A Tycoon To Be Reckoned With
A Tycoon To Be Reckoned With
Julia James
A remorseless seduction…Bastiaan Karavalas loves the thrill of the hunt. His prey this time is tantalising Sarah Fareham. Pity this seduction won’t be purely for pleasure… she’s a threat to his family that needs to be removed!Sarah dreams of becoming an opera singer, but must scrape a living as a night club performer, overcoming her inhibitions by hiding behind her vivacious stage persona Sabine. It also becomes her only defence against Bastiaan’s sensual onslaught.But Bastiaan is a tycoon to be reckoned with and once his true intentions are revealed, will Sarah’s façade be enough to safeguard her fragile heart?
Predictable. That was what taking Sabine to bed should have been.
So why had it been so totally, utterly not the way he’d predicted? That was what he wanted to know. Not just wanted—needed to know.
Memories flooded through Bastiaan, hot and overwhelming, of just how he had responded to her as he’d held her in his arms. How the consummation of their congress had been like nothing, nothing he’d ever experienced before!
As if she were the only woman in the world! The only woman in the world for me.
He fought it down. Harshly…vehemently. This was Sabine he was talking about! Sabine in whom he had absolutely no interest whatsoever except that of getting her claws out of Philip by any means available. And the means he had selected was intended to achieve that end and simultaneously—conveniently!—allow him to slake his lust for her.
Yet here he was, shaken by the memory of the night, staring out over the ocean and wondering what the hell had gone wrong with his plan.
JULIA JAMES lives in England, and adores the peaceful verdant countryside and the wild shores of Cornwall. She also loves the Mediterranean—so rich in myth and history—with its sunbaked landscapes and olive groves, ancient ruins and azure seas. ‘The perfect setting for romance!’ she says. ‘Rivalled only by the lush tropical heat of the Caribbean—palms swaying by a silver sand beach lapped by turquoise waters…what more could lovers want?’
A Tycoon to Be
Reckoned With
Julia James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For IHV, who gave me my love of opera.
Contents
Cover (#u822b572e-249f-5b55-95aa-f61bb23ccec9)
Introduction (#u05204fad-17fb-5f73-8e53-fd5cf5372276)
About the Author (#u0d07ae21-d064-58b9-816a-dfce39008a0a)
Title Page (#ud364e42a-048c-506a-86e2-5b9e209de2ac)
Dedication (#uaa175bba-0b3d-55a5-997c-6046b0e12b30)
CHAPTER ONE (#uab3e4cba-fce8-5c60-8b4c-0f0d34308705)
CHAPTER TWO (#u7f22c20e-9b0c-58a8-b70e-a48acf9abdd7)
CHAPTER THREE (#u75ba3624-0e61-5db3-aa94-469b322ae411)
CHAPTER FOUR (#uca6da06a-06c2-527e-8777-5e95c0f26a73)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_55ed9567-849b-57cc-98c6-c81690ce45d7)
‘YOU KNOW, IT’S you I blame.’
Bastiaan’s aunt tried to laugh as she spoke, but it was shaky, Bastiaan could tell.
‘It was you who suggested Philip go and stay in your villa at Cap Pierre!’
Bastiaan took the criticism on board. ‘I thought it might help—moving him out of target range to finish his university vacation assignments in peace and quiet.’
His aunt sighed. ‘Alas, it seems he has jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. He may have escaped Elena Constantis, but this female in France sounds infinitely worse.’
Bastiaan’s dark eyes took on a mordant expression. ‘Unfortunately, wherever in the world Philip is he will be a target.’
‘If only he were less sweet-natured. If he had your...toughness,’ Bastiaan’s aunt replied, her gaze falling on her nephew.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Bastiaan replied dryly. ‘But Philip will toughen up, don’t worry.’ He’ll need to, he thought caustically. Just as he himself had had to.
‘He’s so impressionable!’ his aunt cried. ‘And so handsome. No wonder these wretched girls make a beeline for him.’
And, of course, so rich, Bastiaan added cynically—but silently. No point worrying his already anxious aunt further. It was Philip’s wealth—the wealth he would be inheriting from his late father’s estate once he turned twenty-one in a couple of months—that would attract females far more dangerous than the merely irksome spoilt teenage princess Elena Constantis. The real danger would come from a very different type of female.
Call them what one liked—and Bastiaan had several names not suitable for his aunt’s ears—the most universal name was a familiar one: gold-diggers. Females who took one look at his young, good-looking, impressionable and soon to be very rich cousin and licked their lips in anticipation.
That was the problem right now. A woman who appeared to be licking her lips over Philip. And the danger was, Bastiaan knew, very real. For Philip, so Paulette, his housekeeper at Cap Pierre, had informed him, far from diligently writing his essays, had taken to haunting the nearby town of Pierre-les-Pins and a venue there that was most undesirable for a twenty-year-old. Apparently attracted by an even more undesirable female working there.
‘A singer in a nightclub!’ his aunt wailed now. ‘I cannot believe Philip would fall for a woman like that!’
‘It is something of a cliché...’ Bastiaan allowed.
His aunt bridled. ‘A cliché? Bastiaan, is that all you have to say about it?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I could say a great deal more—but to what purpose?’ Bastiaan got to his feet. He was of an imposing height, standing well over six feet, and powerfully built. ‘Don’t worry...’ he made his voice reassuring now ‘... I’ll deal with it. Philip will not be sacrificed to a greedy woman’s ambitions.’
His aunt stood up, clutching at his sleeve. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I knew I could count on you.’ Her eyes misted a little. ‘Take care of my darling boy, Bastiaan. He has no father now to look out for him.’
Bastiaan pressed his aunt’s hand sympathetically. His maternal uncle had succumbed to heart disease when Philip had just started at university, and he knew how hard her husband’s death had hit his aunt. Knew, too, with a shadowing of his eyes, how losing a father too young—as he himself had when not much older than Philip—left a void.
‘I’ll keep Philip safe, I promise you,’ he assured his aunt now, as she took her leave.
He saw her to her car, watched it head down the driveway of his property in the affluent outskirts of Athens. Then he went back indoors, his mouth tightening.
His aunt’s fears were not groundless. Until Philip turned twenty-one Bastiaan was his trustee—overseeing all his finances, managing his investments—while Philip enjoyed a more than generous allowance to cover his personal spending. Usually Bastiaan did nothing more than cast a casual eye over the bank and credit card statements, but an unusually large amount—twenty thousand euros—had gone out in a single payment a week ago. The cheque had been paid into an unknown personal account at the Nice branch of a French bank. There was no reason—no good reason—that Bastiaan could come up with for such a transfer. There was, however, one very bad reason for it—and that he could come up with.
The gold-digger had already started taking gold from the mine....
Bastiaan’s features darkened. The sooner he disposed of this nightclub singer who was making eyes at his cousin—and his cousin’s fortune—the better. He headed purposefully to his study. If he was to leave for France in the morning, he had work to do tonight. Enterprises with portfolios the size of Karavalas did not run themselves. His cousin’s fortune might be predominantly in the form of blue chip stocks, but Bastiaan preferred to diversify across a broad range of investment opportunities, from industry and property to entrepreneurial start-ups. But, for all their variety, they all shared one aspect in common—they all made him money. A lot of money.
The cynical curve was back at Bastiaan’s mouth as he sat himself down behind his desk and flicked on his PC. He’d told his aunt that her son would toughen up in time—and he knew from his own experience that that was true. Memory glinted in his dark eyes.
When his own father had died, he’d assuaged his grief by partying hard and extravagantly, with no paternal guardian to moderate his excesses. The spree had ended abruptly. He’d been in a casino, putting away the champagne and generally flashing his cash lavishly, and it had promptly lured across a female—Leana—who had been all over him. At just twenty-three he’d been happy to enjoy all she’d offered him—the company of her luscious body in bed included. So much so that when she’d fed him some story of how she’d stupidly got herself into debt with the casino and was worried sick about it, he’d grandly handed her a more than handsome cheque, feeling munificent and generous towards the beautiful, sexy woman who’d seemed so keen on him...
She’d disappeared the day the cheque had cleared—heading off, so he’d heard, on a yacht belonging to a seventy-year-old Mexican millionaire, never to be seen again by Bastiaan. He’d been royally fleeced and proved to be a complete mug. It had stung, no doubt about it, but he’d learnt his lesson, all right—an expensive one. It wasn’t one he wanted Philip to learn the same way. Apart from taking a large wedge of his money, Leana had damaged his self-esteem—an uncomfortably sobering experience for his younger self. Although it had made him wise up decisively.
But, unlike Bastiaan, Philip was of a romantic disposition, and a gold-digging seductress might wound him more deeply than just in his wallet and his self-esteem. That was not something Bastiaan would permit. After his experience with Leana he’d become wise to the wiles women threw out to him, and sceptical of their apparent devotion. Now, into his thirties, he knew they considered him a tough nut—ruthless, even...
His eyes hardened beneath dark brows. That was something this ambitious nightclub singer would soon discover for herself.
* * *
Sarah stood motionless on the low stage, the spotlight on her, while her audience beyond, sitting at their tables, mostly continued their conversations as they ate and drank.
I’m just a divertimento, she thought to herself, acidly. Background music. She nodded at Max on the piano, throat muscles ready, and he played the opening to her number. It was easy and low-pitched, making no demands on her upper register. It was just as well—the last thing she wanted to do was risk her voice singing in this smoky atmosphere.
As she sang the first bars her breasts lifted, making her all too aware of just how low-cut the bodice of her champagne satin gown was. Her long hair was swept over one bare shoulder. It was, she knew, a stereotypical ‘vamp’ image—the sultry nightclub singer with her slinky dress, low-pitched voice, over-made-up eyes and long blonde locks.
She tensed instinctively. Well, that was the idea, wasn’t it? To stand in for the club’s missing resident chanteuse, Sabine Sablon, who had abruptly vacated the role when she’d run off with a rich customer without warning.
It hadn’t been Sarah’s idea to take over as Sabine, but Max had been blunt about it. If she didn’t agree to sing here in the evenings, then Raymond, the nightclub owner, lacking a chanteuse, would refuse to let Max have the run of the place during the day. And without that they couldn’t rehearse...and without rehearsals they couldn’t appear at the Provence en Voix music festival.
And if they didn’t appear there her last chance would be gone.
My last chance—my last chance to achieve my dream!
Her dream of breaking through from being just one more of the scores upon scores of hopeful, aspiring sopranos who crowded the operatic world, all desperate to make their mark. If she could not succeed now, she would have to abandon the dream that had possessed her since her teenage years, and all the way through music college and the tough, ultra-competitive world beyond as she’d struggled to make herself heard by those who could lift her from the crowd and launch her career.
She’d tried so hard, for so long, and now she was on the wrong side of twenty-five, racing towards thirty, with time against her and younger singers coming up behind her. Everything rested on this final attempt—and if it failed... Well, then, she would accept defeat. Resign herself to teaching instead. It was the way she was currently earning her living, part-time at a school in her native Yorkshire, though she found it unfulfilling, craving the excitement and elation of performing live.
So not yet—oh, not yet—would she give up on her dreams. Not until she’d put everything into this music festival, singing the soprano lead in what she knew could only be a high-risk gamble: a newly written opera by an unknown composer, performed by unknown singers, all on a shoestring. A shoestring that Max, their fanatically driven director and conductor, was already stretching to the utmost. Everything, but everything, was being done on a tiny budget, with savings being made wherever they could. Including rehearsal space.
