot Nights with a Playboy
is that stupid …’ He held his breath for a moment as the figure stepped out onto what he knew to be paper-thin ice.
He hit the ground running. He didn’t waste his breath shouting, knowing the person below would never hear him above the wind that whistled through the valley.
He was fifty yards away when the stillness was rent first by a loud cracking sound, then a woman’s scream. A final sprint brought him to the edge of the ice in seconds.
A girlfriend had once accused him of having too little imagination to be sensibly scared of anything, but she was wrong.
He just saw little benefit under the circumstances of wasting time to linger on the lurid details of death by drowning in cold, icy water. Instead as he pulled off his light padded outer jacket he scanned the ice estimating his chances.
His actions were swift but not hurried, his brain working out all the factors. It was his ability to think clearly in situations like this that had made him a successful racing driver. That combined with lightning reflexes, nerves of steel and, according to some of his competitors, more than his fair share of ruthless cunning.
Mathieu didn’t think of it in those terms, but he did know that his thought processes were at their sharpest when the stakes were high. Right now they were as high as they got—a life.
The situation did not allow for further preliminary evaluation so, sucking in a breath, he tucked his ice axe into the belt of his trousers and lay down flat on his belly to distribute his weight as evenly as possible on the thin ice. Then Mathieu began to crawl as quickly as possible towards the hole that stood like a gaping black wound in the silvered surface of the frozen water.
He saw the top of a red hat surface, heard the stifled yell and pushed himself faster regardless of the warning creaks of the fragile ice underneath him. He reached the edge of the gash in the ice in time to see the white hand vanish beneath the water.
He hauled himself to the edge of the hole and thrust his ice axe into the water. Relief flooded through him as it snagged on something. His face set in lines of grim determination, the sinews in his neck pulling taut, he began to pull.
Even as she opened her mouth to scream for help Rose was very aware that the chance of anyone being around to hear her was, at the most optimistic, remote.
The second scream of visceral fear remained locked in her throat as the ice beneath her feet opened up and she fell. She had never imagined that cold could be this extreme. It enveloped her, freezing the air in her lungs, its icy tentacles infiltrating every cell of her body. After the first paralysing shock she began to struggle, kicking out wildly in panic as she fought her way to the surface.
Rose was a good swimmer but the extremely low temperature of the water sapped her strength within minutes.
‘Help me,’ she screamed as she felt herself sliding beneath the surface. Cocooned in the icy darkness, aware only of the heavy thud of her own heartbeat as it continued to pump the oxygen-starved blood around her body, she refused to accept the inevitable.
I am not going to drown.
But she was.
Still Rose refused to accept the reality of it. Clinging stubbornly to the last flicker of hope, she kicked weakly for the surface even though she knew she wasn’t going to make it.
Only she did. Just as she had used up the last reserves of strength and her lungs were burning she felt something snag in her coat, then she was being dragged upwards.
Holding the bedraggled girl’s head above the icy water, Mathieu could just about make out her muffled words. The damsel in distress had reached the inevitable ‘what happened?’ phase. He didn’t waste his breath replying, though if she asked, ‘Who am I?’ he would have a harder time restraining himself. People called him a risk-taker, but any risks he took were of the clear-headed, calculated variety. If this girl wasn’t suicidal to pull a stunt like this she was … she had to be one of the most criminally stupid women ever to draw breath!
‘It is important to stay calm and not struggle,’ Rose heard the deep voice above her say.
Struggle. Was he joking? At the moment breathing required all her energy and each raw breath she dragged in through blue lips hurt.
‘When I pull you clear …’
Now that sounded like a good idea. It was also good that he hadn’t suggested she do this herself as her limbs were not responding to any requests; she couldn’t even feel them.
‘I’m just going to—’
‘Wait!’ Rose protested, lifting her head in panic as she felt herself pushed briefly clear of the relative security of the ice. ‘N-no … don’t.’
Her warning went unheeded.
‘I’m just going to put this rope around you. It’s all right, just be still.’
Rose felt the rope her rescuer had just looped under her arms tighten.
‘That’s it, you’re perfectly safe now.’ Mathieu said this with a confidence he did not feel.
He shot a glance over his shoulder towards the shore and safety. As he had crawled out there had been several moments when the ice underneath him had threatened to give way.
She could feel the heat of her rescuer’s breath on her icy cheek as he bent closer. Her nostrils flared in response to the clean male scent of his body overlaid with a light citrusy scent. He represented safety but she really felt she ought to warn him that pulling her out of the water might not be so easy.
‘S … s … seven to ten p … pounds …’ Shut up, Rose, you sound unbalanced.
‘Seven …?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Still, it would be kind of ironic in a dark sort of way if the amount of excess the magazines said she needed to shed if she wanted any shot at happiness in this world was the amount that tipped the balance.
What if her determination not to end up a victim to the prevailing fashion for unrealistically thin women ended up being the reason for her demise?
She laughed and above her a man’s voice advised her once more to stay calm. She opened her mouth to tell him she wasn’t the type to have hysterics when the ice gave another loud warning creak and she changed her mind.
Perhaps she was the type to have hysterics? Under these circumstances perhaps everyone was the type. Then she remembered the sound of her rescuer’s deep, calm voice, and thought maybe he was the exception, which was lucky for her.
The situation was better than he had dared hope—there were no new major cracks visible. However, only an insane optimist would expect this situation to last for long. The window of opportunity for this rescue was small.
He took a deep breath and, totally focused on the task ahead, smiled slightly. He knew what he had to do; there were no fuzzy lines, no protocol or politics to consider. It was a simple matter of survival; these were factors he felt comfortable working with.
Mathieu braced his knees on the thin ice beside the woman who had given a scared whimper. ‘Let’s do this.’ She had reason to be scared. He probably ought to be, but the adrenaline pumping in his bloodstream sharpened his reactions and dulled his caution.
Do what? Rose thought.
‘Are you ready?’
Roused by the sheer inanity of this comment, Rose lifted her head. ‘No, I’m not ready!’ The indignation died from her face as her full lower lip quivered. ‘I don’t want to die …’ Her voice trailed away as her eyes connected with those of her rescuer.
They were the palest grey, almost silver, slanted upwards in the corners, the heavy lids fringed by long, curling, sooty lashes. Even this close to descending into gibbering fear she registered in some portion of her brain that they were the most excruciatingly beautiful eyes she had ever seen in her life.
The sort of eyes that a doctor