"Quintin, Jardine - Fallen Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Quintin Jardine)

Paula Viareggio looked to her left and saw herself in the big mirror
that stretched across the width of the dressing table. She saw him
too, although he was lost somewhere in a dream. She slid out from
underneath his muscular arm, rolled out of the huge sleigh bed and
stood up.

Still looking in the mirror, she touched herself between her breasts
with a fingertip, then traced it slowly down to her navel. Not bad,
she thought, appraising her body in the morning light. She did not
think of herself as being vain; no, she was simply proud of her olive
skin with its velvet feel, of her long supple limbs, and of her classic
high-cheekboned face. Most of all she was proud of her long cascading
hair, turned silver from black in her mid twenties, helped on its way,
if truth be told, by some judicious colouring by Charlie Kettles, her
hairdresser. "Yes, not bad for thirty-something," she murmured.

She heard a muffled grunt behind her, as Mario McGuire came back to
wakefulness.

"Where you gone?" he whispered.

"Nowhere," she answered.

"Come back in here then."

"Let me guess," she laughed. "You're going to tell me you're at your
best in the mornings."

"Something like that," he agreed, cheerfully.

"As if I didn't know that already." She turned towards him, facing the
bed. "This can't go on, you know."

He propped himself up on an elbow. "Bloody hell," he exclaimed. "You
spend all those years trying to get me into your bed, and now you're
giving me a hard time over it."

"You know what I mean, Mario," she said, heavily. "This situation
can't go on. What did you tell your wife this time? Are you working
late in Galashiels again?"

"I didn't tell her anything. Things are bad enough between Maggie and
me, without burdening them with unnecessary lies."

Her mouth dropped open for a second or two, until she loosed a short,
sarcastic laugh. "Hah! Are you going to tell her where you've been,
then .. . presuming you deign to go home at some point today?"

"No. I'm not going to tell her anything, and she's not going to ask. I