So every night bar Sundays, she had to become Sabine Sablon, husking away into the microphone, drawing male eyes all around. It was not a comfortable feeling—and it was a million miles away from her true self. Max could tell her all he liked that it would give her valuable insight into roles such as La Traviata’s courtesan Violetta, or the coquettish Manon, but on an operatic stage everyone would know she was simply playing a part. Here, everyone looking at her really thought she was Sabine Sablon.
A silent shudder went through her. Dear God, if anyone in the opera world found out she was singing here, like this, her credibility would be shot to pieces. No one would take her seriously for a moment.
And neither Violetta nor Manon was anything like her role in Anton’s opera War Bride. Her character was a romantic young girl, falling in love with a dashing soldier. A whirlwind courtship, a return to the front—and then the dreaded news of her husband’s fate. The heartbreak of loss and bereavement. And then a child born to take his father’s place in yet another war...
The simple, brutal tale was told as a timeless fable of the sacrifice and futility of war, repeated down the ages, its score haunting and poignant. It had captivated Sarah the first moment she’d heard Max play it.
What must it be like to love so swiftly, to hurt so badly? she’d wondered as she’d started to explore her role. For herself, she had no knowledge—had never experienced the heady whirlwind of love nor the desolation of heartbreak. Her only serious relationship had ended last year when Andrew, a cellist she had known since college, had been offered a place in a prestigious orchestra in Germany. It had been his breakthrough moment, and she had been so glad for him—had waved him off without a thought of holding him back.
Both of them had always known that their careers must come first in their lives, which meant that neither could afford to invest in a deeply emotional relationship which might jeopardise their diverging career paths. So neither had grieved when they’d parted, only wished each other well. Theirs had been a relationship based primarily on a shared passion for music, rather than for each other—friendship and affection had bound them, nothing more than that.
But this meant she knew that in order to portray her character now—the War Bride—as convincingly as she could, she would need to call on all her imagination. Just as she would need all her operatic abilities to do credit to the challenging vocal demands of the hauntingly beautiful but technically difficult music.
She reached the end of her song to a smattering of applause. Dipping her head in acknowledgement, she shifted her weight from one high-heeled foot to the other. As she straightened again, sending her gaze back out over the dining area, she felt a sudden flickering awareness go through her. She could hear Max start the introduction to her next number but ignored it, her senses suddenly on alert. She heard him repeat the phrase, caught him glancing at her with a frown, but her attention was not on him—not on the song she was supposed to have started four bars earlier. Her attention was on the audience beyond.
Someone was looking at her. Someone standing at the back of the room.
He had not been there a moment ago and must have just come in. She shook her head, trying to dismiss that involuntary sense of heightened awareness, of sudden exposure. Male eyes gazed at her all the time—and there was always movement beyond the stage...diners and waiters. They did not make her pause the way this had—as if there were something different about him. She wanted to see him more clearly, but the light was wrong and he was too far away for her to discern anything more than a tall, tuxedo-clad figure at the back of the room.
For the third time she heard Max repeat the intro—insistently this time. And she knew she had to start to sing. Not just because of Max’s impatient prompt but because she suddenly, urgently, needed to do something other than simply stand there, pooled in the light that emphasised every slender curve of her tightly sheathed body. Exposed her to that invisible yet almost tangible scrutiny that was palpable in its impact on her.
As she started the number her voice was more husky than ever. Her long, artificial lashes swept down over her deeply kohled eyes, and the sweep of her hair dipped halfway across her jawline and cheekbone. She forced herself to keep singing, to try and suppress the frisson of disturbed awareness that was tensing through her—the sense of being the object of attention that was like a beam targeted at her.
Somehow she got through to the end of the number, pulling herself together to start the next one on time and not fluff it. It seemed easier now, and she realised that at some point that sense of being under scrutiny had faded and dissipated. As if a kind of pressure had been lifted off her. She reached the end of the last number, the end of her set, with a sense of relief. She made her way offstage, hearing canned music starting up and Max closing down the piano.
One of the waiters intercepted her. ‘There’s a guy who wants to buy you a drink,’ he said.
Sarah made a face. It wasn’t unusual that this happened, but she never accepted.
The waiter held up a hundred-euro note. ‘Looks like he’s keen,’ he informed her with a lift of his brow.
‘Well, he’s the only one who is,’ she said. ‘Better take it back to him,’ she added. ‘I don’t want him thinking I pocketed it and then didn’t show.’
Her refusal got Max’s approval. ‘No time for picking up men,’ he said, flippantly but pointedly.
‘As if I would...’ She rolled her eyes.
For a moment, it crossed her mind that the invitation to buy her a drink might be connected to that shadowy figure at the back of the room and his disturbing perusal of her, but then she dismissed the thought. All she wanted to do now was get out of her costume and head for bed. Max started opera rehearsals promptly every morning, and she needed to sleep.
She’d just reached her dressing room, kicking off her high heels and flexing her feet in relief, when there was a brief knock at the door. She only had time to say, ‘Who is it?’ before the door opened.
She glanced up, assuming it would be Max, wanting to tell her something that couldn’t wait. But instead it was a man she’d never seen before in her life.
And he stilled the breath in her lungs.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_75aa2794-ba93-5b3d-b2ac-98edaed9ad54)
BASTIAAN’S EYES ZEROED in on the figure seated at the brightly lit vanity unit with its trademark light-bulb-surrounded mirror. Backlit as she was by the high-wattage bulbs, her face was in shadow.
But the shadows did nothing to dim her impact. If anything it emphasised it, casting her features into relief. On stage, she’d been illuminated in a pool of light, her features softened by the distance at which he’d sat. He’d deliberately taken a table at the rear of the room, wanting at that point only to observe without being noticed in return.
It hadn’t taken him more than two moments to realise that the female poised on the stage possessed a quality that signalled danger to his young, impressionable cousin.
Allure—it was an old-fashioned word, but that was the one that had come to his mind as his eyes had rested on the slender figure sensuously draped in low-cut clinging satin, standing in a pool of soft, smoky light, her fingers lightly curved around her microphone, the lustrous fall of her long blonde hair curled over her bare shoulder like a vamp from the forties.
Her mouth was painted a rich, luscious red, her eye make-up was pronounced, with long, artificial lashes framing luminous eyes. Seeing her now, close up, she was even more alluring.
No wonder Philip is smitten!
His eyes completed his swift scrutiny and he was interested to see a line of colour running along her cheekbones. Curious... he thought. Then the tightening of her mouth told him what had accounted for that reaction. It was not a blush—a woman like her probably hadn’t blushed since puberty—it was annoyance.
Why? he found himself wondering. Women were not usually annoyed when he paid them attention. Quite the reverse. But this chanteuse was. It was doubly unusual because surely a woman in her profession was well used to male admirers courting her in her dressing room.
An unwelcome thought crossed his mind—was it his cousin’s wont to hang out here? Did she invite him to her changing room?
Just how far has she got with him?
Well, however far it was, it was going to stop from now on. Whatever story she’d trotted out to Philip in order to get him to give her money, the gold mine was closing down...
She was looking at him still, that scarlet mouth of hers pressed tightly, and something sparking now in her eyes.
‘Oui?’ she said pointedly.
His eyelids dipped over his eyes briefly. ‘Did the waiter not pass on my invitation?’ he asked, speaking in French, which he spoke as well as English and a couple of other languages as well.
Her arched eyebrows rose. ‘It was you?’ she said. Then, without bothering to wait for a reply, she simply went on, ‘I’m afraid I don’t accept invitations to share a drink with any of the club’s guests.’
Her tone was dismissive, and Bastiaan felt a flicker of annoyance at it. Dismissive was not the kind of voice he was used to hearing in women he was speaking to. Or indeed from anyone he was speaking to. And in someone whose career relied on the attention and appreciation of others, it was out of place.
Perhaps she thinks she does not need to court her audience any longer? Perhaps she thinks she already has a very comfortable exit from her profession lined up?
The flicker of annoyance sparked to something sharper. But he did not let it show. Not now—not yet. At the moment, his aim was to disarm her. Defeating her would come afterwards.
‘Then allow me to invite you to dinner instead,’ he responded. Deliberately, he infused a subtly caressing note into his voice that he’d found successful at any other time he’d chosen to adopt it.
That line of colour ran out over her cheekbones again. But this time there was no accompanying tightening of her red mouth. Instead she gave a brief smile. It was civil only—nothing more than that, Bastiaan could see.
‘Thank you, but no. And now...’ the smile came again, and he could see that her intention was to terminate the exchange ‘...if you will excuse me, I must get changed.’ She paused expectantly, waiting for him to withdraw.
He ignored the prompt. Instead one eyebrow tilted interrogatively. ‘You have another dinner engagement?’ he asked.
Something snapped in her eyes, changing their colour, he noticed. He’d assumed they were a shade of grey, but suddenly there was a flash of green in them.
‘No,’ she said precisely. ‘And if I did, m’sieu—’ the pointedness was back in her voice now ‘—I don’t believe it would be any of your concern.’ She smiled tightly, with less civility now.
If it were with my cousin, mademoiselle, it would indeed be my concern... That flicker of more than annoyance came again, but again Bastiaan concealed it.
‘In which case, what can be your objection to dining with me?’ Again, there was the same note in his voice that worked so well with women in general. Invitations to dine with him had never, in his living memory, been met with rejection.
She was staring at him with those eyes that had gone back to grey now, the flash of green quite absent. Eyes that were outlined in black kohl, their sockets dramatised outrageously with make-up, their lashes doubled in length by artificial means and copious mascara.
Staring at him in a way he’d never been stared at before.
As though she didn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Or hearing.
For just a second their eyes met, and then, as if in recoil, her fake lashes dropped down over her eyes, veiling them.
She took a breath. ‘M’sieu, I am desolated to inform you that I also do not accept invitations to dine with the club’s guests,’ she said. She didn’t make her tone dismissive now, but absolute.
He ignored it. ‘I wasn’t thinking of dining here,’ he said. ‘I would prefer to take you to Le Tombleur,’ he murmured.
Her eyes widened just a fraction. Le Tombleur was currently the most fashionable restaurant on the Côte D’Azur, and Bastiaan was sure that the chance to dine at such a fabulous locale would surely stop her prevaricating in this fashion. It would also, he knew, set her mind instantly at rest as to whether he was someone possessed of sufficient financial means to be of interest to her. She would not wish to waste her time on someone who was not in the same league as his young cousin. Had she but known, Bastiaan thought cynically, his own fortune was considerably greater than Philip’s.
But of course Philip’s fortune was far more accessible to her. Or might be. If she were truly setting Philip in her sightline, she would be cautious about switching her attentions elsewhere—it would lose her Philip if he discovered it.
A thought flickered across Bastiaan’s mind. She was alluring enough—even for himself... Should that be his method of detaching her? Then he dismissed it. Of course he would not be involving himself in any kind of liaison with a woman such as this one. However worthy the intention.
Dommage... He heard the French word in his head. What a pity...
‘M’sieu...’ She was speaking again, with razored precision. ‘As I say, I must decline your very...generous...invitation’.
Had there been a twist in her phrasing of the word ‘generous’? An ironic inflection indicating that she had formed an opinion of him that was not the one he’d intended her to form?
He felt a new emotion flicker within him like a low-voltage electric current.
Could there possibly be more to this woman sitting there, looking up at him through those absurdly fake eyelashes, with a strange expression in her grey-green eyes—more green now than grey, he realised. His awareness of that colour-change was of itself distracting, and it made his own eyes narrow assessingly.
For just a fraction of a second their eyes seemed to meet, and Bastiaan felt the voltage of the electric current surging within him.
‘Are you ready to go yet?’
