A Whisper of Disgrace

The TV executive was called Arnaud Bertrand, and if she’d been with anyone other than Kulal, Rosa might have found him attractive. His chiselled jaw and sensual mouth hinted at his earlier career as an underwear model, before he’d realised that it was far better to rely on his brains, rather than his beauty. Or so he told Rosa, during a lull in the conversation, when Kulal was busy talking to the location manager about the practicalities of taking a film crew to Zahrastan.

‘Whilst you,’ he mused, his eyes moving to the bright flower she wore in her hair, ‘could rely on both, I think. Brains and beauty.’

‘I’m not beautiful,’ she said quickly.

‘You don’t think so?’ Arnaud narrowed his eyes. ‘With that lustrous hair and perfect skin, you remind me of Monica Bellucci. And you are the wife of one of the world’s most powerful men, a man who could have any woman he chooses. That in itself speaks volumes about you.’

Rosa bit back a wry smile. If only he knew why Kulal had ended up with this too-curvy Sicilian with a complicated past! ‘And I’m certainly no academic,’ she said, swiftly changing the subject and wondering if he paid such lavish compliments to every woman who entered his radar.

‘But you’re a linguist, right? You speak French and English—and Italian, of course.’

Rosa shrugged. ‘Plenty of people do.’

‘But plenty of people do not look like you, Rosa. You have a freshness about you—and a vibrancy too.’ Arnaud lifted his wine glass to his lips, and over his shoulder Rosa thought she could see a faint frown appearing on Kulal’s brow. ‘Tell me, would you be interested in taking a screen test?’

Rosa blinked. ‘You mean for television?’

‘Of course for television—that’s my medium.’

‘I don’t act,’ said Rosa bluntly. ‘And don’t they say that the camera adds ten pounds? I’m completely the wrong shape for the small screen—I’d fill it!’

‘Ah, but I believe in smashing stereotypes,’ said Arnaud softly. ‘I’m trained to recognise that certain je ne sais quoi which the camera loves and I think you have it. I’m not expecting you to act, just do a brief test. Would you be interested?’

Telling herself that it would be rude to refuse his offer—or maybe that it would simply be easier to go along with it—Rosa took his card and slipped it into her handbag.

‘Ring me,’ he said, and then turned back to talk to Kulal.

The dinner was delicious and the wines kept on coming and Rosa felt wonderfully replete as their car arrived to take them home. But even though she made a few predictable comments about how well the evening had gone, Kulal merely answered her in clipped monosyllables. His powerful body seemed tense and forbidding, but she was feeling expansive—and more than a little bit randy—so she trickled her fingertips over his forearm. But he didn’t react and, feeling foolish, she quickly removed her hand as if it had been contaminated. He didn’t say another word until they were back at the apartment and the lights which bounced nightly off the Eiffel Tower were flickering over the huge sitting room, making it seem as if they were standing in the centre of a silent fireworks display.

‘You seemed to hit it off very well with Arnaud,’ he said slowly.

‘That was the whole point, surely?’ She clicked on one of the lamps, telling herself she was imagining the scowl of accusation on his face. ‘I was there as your wife, to support you—and the best way I could do that was to be friendly.’

His black eyes bored into her. ‘Did being friendly involve thrusting your breasts in the face of the executive producer?’

Rosa tensed as she heard an ugly and unmistakable note in his voice. It was a note she knew too well from having grown up in a family of powerful men. Men who had an overabundance of male testosterone and an overinflated sense of their own importance. It was possession—pure and simple—and it made her skin turn to ice.

She tried to keep the tremble of outrage from her voice. ‘That’s a completely unreasonable thing to say.’

‘You think so? Then why did he give you his card? You think I didn’t notice that?’

The card was buried at the bottom of her handbag and Rosa honestly didn’t think she would have given it another thought if Kulal hadn’t challenged her, but his attitude was riling her. More than riling her—it was making rebellion stir up inside her. Because hadn’t she fled Sicily precisely to avoid this kind of domineering attitude? To stop people treating her as if she was some puppet whose strings they could pull at will.