A different voice interjected, coming from the door, which had been pushed wider by a man—a youngish one—clad in a dinner jacket, half leaning his slightly built body against the doorjamb. The man had clearly addressed Sabine, but now, registering that there was someone else in her dressing room, his eyes went to Bastiaan.
He frowned, about to say something, but Sabine Sablon interjected. ‘The gentleman is just leaving,’ she announced.
Her voice was cool, but Bastiaan was too experienced with women not to know that she was not, in fact, as composed as she wanted to appear. And he knew what was causing it...
Satisfaction soared through him. Oh, this sultry, sophisticated chanteuse, with her vampish allure, her skin-tight dress and over-made-up face, might be appearing as cool as the proverbial cucumber—but that flash in her eyes had told him that however resistant she appeared to be to his overtures, an appearance was all it was...
I can reach her. She is vulnerable to me.
That was the truth she’d so unguardedly—so unwisely—just revealed to him.
He changed his stance. Glanced at the man hovering in the doorway. A slight sense of familiarity assailed him, and a moment later he knew why. He was the accompanist for the chanteuse.
For a fleeting moment he found himself speculating on whether the casual familiarity he could sense between the two of them betokened a more intimate relationship. Then he rejected it. Every male instinct told him that whatever lover the accompanist took would not be female.
Bastiaan’s sense of satisfaction increased, and his annoyance with the intruder decreased proportionately. He turned his attention back to his quarry.
‘I shall take my leave, then, mademoiselle,’ he said, and he did not trouble to hide his ironic inflection or his amusement. Dark, dangerous amusement. As though her rejection of him was clearly nothing more than a feminine ploy—one he was seeing through...but currently choosing to indulge. He gave the slightest nod of his head, the slightest sardonic smile.
‘A bientôt.’
Then, paying not the slightest attention to the accompanist, who had to straighten to let him pass, he walked out.
As he left he heard the chanteuse exclaim, ‘Thank goodness you rescued me!’
Bastiaan could hear the relief in her tone. His satisfaction went up yet another level. A tremor—a discernible tremor—had been audible in her voice. That was good.
Yes, she is vulnerable to me.
He walked on down the corridor, casually letting himself out through the rear entrance into the narrow roadway beyond, before walking around to the front of the club, where his car was parked on the forecourt. Lowering himself into its low-slung frame, he started the engine, its low, throaty growl echoing the silent growl inside his head.
‘Thank goodness you rescued me!’ she had said, this harpy who was trying to extract his cousin’s fortune from him.
Bastiaan’s mouth thinned to a tight, narrow line, his eyes hardening as he headed out on to the road, setting his route back towards Monaco, where he was staying tonight in the duplex apartment he kept there.
Well, in that she was mistaken—most decidedly.
No one will rescue you from me.
Of that he was certain.
He drove on into the night.
* * *
‘Give me two minutes and I’ll be ready to go,’ Sarah said.
She strove for composure, but felt as if she’d just been released from a seizure of her senses that had crushed the breath from her lungs. How she’d managed to keep her cool she had no idea—she had only know that keeping her cool was absolutely essential.
What the hell had just happened to her? Out of nowhere...the way it had?
That had been the man whose assessing gaze she’d picked up during her final number. She’d been able to feel it from right across the club—and when he’d walked into her dressing room it had been like...
Like nothing I’ve ever known. Nothing I’ve ever felt—
Never before had a man had such a raw, physical impact on her. Hitting her senses like a sledgehammer. She tried to analyse it now—needing to do so. His height, towering over her in the tiny dressing room, had dominated the encounter. The broad shoulders had been sleekly clad in a bespoke dinner jacket, and there had been an impression of power that she had derived not just from the clearly muscular physique he possessed but by an aura about him that had told her this man was used to getting his own way.
Especially with women.
Because it hadn’t just been the clear impression that here was a wealthy man who could buy female favours—his mention of Le Tombleur had been adequate demonstration of that—it had been far, far more...
She felt herself swallow. He doesn’t need money to impress women.
No, she acknowledged shakily, all it took was those piercing dark eyes, winged with darker brows, the strong blade of his nose, the wide, sensual curve of his mouth and the tough line of his jaw.
He was a man who knew perfectly well that his appeal to women was powerful—who knew perfectly well that women responded to him on that account.
She felt her hackles rise automatically.
He thought I’d jump at the chance!
A rush of weakness swept through her. Thank God she’d had the presence of mind—pulled urgently out of her reeling senses—to react the way she’d managed to do.
What was it about him that he should have had such an effect on me?
Just what had it been about that particular combination of physique, looks and sheer, raw personal impact that had made her react as if she were a sliver of steel in the sudden presence of a magnetic field so strong it had made the breath still in her body?
She had seen better-looking men in her time, but not a single one had ever had the raw, visceral, overpowering impact on her senses that this man had. Even in the space of a few charged minutes...
She shook her head again, trying to clear the image from her mind. Whoever he was, he’d gone.
As she got on with the task of turning herself back into Sarah, shedding the false eyelashes, heavy make-up and tight satin gown, she strove to dismiss him from her thoughts. Put him out of your head, she told herself brusquely. It was Sabine Sablon he wanted to invite to dinner, not Sarah Fareham.
That was the truth of it, she knew. Sabine was the kind of woman a man like that would be interested in—sophisticated, seductive, a woman of the world, a femme fatale. And she wasn’t Sabine—she most definitely was not. So it was completely irrelevant that she’d reacted to the man the way she had.
I haven’t got time to be bowled over by some arrogantly smouldering alpha male who thinks he’s picking up a sultry woman like Sabine. However much he knocked me sideways.
She had one focus in her life right now—only one. And it was not a man with night-dark eyes and devastating looks who sucked the breath from her body.
She headed out to where Max was waiting to walk her back to her pension, some blocks away in this harbourside ville of Pierre-les-Pins, before carrying on to the apartment he shared with Anton, the opera’s composer.
As they set off he launched into speech without preamble. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘in your first duet with Alain—’
And he was off, instructing her in some troublesome vocal technicalities he wanted to address at the next day’s rehearsal. Sarah was glad, for it helped to distance her mind from that brief but disturbing encounter in her dressing room with that devastating, dangerous man.
Dangerous? The word echoed in her head, taking her aback. Had he been dangerous? Truly?
She gave herself a mental shake. She was being absurd. How could a complete stranger be dangerous to her? Of course he couldn’t.
It was absurd to think so.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ae830269-9566-5599-9063-a8d2cedf6b79)
‘BASTIAAN! FANTASTIC! I’d no idea you were here in France!’ Philip’s voice was warm and enthusiastic as he answered his mobile.
‘Monaco, to be precise,’ Bastiaan answered, strolling with his phone to the huge plate-glass window of his high-rise apartment in Monte Carlo, which afforded a panoramic view over the harbour, chock-full of luxury yachts glittering in the morning sunshine.
‘But you’ll come over to the villa, won’t you?’ his cousin asked eagerly.
‘Seeking distraction from your essays...?’ Bastiaan trailed off deliberately, knowing the boy had distraction already—a dangerous one.
As it had done ever since he’d left the nightclub last night, the seductive image of Sabine Sablon slid into his inner vision. Enough to distract anyone. Even himself...
He pulled his mind away. Time to discover just how deep Philip was with the alluring chanteuse. ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘I can be with you within the hour if you like?’
He did not get an immediate reply. Then Philip was saying, ‘Could you make it a bit later than that?’
‘Studying so hard?’ Bastiaan asked lightly.
‘Well, not precisely. I mean, I am—I’ve got one essay nearly finished—but actually, I’m a bit tied up till lunchtime...’
Philip’s voice trailed off, and Bastiaan could hear the constraint in his cousin’s voice. He was hiding something.
Deliberately, Bastiaan backed off. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘See you for lunch, then—around one... Is that OK?’ He paused. ‘Do you want me to tell Paulette to expect me, or will you?’
‘Would you?’ said Philip, from which Bastiaan drew his own conclusion. Philip wasn’t at the villa right now.
‘No problem,’ he said again, making his voice easy still. Easier than his mind...
So, if Philip wasn’t struggling with his history essays at the villa, where was he?
Is he with her now?
He could feel his hackles rising down his spine. Was that why she had turned down dining with him at Le Tombleur? Because she’d been about to rendezvous with his cousin? Had Philip spent the night with her?
A growl started in his throat. Philip might be legally free to have a relationship with anyone he wanted, but even if the chanteuse had been as pure as the driven snow, with the financial probity of a nun, she was utterly unsuitable for a first romance for a boy his age. She was nearer thirty than twenty...
‘Great!’ Philip was saying now. ‘See you then, Bast—gotta go.’
The call was disconnected and Bastiaan dropped his phone back in his pocket slowly, staring out of the window. Multi-million-pound yachts crowded the marina, and the fairy tale royal palace looked increasingly besieged by the high-rise buildings that maximised the tiny footprint of the principality.
He turned away. His apartment here had been an excellent investment, and the rental income was exceptional during the Monaco Grand Prix, but Monte Carlo was not his favourite place. He far preferred his villa on Cap Pierre, where Philip was staying. Better still, his own private island off the Greek west coast. That was where he went when he truly wanted to be himself. One day he’d take the woman who would be his wife there—the woman he would spend the rest of his life with.
Although just who she would be he had no idea. His experience with women was wide, indeed, but so far not one of his many female acquaintances had come anywhere close to tempting him to make a relationship with her permanent. One thing he was sure of—when he met her, he’d know she was the one.
There’d be no mistaking that.
Meantime he’d settle himself down at the dining table, open his laptop and get some work done before heading off to meet Philip—and finding out just how bad his infatuation was...
* * *
‘I could murder a coffee.’ Sarah, dismissed by Max for now, while he focussed his attentions on the small chorus, plonked herself down at the table near the front of the stage where Philip was sitting.
He’d become a fixture at their rehearsals, and Sarah hadn’t the heart to discourage him. He was a sweet guy, Philip Markiotis, and he had somehow attached himself to the little opera company in the role of unofficial runner—fetching coffee, refilling water jugs, copying scores, helping tidy up after rehearsals.
And all the time, Sarah thought with a softening of her expression, he was carrying a youthful torch for her that glowed in every yearning glance that came her way. He was only a few years older than her own sixth-formers, and his admiration for her must remain hopeless, but she would never dream of hurting his feelings. She knew how very real they seemed to him.
Memory sifted through Sarah’s head. She knew what Philip was experiencing. OK, she could laugh at herself now, but as a music student she’d had the most lovestruck crush on the tenor who’d taken a summer master class she’d attended. She’d been totally smitten, unable to conceal it—but, looking back now, what struck her most was how tolerant the famous tenor had been of her openly besotted devotion. Oh, she probably hadn’t been the only smitten female student, but she’d always remembered that he’d been kind, and tactful, and had never made her feel juvenile or idiotic.
She would do likewise now, with Philip. His crush, she knew perfectly well, would not outlast the summer. It was only the result of his isolation here, with nothing to do but write his vacation essays...and yearn after her hopelessly, gazing at her ardently with his dark eyes.
Out of nowhere a different image sprang into her head. The man who had walked into her dressing room, invaded her space, had rested his eyes on her—but not with youthful ardour in them. With something far more powerful, more primitive. Long-lashed, heavy-lidded, they had held her in their beam as if she were being targeted by a searchlight. She felt a sudden shimmer go through her—a shiver of sensual awareness—as if she could not escape that focussed regard. Did not want to...
She hauled her mind away.
I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about him. He asked me out, I said no—that’s it. Over and done with.
And it hadn’t even been her he’d asked out, she reminded herself. The man had taken her for Sabine, sultry and seductive, sophisticated and sexy. She would have to be terminally stupid not to know how a man like that, who thought nothing of approaching a woman he didn’t know and asking her to dinner, would have wanted the evening to end had ‘Sabine’ accepted his invitation. It had been in his eyes, in his gaze—in the way it had washed over her. Blatant in its message.
Would I have wanted it to end that way? If I were Sabine...?
The question was there before she could stop it. Forcibly she pushed it aside, refusing to answer. She was not Sabine—she was Sarah Fareham. And whatever the disturbing impact that man had had on her she had no time to dwell on it. She was only weeks away from the most critical performance of her life, and all her energies, all her focus and strength, had to go into that. Nothing else mattered—nothing.
‘So,’ she said, making her voice cheerful, accepting the coffee Philip had poured for her, ‘you’re our one-man audience, Philip—how’s it going, do you think?’
His face lit. ‘You were wonderful!’ he said, his eyes warm upon her.
Damn, thought Sarah wryly, she’d walked into that one. ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she said playfully, ‘but what about everyone else?’
‘I’m sure they’re excellent,’ said Philip, his lack of interest in the other performers a distinct contrast with his enthusiasm for the object of his devotion. Then he frowned. ‘Max treats you very badly,’ he said, ‘criticising you the way he does.’
Sarah smiled, amused. ‘Oh, Philip—that’s his job. And it’s not just me—he’s got to make sure we all get it right and then pull it together. He hears all the voices—each of us is focussing only on our own.’
‘But yours is wonderful,’ Philip said, as though that clinched the argument.
She gave a laugh, not answering, and drank her coffee, chasing it down with a large glass of water to freshen her vocal cords.
She was determined to banish the last remnants from the previous night’s unwanted encounter with a male who was the very antithesis of the one sitting gazing at her now. Philip’s company eased some of the inevitable tension that came from the intensity of rehearsals, the pressure on them all and Max’s exacting musical direction. Apart from making sure she did not inadvertently encourage Philip in his crush on her, sitting with him was very undemanding.
With his good-natured, sunny personality, as well as his eagerness and enthusiasm for what was, to him, the novelty of a bohemian, artistic enterprise, it wasn’t surprising that she and the other cast members liked him. What had been more surprising to her was that Max had not objected to his presence. His explanation had not found favour with her.
‘Cherie, anyone staying at their family villa on the Cap is loaded. The boy might not throw money around but, believe me, I’ve checked out the name—he’s one rich kid!’ Max’s eyes had gone to Sarah. ‘Cultivate him, cherie—we could do with a wealthy sponsor.’
Sarah’s reply had been instant—and sharp. ‘Don’t even think of trying to get a donation from him, Max!’ she’d warned.
It would be absolutely out of the question for her to take advantage of her young admirer’s boyish infatuation, however much family money there might be in the background. She’d pondered whether to warn Philip that Max might be angling for some financial help for the cash-strapped ensemble, but then decided not to. Knowing Philip, it would probably only inspire him to offer it.
She gave a silent sigh. What with treading around Philip’s sensibilities, putting her heart and soul into perfecting her performance under the scathing scrutiny of Max, and enduring her nightly ordeal as Sabine, there was a lot on her plate right now. The last thing she needed to be added to it was having her mind straining back with unwelcome insistence to that unnerving visitation to her dressing room the night before.
At her side, Philip was glancing at his watch. He made a face.
‘Need to go back to your essays?’ she asked sympathetically.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘it’s my cousin—the one who owns the villa on the Cap—he’s turned up on the Riviera and is coming over for lunch.’
‘Checking you aren’t throwing wild all-night parties, is he?’ Sarah teased gently, although Philip was the last type to do any such thing. ‘Or holding one himself?’
Philip shook his head. ‘Bastiaan’s loads too old for that stuff—he’s gone thirty,’ he said ingenuously. ‘He spends most of his time working. Oh, and having hordes of females trailing around after him.’
Well, thought Sarah privately, if Cousin Bastiaan was from the same uber-affluent background as Philip, that wouldn’t be too surprising. Rich men, she supposed, never ran short of female attention.
Before she could stop it, her mind homed back to that incident in her dressing room the night before. Her eyes darkened. Now, there was a man who was not shy of flaunting his wealth. Dropping invitations to flash restaurants and assuming they’d be snapped up.
But immediately she refuted her own accusation.
He didn’t need money to have the impact he had on me. All he had to do was stand there and look at me...
She dragged her mind away. She had to stop this—she had to. How many times did she have to tell herself that?
‘Sarah!’ Max’s imperious call rescued her from her troubling thoughts.
She got to her feet, and Philip did too. ‘Back to the grindstone,’ she said. ‘And you scoot, Philip. Have fun with your cousin.’ She smiled, lifting a brief hand in farewell as she made her way back to the stage.
Within minutes she was utterly absorbed, her whole being focussed only on her work, and the rest of the world disappeared from sight.
* * *
‘So,’ said Bastiaan, keeping his voice studiedly casual, ‘you want to start drawing on your fund, is that it?’
The two of them were sitting outside on the shaded terrace outside the villa’s dining room. They’d eaten lunch out there and now Bastiaan was drinking coffee, relaxed back in his chair.
Or rather he appeared to be relaxed. Internally, however, he was on high alert. His young cousin had just raised the subject of his approaching birthday, and asked whether Bastiaan would start to relax the reins now. Warning bells were sounding.
Across the table from him, Philip shifted position. ‘It’s not going to be a problem, is it?’ he said.
He spoke with insouciance, but Bastiaan wasn’t fooled. His level of alertness increased. Philip was being evasive.
‘It depends.’ He kept his voice casual. ‘What is it you want to spend the money on?’
Philip glanced away, out over the gardens towards the swimming pool. He fiddled with his coffee spoon some more, then looked back at Bastiaan. ‘Is it such a big deal, knowing what I want the money for? I mean, it’s my money...’
‘Yes,’ allowed Bastiaan. ‘But until your birthday I... I guard it for you.’
Philip frowned. ‘For me or from me?’ he said.
There was a tightness in his voice that was new to Bastiaan. Almost a challenge. His level of alertness went up yet another notch.
‘It might be the same thing,’ he said. His voice was even drier now. Deliberately he took a mouthful of black coffee, replaced the cup with a click on its saucer and looked straight at Philip. ‘A fool and his money...’ He trailed off deliberately.
He saw his cousin’s colour heighten. ‘I’m not a fool!’ he riposted.
‘No,’ agreed Bastiaan, ‘you’re not. But—’ he held up his hand ‘—you could, all the same, be made a fool of.’
His dark eyes rested on his cousin. Into his head sprang the image of that chanteuse in the nightclub again—pooled in light, her dress clinging, outlining her body like a second skin, her tones low and husky...alluring...
He snapped his mind away, using more effort than he was happy about. Got his focus back on Philip—not on the siren who was endangering him. As for his tentative attempt to start accessing his trust fund—well, he’d made his point, and now it was time to lighten up.
‘So just remember...’ he let humour into his voice now ‘...when you turn twenty-one you’re going to find yourself very, very popular—cash registers will start ringing all around you.’
He saw Philip swallow.
‘I do know that...’ he said.
He didn’t say it defiantly, and Bastiaan was glad.
‘I really won’t be a total idiot, Bast—and...and I’m not ungrateful for your warning. I know—’ Bastiaan could hear there was a crack in his voice. ‘I know you’re keeping an eye on me because...well, because...’
‘Because it’s what your father would have expected—and what your mother wants,’ Bastiaan put in. The humour was gone now. He spoke with only sober sympathy for his grieving cousin and his aunt. He paused. ‘She worries about you—you’re her only son.’
Philip gave a sad smile. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘But Bast, please—do reassure her that she truly doesn’t need to worry so much.’
‘I’ll do that if I can,’ Bastiaan said. Then, wanting to change the subject completely, he said, ‘So, where do you fancy for dinner tonight?’
As he spoke he thought of Le Tombleur. Thought of the rejection he’d had the night before. Unconsciously, his face tightened. Then, as Philip answered, it tightened even more.
‘Oh, Bast—I’m sorry—I can’t. Not tonight.’
Bastiaan allowed himself a glance. Then, ‘Hot date?’ he enquired casually.
Colour ran along his cousin’s cheekbones. ‘Sort of...’ he said.
‘Sort of hot? Or sort of a date?’ Bastiaan kept his probing light. But his mood was not light at all. He’d wondered last night at the club, when he’d checked out the chanteuse himself, whether he might see Philip there as well. But there’d been no sign of him and he’d been relieved. Maybe things weren’t as bad as he feared. But now—
‘A sort of date,’ Philip confessed.
Bastiaan backed off. He was walking through landmines for the time being, and he did not want to set one off. He would have to tread carefully, he knew, or risk putting the boy’s back up and alienating him.
In a burst, Philip spoke again. ‘Bast—could I...? Could you...? Well, there’s someone I want you to meet.’
Bastiaan stilled. ‘The hot date?’ he ventured.
Again the colour flared across his cousin’s cheeks. ‘Will you?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ Bastiaan replied easily. ‘How would you like us to meet up? Would you like to invite her to dinner at the villa?’
It was a deliberate trail, and it got the answer he knew Philip had to give. ‘Er...no. Um, there’s a place in Les Pins—the food’s not bad—though it’s not up to your standards of course, but—’
‘No problem,’ said Bastiaan, wanting only to be accommodating. Philip, little did he realise it, was playing right into his hands. Seeing his cousin with his inamorata would give him a pretty good indication of just how deep he was sunk into the quicksand that she represented.
‘Great!’
Philip beamed, and the happiness and relief in his voice showed Bastiaan that his impressionable, vulnerable cousin was already in way, way too deep...
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_4b777d36-3676-5661-b61c-910d9a7b0b47)
BEYOND THE SPOTLIGHT trained on her, Sarah could see Philip, sitting at the table closest to the stage, gazing up at her while she warbled through her uninspiring medley. At the end of her first set Max went backstage to phone Anton, as he always did, and Sarah stepped carefully down to the dining area, taking the seat Philip was holding out for her.
She smiled across at him. ‘I thought you’d be out with your cousin tonight, painting the Côte d’Azur red!’ she exclaimed lightly.
‘Oh, no,’ said Philip dismissively. ‘But speaking of my cousin...’ He paused, then went on in a rush, ‘Sarah, I hope you don’t mind... I’ve asked him here to meet you! You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked entreatingly.
Dismay filled her. She didn’t want to crush him, but at the same time the fewer people who knew she appeared here nightly as Sabine the better. Unless, of course, they didn’t know her as Sarah the opera singer in the first place.
Philip was a nice lad—a student—but Cousin Bastiaan, for all Sarah knew, moved in the elite, elevated social circles of the very wealthy, and might well be acquainted with any number of people influential in all sorts of areas...including opera. She just could not afford to jeopardise what nascent reputation the festival might build for her—not with her entire future resting on it.
She thought rapidly. ‘Look, Philip, I know this might sound confusing, but can we stick to me being Sabine, rather than mentioning my opera singing?’ she ventured. ‘Otherwise it gets...complicated.’
Complicated was one word for it—risky was another.
Philip was looking disconcerted. ‘Must I?’ he protested. ‘I’d love Bastiaan to know how wonderful and talented you really are.’ Admiration and ardent devotion shone in his eyes.
Sarah gave a wry laugh. ‘Oh, Philip, that’s very sweet of you, but—’
She got no further. Philip’s gaze had suddenly flicked past her. ‘That’s him,’ he announced. ‘Just coming over now—’
Sarah craned her neck slightly—and froze.
The tall figure threading its way towards their table was familiar. Unmistakably so.
She just had time to ask a mental, What on earth? when he was upon them.
Philip had jumped to his feet.
‘Bast! You made it! Great!’ he cried happily, sticking to the French he spoke with Sarah. He hugged his cousin exuberantly, and went on in Greek, ‘You’ve timed it perfectly—’
‘Have I?’ answered Bastiaan. He kept his voice studiedly neutral, but his eyes had gone to the woman seated at his cousin’s table. Multiple thoughts crowded in his head, struggling for predominance. But the one that won out was the last one he wanted.
A jolt of insistent, unmistakable male response to the image she presented.
The twenty-four hours since he’d accosted her in her dressing room had done nothing at all to lessen the impact she made on him. The same lush blond hair, deep eyes, rich mouth, and another gown that skimmed her shoulders and breasts, moulding the latter to perfection...
He felt his body growl with raw, masculine satisfaction. The next moment he’d crushed it down. So here she was, the sultry chanteuse, making herself at home with Philip, and Philip’s eyes on her were like an adoring puppy’s.
‘Bastiaan, I want to introduce you to someone very special,’ Philip was saying. A slight flush mounted in the young man’s cheeks and his glance went from his cousin to Sarah and back again. ‘This...’ there was the slightest hesitation in his voice ‘...this is Sabine.’ He paused more discernibly this time. ‘Sabine,’ he said self-consciously, ‘this is my cousin Bastiaan—Bastiaan Karavalas.’
Through the mesh of consternation in Sarah’s head one realisation was clear. It was time to call it, she knew. Make it clear to Philip—and to his cousin Bastiaan—that, actually, they were already ‘acquainted.’ She gave the word a deliberately biting sardonic inflection in her head.
Her long fake lashes dipped down over her eyes and she found herself surreptitiously glancing at the dark-eyed, powerfully built man who had just sat down, dominating the space.
Dominating her senses...
Just as he had the night before, when he’d appeared in her dressing room.
But it wasn’t this that concerned her. It was the way he seemed to be suddenly the only person in the entire universe, drawing her eyes to him as irretrievably as if he were the iron to her magnetic compass. She couldn’t look away—could only let her veiled glance fasten on him, feel again, as powerfully as she first had, the raw impact he had on her, that sense of power and attraction that she could not explain—did not want to explain.
Call it. She heard the imperative in her head. Call it—say that you know him—that he has already sought you out...
But she couldn’t do anything other than sit there and try to conjure up some explanation for why she couldn’t open her mouth.
Into her head tumbled the overriding question—What the hell is going on here?
Because something was—that was for sure. A man she’d never seen before in her life had turned up at the club, bribed a waiter to invite her to his table, then confronted her in her dressing room to ask her out... And then he reappeared as Philip’s cousin, unexpectedly arrived in France...
But there was no time to think—no time for anything other than to realise that she had to cope with the situation as it was now and come up with answers later.
‘Mademoiselle...’
The deep voice was as dark as she remembered it—accented in Greek, similar to Philip’s. But that was the only similarity. Philip’s voice was light, youthful, his tone usually admiring, often hesitant. But his cousin, in a single word, conveyed to Sarah a whole lot more.
Assessing—guarded—sardonic. Not quite mocking but...
She felt a shiver go down her spine. A shiver she should not be feeling. Should have no need of feeling. Was he daring her to admit they’d already encountered one another?
‘M’sieu...’ She kept her voice cool. Totally neutral.
A waiter glided up, seeing a new guest had arrived. The business of Bastiaan Karavalas ordering a drink—a dry martini, Sarah noted absently—gave her precious time to try and grab some composure back.
She was in urgent need of it—whatever Bastiaan Karavalas was playing at, it was his physical presence that was dominating her senses, overwhelming her with his raw, physical impact just the way it had last night in her dressing room. Dragging her gaze to him set her heart quickening, her pulse surging. What was it about him? That sense of presence, of power—of dark, magnetic attraction? The veiled eyes, the sensual mouth...?
Never had she been so aware of a man. Never had her body reacted like this.
‘For you, mademoiselle?’ the deep, accented voice was addressing her, clearly enquiring what she would like to drink.
She gave a quick shake of her head. ‘Thank you—no. I stick to water between sets.’
He dismissed the waiter with an absent lift of his hand and the man scurried off to do his bidding.
‘Sets?’ Bastiaan enquired.
His thoughts were busy. He’d wanted to see whether she would disclose his approach to her the previous evening, and now he was assessing the implications of her not doing so.
He was, he knew, assessing a great deal about her... Predominantly her physical impact on him. Even though that was the thing least relevant to the situation.
Or was it?
The thought was in his head before he could stop it. So, too, was the one that followed hard upon its heels.
Her reaction to him blazed from her like a beacon. Satisfaction—stabbing through him—seared in his veins. That, oh, that, indeed, was something he could use...
He quelled the thought—this was not the time. She had taken the first trick at that first encounter, turning down the invitation he’d so expected her to take. But the game, Mademoiselle Sabine, is only just begun...
And he would be holding the winning hand!
‘Sa...Sabine’s a singer,’ Philip was saying, his eyes alight and sweeping admiringly over the chanteuse who had him in her coils.
Bastiaan sat back, his eyes flickering over the slinkily dressed and highly made-up figure next to his cousin. ‘Indeed?’
It was his turn to use the French language to his advantage—allowing the ironic inflection to work to her discomfiture...as though he doubted the veracity of his cousin’s claim.
‘Indeed, m’sieu,’ echoed Sarah. The ironic inflection had not been lost on her and she repaid it herself, in a light, indifferent tone.
He didn’t like that, she could see. There was something about the way his dark brows drew a fraction closer to each other, the way the sensual mouth tightened minutely.
‘And what do you...sing?’ he retaliated, and one dark brow lifted with slight interrogation.
‘Chansons d’amour,’ Sarah murmured. ‘What else?’ She gave a smile—just a little one. Light and mocking.
Philip spoke again. ‘You’ve just missed Sabine’s first set,’ he told Bastiaan.
His glance went to her, as if for reassurance—or perhaps, thought Bastiaan, it was simply because the boy couldn’t take his eyes from the woman.
And nor can I—
‘But you’ll catch her second set!’ Philip exclaimed enthusiastically.
‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ he said dryly. Again, his gaze slid to the chanteuse.
A new reaction was visible, and it caught his attention. Was he mistaken, or was there, somewhere beneath the make-up, colour suffusing her cheekbones?
Had she taken what he’d said as sarcasm?
If she had, she repaid him in the same coin.
‘You are too kind, m’sieu,’ she said.
And Bastiaan could see, even in the dim light, how her deep-set eyes, so ludicrously enhanced by false eyelashes and heavy kohled lids, flashed fleetingly to green.
A little jolt of sexual electricity fired in him. He wanted to see more of that green flash...
It would come if I kissed her—
‘Sa...Sabine’s voice is wonderful.’
Philip cut across his heated thoughts. Absently, Bastiaan found himself wondering why his cousin seemed to stammer over the singer’s name.
‘Even when she’s only singing chan—’
Sarah’s voice cut across Philip’s. ‘So, M’sieu Karavalas, you have come to visit Philip? I believe the villa is yours, is it not?’
She couldn’t care less what he was doing here, or whether he owned a villa on Cap Pierre or anywhere else. She’d only spoken to stop Philip saying something she could see he was dying to say, despite her earlier plea to him—
Even when she’s only singing chansons in a place like this.
I don’t want him to mention anything about what I really sing—that I’m not really Sabine!
Urgency filled her. And now it had nothing to do with not wanting Bastiaan Karavalas to know that Sarah Fareham moonlighted as Sabine Sablon. No, it was for a quite different reason—one that right now seemed far more crucial.
I can’t handle him as Sarah. I need to be Sabine. Sabine can cope with this—Sabine can cope with a man like him. Sabine is the kind of sophisticated, worldly-wise female who can deal with such a man.
With the kind of man who coolly hit on a woman who’d taken his eye and aroused his sexual interest, arrogantly assuming she would comply without demur. The kind of man who rested assessing, heavy-lidded eyes on her, drawing no veil over what he saw in her, knowing exactly what impact his assessment of her was having.
That kind of man...
Philip’s enthusiastic voice was a relief to her.
‘You ought to spend some time at the villa, Bast! It really is a beautiful place. Paulette says you’re hardly ever there.’
Bastiaan flicked his eyes to his cousin. ‘Well, maybe I should move across from Monaco and stay awhile with you. Keep you on the straight and narrow.’
He smiled at Philip, and as he did so Sarah suddenly saw a revelation. Utterly unexpected. Gone—totally vanished—was the Bastiaan Karavalas she’d been exposed to, with his coolly assessing regard and his blatant appraisal, and the sense of leashed power that emanated from him. Now, as he looked across at Philip, his smile carved deep lines around his mouth and lightened his expression, made him suddenly seem... different.
She felt something change inside her—uncoil as if a knot had been loosened...
If he ever smiled at me like that I would be putty in his hands.
But she sheered her mind away. Bastiaan Karavalas was unsettling enough, without throwing such a smile her way.
‘Make me write all my wretched essays, you mean—don’t you, Bast?’ Philip answered, making a face.
But Sarah could see the communication running between them, the easy affection. It seemed to make Bastiaan far less formidable. But that, she knew with a clenching of her muscles, had a power of its own. A power she must not acknowledge. Not even as Sabine.
‘It’s what you came here for,’ Bastiaan reminded him. ‘And to escape, of course.’
His dark eyes flickered back to Sarah and the warmth she’d seen so fleetingly as he’d smiled at his young cousin drained out of them. It was replaced by something new. Something that made her eyes narrow minutely as she tried to work out what it was.
‘I offered the villa to Philip as a refuge,’ he informed Sarah in a casual voice. ‘He was being plagued by a particularly persistent female. She made a real nuisance of herself, didn’t she?’ His glance went back to his cousin.
Philip made another face. ‘Elena Constantis was a pain,’ he said feelingly. ‘Honestly, she’s got boys buzzing all over her, but she still wanted to add me to her stupid collection. She’s so immature,’ he finished loftily.
A tiny smile hovered at Sarah’s lips, dispelling her momentary unease. Immaturity was a relative term, after all. For a second—the briefest second—she caught a similar smile just tugging at Bastiaan Karavalas’s well-shaped mouth, lifting it the way his smile at Philip had done a moment ago.
Almost, almost she felt herself starting to meet his eyes, ready to exchange glances with him—two people so much more mature than sweet, young Philip...
Then the intention was wiped from her consciousness. Its tempting potency gone. Philip’s gaze had gone to her. ‘She couldn’t be more different from you,’ he said. The warmth in his voice could have lit a fire.
Sarah’s long, fake eyelashes dipped again. Bastiaan Karavalas’s dark gaze had switched to her, and she was conscious of it—burningly conscious of it. Conscious, too, of what must have accounted for the studiedly casual remark he’d made that had got them on to this subject.
Surely he can’t think I don’t realise that Philip is smitten with me?
Bastiaan was speaking again. ‘Sabine is certainly much older,’ he observed.
The dark eyes had flicked back to her face—watching, she could tell, for her reaction to his blunt remark. Had he intended to warn her? To show her how real his cousin’s infatuation with her was?
How best to respond...? ‘Oh, I’m ancient, indeed!’ she riposted lightly. ‘Positively creaking.’
‘You’re not old!’ Philip objected immediately, aghast at the very idea. Adoration shone in his eyes. Then his gaze shifted to the dance floor in front of the stage, where couples had started to congregate. His face lit. ‘Oh! Sabine—will you dance with me? Please say yes!’
Indecision filled her. She never danced with Philip or did anything to encourage him. But right now it would get her away from the disturbing, overpowering impact of Bastiaan Karavalas.
‘If you like,’ she replied, and got to her feet as he leapt eagerly to his and walked her happily out on to the dance floor.
Thankfully, the music was neither very fast—fast dancing would have been impossible in her tight gown—nor so slow that it would require any kind of smoochy embrace. But since most of the couples were in a traditional ballroom-style hold with each other, that was the hold she glided into.
Philip, bless him, clearly wasn’t too au fait with so formal a dancing style, but he manfully did his best. ‘I’ve got two left feet!’ he exclaimed ruefully.
‘You’re doing fine,’ she answered encouragingly, making sure she was holding him literally at arm’s length.
It seemed an age until the number finally ended.
‘Well done,’ she said lightly.
‘I won’t be so clumsy next time,’ he promised her.
She let her hand fall from his shoulder and indicated that he should let go of her too—which he did, with clear reluctance. But Philip’s crush on her was not uppermost in her mind right now.
She was just about to murmur something about her next set, and this time make sure she headed off, when a deep voice sounded close by.
‘Mademoiselle Sabine? I trust you will give me equal pleasure?’
She started, her head twisting. Bastiaan Karavalas was bearing down on them as the music moved on to another number. A distinctly slower number.
He gave her no chance to refuse. An amused nod of dismissal at his cousin and then, before she could take the slightest evasive action, Sarah’s hand had been taken, her body was drawn towards his by the placing of his large, strong hand at her waist, and she was forced to lift her other hand and let it rest as lightly as she could on his shoulder. Then he was moving her into the dance—his thigh pressing blatantly against hers to impel her to move.
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Julia James
A remorseless seduction…Bastiaan Karavalas loves the thrill of the hunt. His prey this time is tantalising Sarah Fareham. Pity this seduction won’t be purely for pleasure… she’s a threat to his family that needs to be removed!Sarah dreams of becoming an opera singer, but must scrape a living as a night club performer, overcoming her inhibitions by hiding behind her vivacious stage persona Sabine. It also becomes her only defence against Bastiaan’s sensual onslaught.But Bastiaan is a tycoon to be reckoned with and once his true intentions are revealed, will Sarah’s façade be enough to safeguard her fragile heart?
Predictable. That was what taking Sabine to bed should have been.
So why had it been so totally, utterly not the way he’d predicted? That was what he wanted to know. Not just wanted—needed to know.
Memories flooded through Bastiaan, hot and overwhelming, of just how he had responded to her as he’d held her in his arms. How the consummation of their congress had been like nothing, nothing he’d ever experienced before!
As if she were the only woman in the world! The only woman in the world for me.
He fought it down. Harshly…vehemently. This was Sabine he was talking about! Sabine in whom he had absolutely no interest whatsoever except that of getting her claws out of Philip by any means available. And the means he had selected was intended to achieve that end and simultaneously—conveniently!—allow him to slake his lust for her.
Yet here he was, shaken by the memory of the night, staring out over the ocean and wondering what the hell had gone wrong with his plan.
JULIA JAMES lives in England, and adores the peaceful verdant countryside and the wild shores of Cornwall. She also loves the Mediterranean—so rich in myth and history—with its sunbaked landscapes and olive groves, ancient ruins and azure seas. ‘The perfect setting for romance!’ she says. ‘Rivalled only by the lush tropical heat of the Caribbean—palms swaying by a silver sand beach lapped by turquoise waters…what more could lovers want?’
A Tycoon to Be
Reckoned With
Julia James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For IHV, who gave me my love of opera.
Contents
Cover (#u822b572e-249f-5b55-95aa-f61bb23ccec9)
Introduction (#u05204fad-17fb-5f73-8e53-fd5cf5372276)
About the Author (#u0d07ae21-d064-58b9-816a-dfce39008a0a)
Title Page (#ud364e42a-048c-506a-86e2-5b9e209de2ac)
Dedication (#uaa175bba-0b3d-55a5-997c-6046b0e12b30)
CHAPTER ONE (#uab3e4cba-fce8-5c60-8b4c-0f0d34308705)
CHAPTER TWO (#u7f22c20e-9b0c-58a8-b70e-a48acf9abdd7)
CHAPTER THREE (#u75ba3624-0e61-5db3-aa94-469b322ae411)
CHAPTER FOUR (#uca6da06a-06c2-527e-8777-5e95c0f26a73)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_55ed9567-849b-57cc-98c6-c81690ce45d7)
‘YOU KNOW, IT’S you I blame.’
Bastiaan’s aunt tried to laugh as she spoke, but it was shaky, Bastiaan could tell.
‘It was you who suggested Philip go and stay in your villa at Cap Pierre!’
Bastiaan took the criticism on board. ‘I thought it might help—moving him out of target range to finish his university vacation assignments in peace and quiet.’
His aunt sighed. ‘Alas, it seems he has jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. He may have escaped Elena Constantis, but this female in France sounds infinitely worse.’
Bastiaan’s dark eyes took on a mordant expression. ‘Unfortunately, wherever in the world Philip is he will be a target.’
‘If only he were less sweet-natured. If he had your...toughness,’ Bastiaan’s aunt replied, her gaze falling on her nephew.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Bastiaan replied dryly. ‘But Philip will toughen up, don’t worry.’ He’ll need to, he thought caustically. Just as he himself had had to.
‘He’s so impressionable!’ his aunt cried. ‘And so handsome. No wonder these wretched girls make a beeline for him.’
And, of course, so rich, Bastiaan added cynically—but silently. No point worrying his already anxious aunt further. It was Philip’s wealth—the wealth he would be inheriting from his late father’s estate once he turned twenty-one in a couple of months—that would attract females far more dangerous than the merely irksome spoilt teenage princess Elena Constantis. The real danger would come from a very different type of female.
Call them what one liked—and Bastiaan had several names not suitable for his aunt’s ears—the most universal name was a familiar one: gold-diggers. Females who took one look at his young, good-looking, impressionable and soon to be very rich cousin and licked their lips in anticipation.
That was the problem right now. A woman who appeared to be licking her lips over Philip. And the danger was, Bastiaan knew, very real. For Philip, so Paulette, his housekeeper at Cap Pierre, had informed him, far from diligently writing his essays, had taken to haunting the nearby town of Pierre-les-Pins and a venue there that was most undesirable for a twenty-year-old. Apparently attracted by an even more undesirable female working there.
‘A singer in a nightclub!’ his aunt wailed now. ‘I cannot believe Philip would fall for a woman like that!’
‘It is something of a cliché...’ Bastiaan allowed.
His aunt bridled. ‘A cliché? Bastiaan, is that all you have to say about it?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I could say a great deal more—but to what purpose?’ Bastiaan got to his feet. He was of an imposing height, standing well over six feet, and powerfully built. ‘Don’t worry...’ he made his voice reassuring now ‘... I’ll deal with it. Philip will not be sacrificed to a greedy woman’s ambitions.’
His aunt stood up, clutching at his sleeve. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I knew I could count on you.’ Her eyes misted a little. ‘Take care of my darling boy, Bastiaan. He has no father now to look out for him.’
Bastiaan pressed his aunt’s hand sympathetically. His maternal uncle had succumbed to heart disease when Philip had just started at university, and he knew how hard her husband’s death had hit his aunt. Knew, too, with a shadowing of his eyes, how losing a father too young—as he himself had when not much older than Philip—left a void.
‘I’ll keep Philip safe, I promise you,’ he assured his aunt now, as she took her leave.
He saw her to her car, watched it head down the driveway of his property in the affluent outskirts of Athens. Then he went back indoors, his mouth tightening.
His aunt’s fears were not groundless. Until Philip turned twenty-one Bastiaan was his trustee—overseeing all his finances, managing his investments—while Philip enjoyed a more than generous allowance to cover his personal spending. Usually Bastiaan did nothing more than cast a casual eye over the bank and credit card statements, but an unusually large amount—twenty thousand euros—had gone out in a single payment a week ago. The cheque had been paid into an unknown personal account at the Nice branch of a French bank. There was no reason—no good reason—that Bastiaan could come up with for such a transfer. There was, however, one very bad reason for it—and that he could come up with.
The gold-digger had already started taking gold from the mine....
Bastiaan’s features darkened. The sooner he disposed of this nightclub singer who was making eyes at his cousin—and his cousin’s fortune—the better. He headed purposefully to his study. If he was to leave for France in the morning, he had work to do tonight. Enterprises with portfolios the size of Karavalas did not run themselves. His cousin’s fortune might be predominantly in the form of blue chip stocks, but Bastiaan preferred to diversify across a broad range of investment opportunities, from industry and property to entrepreneurial start-ups. But, for all their variety, they all shared one aspect in common—they all made him money. A lot of money.
The cynical curve was back at Bastiaan’s mouth as he sat himself down behind his desk and flicked on his PC. He’d told his aunt that her son would toughen up in time—and he knew from his own experience that that was true. Memory glinted in his dark eyes.
When his own father had died, he’d assuaged his grief by partying hard and extravagantly, with no paternal guardian to moderate his excesses. The spree had ended abruptly. He’d been in a casino, putting away the champagne and generally flashing his cash lavishly, and it had promptly lured across a female—Leana—who had been all over him. At just twenty-three he’d been happy to enjoy all she’d offered him—the company of her luscious body in bed included. So much so that when she’d fed him some story of how she’d stupidly got herself into debt with the casino and was worried sick about it, he’d grandly handed her a more than handsome cheque, feeling munificent and generous towards the beautiful, sexy woman who’d seemed so keen on him...
She’d disappeared the day the cheque had cleared—heading off, so he’d heard, on a yacht belonging to a seventy-year-old Mexican millionaire, never to be seen again by Bastiaan. He’d been royally fleeced and proved to be a complete mug. It had stung, no doubt about it, but he’d learnt his lesson, all right—an expensive one. It wasn’t one he wanted Philip to learn the same way. Apart from taking a large wedge of his money, Leana had damaged his self-esteem—an uncomfortably sobering experience for his younger self. Although it had made him wise up decisively.
But, unlike Bastiaan, Philip was of a romantic disposition, and a gold-digging seductress might wound him more deeply than just in his wallet and his self-esteem. That was not something Bastiaan would permit. After his experience with Leana he’d become wise to the wiles women threw out to him, and sceptical of their apparent devotion. Now, into his thirties, he knew they considered him a tough nut—ruthless, even...
His eyes hardened beneath dark brows. That was something this ambitious nightclub singer would soon discover for herself.
* * *
Sarah stood motionless on the low stage, the spotlight on her, while her audience beyond, sitting at their tables, mostly continued their conversations as they ate and drank.
I’m just a divertimento, she thought to herself, acidly. Background music. She nodded at Max on the piano, throat muscles ready, and he played the opening to her number. It was easy and low-pitched, making no demands on her upper register. It was just as well—the last thing she wanted to do was risk her voice singing in this smoky atmosphere.
As she sang the first bars her breasts lifted, making her all too aware of just how low-cut the bodice of her champagne satin gown was. Her long hair was swept over one bare shoulder. It was, she knew, a stereotypical ‘vamp’ image—the sultry nightclub singer with her slinky dress, low-pitched voice, over-made-up eyes and long blonde locks.
She tensed instinctively. Well, that was the idea, wasn’t it? To stand in for the club’s missing resident chanteuse, Sabine Sablon, who had abruptly vacated the role when she’d run off with a rich customer without warning.
It hadn’t been Sarah’s idea to take over as Sabine, but Max had been blunt about it. If she didn’t agree to sing here in the evenings, then Raymond, the nightclub owner, lacking a chanteuse, would refuse to let Max have the run of the place during the day. And without that they couldn’t rehearse...and without rehearsals they couldn’t appear at the Provence en Voix music festival.
And if they didn’t appear there her last chance would be gone.
My last chance—my last chance to achieve my dream!
Her dream of breaking through from being just one more of the scores upon scores of hopeful, aspiring sopranos who crowded the operatic world, all desperate to make their mark. If she could not succeed now, she would have to abandon the dream that had possessed her since her teenage years, and all the way through music college and the tough, ultra-competitive world beyond as she’d struggled to make herself heard by those who could lift her from the crowd and launch her career.
She’d tried so hard, for so long, and now she was on the wrong side of twenty-five, racing towards thirty, with time against her and younger singers coming up behind her. Everything rested on this final attempt—and if it failed... Well, then, she would accept defeat. Resign herself to teaching instead. It was the way she was currently earning her living, part-time at a school in her native Yorkshire, though she found it unfulfilling, craving the excitement and elation of performing live.
So not yet—oh, not yet—would she give up on her dreams. Not until she’d put everything into this music festival, singing the soprano lead in what she knew could only be a high-risk gamble: a newly written opera by an unknown composer, performed by unknown singers, all on a shoestring. A shoestring that Max, their fanatically driven director and conductor, was already stretching to the utmost. Everything, but everything, was being done on a tiny budget, with savings being made wherever they could. Including rehearsal space.
So every night bar Sundays, she had to become Sabine Sablon, husking away into the microphone, drawing male eyes all around. It was not a comfortable feeling—and it was a million miles away from her true self. Max could tell her all he liked that it would give her valuable insight into roles such as La Traviata’s courtesan Violetta, or the coquettish Manon, but on an operatic stage everyone would know she was simply playing a part. Here, everyone looking at her really thought she was Sabine Sablon.
A silent shudder went through her. Dear God, if anyone in the opera world found out she was singing here, like this, her credibility would be shot to pieces. No one would take her seriously for a moment.
And neither Violetta nor Manon was anything like her role in Anton’s opera War Bride. Her character was a romantic young girl, falling in love with a dashing soldier. A whirlwind courtship, a return to the front—and then the dreaded news of her husband’s fate. The heartbreak of loss and bereavement. And then a child born to take his father’s place in yet another war...
The simple, brutal tale was told as a timeless fable of the sacrifice and futility of war, repeated down the ages, its score haunting and poignant. It had captivated Sarah the first moment she’d heard Max play it.
What must it be like to love so swiftly, to hurt so badly? she’d wondered as she’d started to explore her role. For herself, she had no knowledge—had never experienced the heady whirlwind of love nor the desolation of heartbreak. Her only serious relationship had ended last year when Andrew, a cellist she had known since college, had been offered a place in a prestigious orchestra in Germany. It had been his breakthrough moment, and she had been so glad for him—had waved him off without a thought of holding him back.
Both of them had always known that their careers must come first in their lives, which meant that neither could afford to invest in a deeply emotional relationship which might jeopardise their diverging career paths. So neither had grieved when they’d parted, only wished each other well. Theirs had been a relationship based primarily on a shared passion for music, rather than for each other—friendship and affection had bound them, nothing more than that.
But this meant she knew that in order to portray her character now—the War Bride—as convincingly as she could, she would need to call on all her imagination. Just as she would need all her operatic abilities to do credit to the challenging vocal demands of the hauntingly beautiful but technically difficult music.
She reached the end of her song to a smattering of applause. Dipping her head in acknowledgement, she shifted her weight from one high-heeled foot to the other. As she straightened again, sending her gaze back out over the dining area, she felt a sudden flickering awareness go through her. She could hear Max start the introduction to her next number but ignored it, her senses suddenly on alert. She heard him repeat the phrase, caught him glancing at her with a frown, but her attention was not on him—not on the song she was supposed to have started four bars earlier. Her attention was on the audience beyond.
Someone was looking at her. Someone standing at the back of the room.
He had not been there a moment ago and must have just come in. She shook her head, trying to dismiss that involuntary sense of heightened awareness, of sudden exposure. Male eyes gazed at her all the time—and there was always movement beyond the stage...diners and waiters. They did not make her pause the way this had—as if there were something different about him. She wanted to see him more clearly, but the light was wrong and he was too far away for her to discern anything more than a tall, tuxedo-clad figure at the back of the room.
For the third time she heard Max repeat the intro—insistently this time. And she knew she had to start to sing. Not just because of Max’s impatient prompt but because she suddenly, urgently, needed to do something other than simply stand there, pooled in the light that emphasised every slender curve of her tightly sheathed body. Exposed her to that invisible yet almost tangible scrutiny that was palpable in its impact on her.
As she started the number her voice was more husky than ever. Her long, artificial lashes swept down over her deeply kohled eyes, and the sweep of her hair dipped halfway across her jawline and cheekbone. She forced herself to keep singing, to try and suppress the frisson of disturbed awareness that was tensing through her—the sense of being the object of attention that was like a beam targeted at her.
Somehow she got through to the end of the number, pulling herself together to start the next one on time and not fluff it. It seemed easier now, and she realised that at some point that sense of being under scrutiny had faded and dissipated. As if a kind of pressure had been lifted off her. She reached the end of the last number, the end of her set, with a sense of relief. She made her way offstage, hearing canned music starting up and Max closing down the piano.
One of the waiters intercepted her. ‘There’s a guy who wants to buy you a drink,’ he said.
Sarah made a face. It wasn’t unusual that this happened, but she never accepted.
The waiter held up a hundred-euro note. ‘Looks like he’s keen,’ he informed her with a lift of his brow.
‘Well, he’s the only one who is,’ she said. ‘Better take it back to him,’ she added. ‘I don’t want him thinking I pocketed it and then didn’t show.’
Her refusal got Max’s approval. ‘No time for picking up men,’ he said, flippantly but pointedly.
‘As if I would...’ She rolled her eyes.
For a moment, it crossed her mind that the invitation to buy her a drink might be connected to that shadowy figure at the back of the room and his disturbing perusal of her, but then she dismissed the thought. All she wanted to do now was get out of her costume and head for bed. Max started opera rehearsals promptly every morning, and she needed to sleep.
She’d just reached her dressing room, kicking off her high heels and flexing her feet in relief, when there was a brief knock at the door. She only had time to say, ‘Who is it?’ before the door opened.
She glanced up, assuming it would be Max, wanting to tell her something that couldn’t wait. But instead it was a man she’d never seen before in her life.
And he stilled the breath in her lungs.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_75aa2794-ba93-5b3d-b2ac-98edaed9ad54)
BASTIAAN’S EYES ZEROED in on the figure seated at the brightly lit vanity unit with its trademark light-bulb-surrounded mirror. Backlit as she was by the high-wattage bulbs, her face was in shadow.
But the shadows did nothing to dim her impact. If anything it emphasised it, casting her features into relief. On stage, she’d been illuminated in a pool of light, her features softened by the distance at which he’d sat. He’d deliberately taken a table at the rear of the room, wanting at that point only to observe without being noticed in return.
It hadn’t taken him more than two moments to realise that the female poised on the stage possessed a quality that signalled danger to his young, impressionable cousin.
Allure—it was an old-fashioned word, but that was the one that had come to his mind as his eyes had rested on the slender figure sensuously draped in low-cut clinging satin, standing in a pool of soft, smoky light, her fingers lightly curved around her microphone, the lustrous fall of her long blonde hair curled over her bare shoulder like a vamp from the forties.
Her mouth was painted a rich, luscious red, her eye make-up was pronounced, with long, artificial lashes framing luminous eyes. Seeing her now, close up, she was even more alluring.
No wonder Philip is smitten!
His eyes completed his swift scrutiny and he was interested to see a line of colour running along her cheekbones. Curious... he thought. Then the tightening of her mouth told him what had accounted for that reaction. It was not a blush—a woman like her probably hadn’t blushed since puberty—it was annoyance.
Why? he found himself wondering. Women were not usually annoyed when he paid them attention. Quite the reverse. But this chanteuse was. It was doubly unusual because surely a woman in her profession was well used to male admirers courting her in her dressing room.
An unwelcome thought crossed his mind—was it his cousin’s wont to hang out here? Did she invite him to her changing room?
Just how far has she got with him?
Well, however far it was, it was going to stop from now on. Whatever story she’d trotted out to Philip in order to get him to give her money, the gold mine was closing down...
She was looking at him still, that scarlet mouth of hers pressed tightly, and something sparking now in her eyes.
‘Oui?’ she said pointedly.
His eyelids dipped over his eyes briefly. ‘Did the waiter not pass on my invitation?’ he asked, speaking in French, which he spoke as well as English and a couple of other languages as well.
Her arched eyebrows rose. ‘It was you?’ she said. Then, without bothering to wait for a reply, she simply went on, ‘I’m afraid I don’t accept invitations to share a drink with any of the club’s guests.’
Her tone was dismissive, and Bastiaan felt a flicker of annoyance at it. Dismissive was not the kind of voice he was used to hearing in women he was speaking to. Or indeed from anyone he was speaking to. And in someone whose career relied on the attention and appreciation of others, it was out of place.
Perhaps she thinks she does not need to court her audience any longer? Perhaps she thinks she already has a very comfortable exit from her profession lined up?
The flicker of annoyance sparked to something sharper. But he did not let it show. Not now—not yet. At the moment, his aim was to disarm her. Defeating her would come afterwards.
‘Then allow me to invite you to dinner instead,’ he responded. Deliberately, he infused a subtly caressing note into his voice that he’d found successful at any other time he’d chosen to adopt it.
That line of colour ran out over her cheekbones again. But this time there was no accompanying tightening of her red mouth. Instead she gave a brief smile. It was civil only—nothing more than that, Bastiaan could see.
‘Thank you, but no. And now...’ the smile came again, and he could see that her intention was to terminate the exchange ‘...if you will excuse me, I must get changed.’ She paused expectantly, waiting for him to withdraw.
He ignored the prompt. Instead one eyebrow tilted interrogatively. ‘You have another dinner engagement?’ he asked.
Something snapped in her eyes, changing their colour, he noticed. He’d assumed they were a shade of grey, but suddenly there was a flash of green in them.
‘No,’ she said precisely. ‘And if I did, m’sieu—’ the pointedness was back in her voice now ‘—I don’t believe it would be any of your concern.’ She smiled tightly, with less civility now.
If it were with my cousin, mademoiselle, it would indeed be my concern... That flicker of more than annoyance came again, but again Bastiaan concealed it.
‘In which case, what can be your objection to dining with me?’ Again, there was the same note in his voice that worked so well with women in general. Invitations to dine with him had never, in his living memory, been met with rejection.
She was staring at him with those eyes that had gone back to grey now, the flash of green quite absent. Eyes that were outlined in black kohl, their sockets dramatised outrageously with make-up, their lashes doubled in length by artificial means and copious mascara.
Staring at him in a way he’d never been stared at before.
As though she didn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Or hearing.
For just a second their eyes met, and then, as if in recoil, her fake lashes dropped down over her eyes, veiling them.
She took a breath. ‘M’sieu, I am desolated to inform you that I also do not accept invitations to dine with the club’s guests,’ she said. She didn’t make her tone dismissive now, but absolute.
He ignored it. ‘I wasn’t thinking of dining here,’ he said. ‘I would prefer to take you to Le Tombleur,’ he murmured.
Her eyes widened just a fraction. Le Tombleur was currently the most fashionable restaurant on the Côte D’Azur, and Bastiaan was sure that the chance to dine at such a fabulous locale would surely stop her prevaricating in this fashion. It would also, he knew, set her mind instantly at rest as to whether he was someone possessed of sufficient financial means to be of interest to her. She would not wish to waste her time on someone who was not in the same league as his young cousin. Had she but known, Bastiaan thought cynically, his own fortune was considerably greater than Philip’s.
But of course Philip’s fortune was far more accessible to her. Or might be. If she were truly setting Philip in her sightline, she would be cautious about switching her attentions elsewhere—it would lose her Philip if he discovered it.
A thought flickered across Bastiaan’s mind. She was alluring enough—even for himself... Should that be his method of detaching her? Then he dismissed it. Of course he would not be involving himself in any kind of liaison with a woman such as this one. However worthy the intention.
Dommage... He heard the French word in his head. What a pity...
‘M’sieu...’ She was speaking again, with razored precision. ‘As I say, I must decline your very...generous...invitation’.
Had there been a twist in her phrasing of the word ‘generous’? An ironic inflection indicating that she had formed an opinion of him that was not the one he’d intended her to form?
He felt a new emotion flicker within him like a low-voltage electric current.
Could there possibly be more to this woman sitting there, looking up at him through those absurdly fake eyelashes, with a strange expression in her grey-green eyes—more green now than grey, he realised. His awareness of that colour-change was of itself distracting, and it made his own eyes narrow assessingly.
For just a fraction of a second their eyes seemed to meet, and Bastiaan felt the voltage of the electric current surging within him.
‘Are you ready to go yet?’
A different voice interjected, coming from the door, which had been pushed wider by a man—a youngish one—clad in a dinner jacket, half leaning his slightly built body against the doorjamb. The man had clearly addressed Sabine, but now, registering that there was someone else in her dressing room, his eyes went to Bastiaan.
He frowned, about to say something, but Sabine Sablon interjected. ‘The gentleman is just leaving,’ she announced.
Her voice was cool, but Bastiaan was too experienced with women not to know that she was not, in fact, as composed as she wanted to appear. And he knew what was causing it...
Satisfaction soared through him. Oh, this sultry, sophisticated chanteuse, with her vampish allure, her skin-tight dress and over-made-up face, might be appearing as cool as the proverbial cucumber—but that flash in her eyes had told him that however resistant she appeared to be to his overtures, an appearance was all it was...
I can reach her. She is vulnerable to me.
That was the truth she’d so unguardedly—so unwisely—just revealed to him.
He changed his stance. Glanced at the man hovering in the doorway. A slight sense of familiarity assailed him, and a moment later he knew why. He was the accompanist for the chanteuse.
For a fleeting moment he found himself speculating on whether the casual familiarity he could sense between the two of them betokened a more intimate relationship. Then he rejected it. Every male instinct told him that whatever lover the accompanist took would not be female.
Bastiaan’s sense of satisfaction increased, and his annoyance with the intruder decreased proportionately. He turned his attention back to his quarry.
‘I shall take my leave, then, mademoiselle,’ he said, and he did not trouble to hide his ironic inflection or his amusement. Dark, dangerous amusement. As though her rejection of him was clearly nothing more than a feminine ploy—one he was seeing through...but currently choosing to indulge. He gave the slightest nod of his head, the slightest sardonic smile.
‘A bientôt.’
Then, paying not the slightest attention to the accompanist, who had to straighten to let him pass, he walked out.
As he left he heard the chanteuse exclaim, ‘Thank goodness you rescued me!’
Bastiaan could hear the relief in her tone. His satisfaction went up yet another level. A tremor—a discernible tremor—had been audible in her voice. That was good.
Yes, she is vulnerable to me.
He walked on down the corridor, casually letting himself out through the rear entrance into the narrow roadway beyond, before walking around to the front of the club, where his car was parked on the forecourt. Lowering himself into its low-slung frame, he started the engine, its low, throaty growl echoing the silent growl inside his head.
‘Thank goodness you rescued me!’ she had said, this harpy who was trying to extract his cousin’s fortune from him.
Bastiaan’s mouth thinned to a tight, narrow line, his eyes hardening as he headed out on to the road, setting his route back towards Monaco, where he was staying tonight in the duplex apartment he kept there.
Well, in that she was mistaken—most decidedly.
No one will rescue you from me.
Of that he was certain.
He drove on into the night.
* * *
‘Give me two minutes and I’ll be ready to go,’ Sarah said.
She strove for composure, but felt as if she’d just been released from a seizure of her senses that had crushed the breath from her lungs. How she’d managed to keep her cool she had no idea—she had only know that keeping her cool was absolutely essential.
What the hell had just happened to her? Out of nowhere...the way it had?
That had been the man whose assessing gaze she’d picked up during her final number. She’d been able to feel it from right across the club—and when he’d walked into her dressing room it had been like...
Like nothing I’ve ever known. Nothing I’ve ever felt—
Never before had a man had such a raw, physical impact on her. Hitting her senses like a sledgehammer. She tried to analyse it now—needing to do so. His height, towering over her in the tiny dressing room, had dominated the encounter. The broad shoulders had been sleekly clad in a bespoke dinner jacket, and there had been an impression of power that she had derived not just from the clearly muscular physique he possessed but by an aura about him that had told her this man was used to getting his own way.
Especially with women.
Because it hadn’t just been the clear impression that here was a wealthy man who could buy female favours—his mention of Le Tombleur had been adequate demonstration of that—it had been far, far more...
She felt herself swallow. He doesn’t need money to impress women.
No, she acknowledged shakily, all it took was those piercing dark eyes, winged with darker brows, the strong blade of his nose, the wide, sensual curve of his mouth and the tough line of his jaw.
He was a man who knew perfectly well that his appeal to women was powerful—who knew perfectly well that women responded to him on that account.
She felt her hackles rise automatically.
He thought I’d jump at the chance!
A rush of weakness swept through her. Thank God she’d had the presence of mind—pulled urgently out of her reeling senses—to react the way she’d managed to do.
What was it about him that he should have had such an effect on me?
Just what had it been about that particular combination of physique, looks and sheer, raw personal impact that had made her react as if she were a sliver of steel in the sudden presence of a magnetic field so strong it had made the breath still in her body?
She had seen better-looking men in her time, but not a single one had ever had the raw, visceral, overpowering impact on her senses that this man had. Even in the space of a few charged minutes...
She shook her head again, trying to clear the image from her mind. Whoever he was, he’d gone.
As she got on with the task of turning herself back into Sarah, shedding the false eyelashes, heavy make-up and tight satin gown, she strove to dismiss him from her thoughts. Put him out of your head, she told herself brusquely. It was Sabine Sablon he wanted to invite to dinner, not Sarah Fareham.
That was the truth of it, she knew. Sabine was the kind of woman a man like that would be interested in—sophisticated, seductive, a woman of the world, a femme fatale. And she wasn’t Sabine—she most definitely was not. So it was completely irrelevant that she’d reacted to the man the way she had.
I haven’t got time to be bowled over by some arrogantly smouldering alpha male who thinks he’s picking up a sultry woman like Sabine. However much he knocked me sideways.
She had one focus in her life right now—only one. And it was not a man with night-dark eyes and devastating looks who sucked the breath from her body.
She headed out to where Max was waiting to walk her back to her pension, some blocks away in this harbourside ville of Pierre-les-Pins, before carrying on to the apartment he shared with Anton, the opera’s composer.
As they set off he launched into speech without preamble. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘in your first duet with Alain—’
And he was off, instructing her in some troublesome vocal technicalities he wanted to address at the next day’s rehearsal. Sarah was glad, for it helped to distance her mind from that brief but disturbing encounter in her dressing room with that devastating, dangerous man.
Dangerous? The word echoed in her head, taking her aback. Had he been dangerous? Truly?
She gave herself a mental shake. She was being absurd. How could a complete stranger be dangerous to her? Of course he couldn’t.
It was absurd to think so.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ae830269-9566-5599-9063-a8d2cedf6b79)
‘BASTIAAN! FANTASTIC! I’d no idea you were here in France!’ Philip’s voice was warm and enthusiastic as he answered his mobile.
‘Monaco, to be precise,’ Bastiaan answered, strolling with his phone to the huge plate-glass window of his high-rise apartment in Monte Carlo, which afforded a panoramic view over the harbour, chock-full of luxury yachts glittering in the morning sunshine.
‘But you’ll come over to the villa, won’t you?’ his cousin asked eagerly.
‘Seeking distraction from your essays...?’ Bastiaan trailed off deliberately, knowing the boy had distraction already—a dangerous one.
As it had done ever since he’d left the nightclub last night, the seductive image of Sabine Sablon slid into his inner vision. Enough to distract anyone. Even himself...
He pulled his mind away. Time to discover just how deep Philip was with the alluring chanteuse. ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘I can be with you within the hour if you like?’
He did not get an immediate reply. Then Philip was saying, ‘Could you make it a bit later than that?’
‘Studying so hard?’ Bastiaan asked lightly.
‘Well, not precisely. I mean, I am—I’ve got one essay nearly finished—but actually, I’m a bit tied up till lunchtime...’
Philip’s voice trailed off, and Bastiaan could hear the constraint in his cousin’s voice. He was hiding something.
Deliberately, Bastiaan backed off. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘See you for lunch, then—around one... Is that OK?’ He paused. ‘Do you want me to tell Paulette to expect me, or will you?’
‘Would you?’ said Philip, from which Bastiaan drew his own conclusion. Philip wasn’t at the villa right now.
‘No problem,’ he said again, making his voice easy still. Easier than his mind...
So, if Philip wasn’t struggling with his history essays at the villa, where was he?
Is he with her now?
He could feel his hackles rising down his spine. Was that why she had turned down dining with him at Le Tombleur? Because she’d been about to rendezvous with his cousin? Had Philip spent the night with her?
A growl started in his throat. Philip might be legally free to have a relationship with anyone he wanted, but even if the chanteuse had been as pure as the driven snow, with the financial probity of a nun, she was utterly unsuitable for a first romance for a boy his age. She was nearer thirty than twenty...
‘Great!’ Philip was saying now. ‘See you then, Bast—gotta go.’
The call was disconnected and Bastiaan dropped his phone back in his pocket slowly, staring out of the window. Multi-million-pound yachts crowded the marina, and the fairy tale royal palace looked increasingly besieged by the high-rise buildings that maximised the tiny footprint of the principality.
He turned away. His apartment here had been an excellent investment, and the rental income was exceptional during the Monaco Grand Prix, but Monte Carlo was not his favourite place. He far preferred his villa on Cap Pierre, where Philip was staying. Better still, his own private island off the Greek west coast. That was where he went when he truly wanted to be himself. One day he’d take the woman who would be his wife there—the woman he would spend the rest of his life with.
Although just who she would be he had no idea. His experience with women was wide, indeed, but so far not one of his many female acquaintances had come anywhere close to tempting him to make a relationship with her permanent. One thing he was sure of—when he met her, he’d know she was the one.
There’d be no mistaking that.
Meantime he’d settle himself down at the dining table, open his laptop and get some work done before heading off to meet Philip—and finding out just how bad his infatuation was...
* * *
‘I could murder a coffee.’ Sarah, dismissed by Max for now, while he focussed his attentions on the small chorus, plonked herself down at the table near the front of the stage where Philip was sitting.
He’d become a fixture at their rehearsals, and Sarah hadn’t the heart to discourage him. He was a sweet guy, Philip Markiotis, and he had somehow attached himself to the little opera company in the role of unofficial runner—fetching coffee, refilling water jugs, copying scores, helping tidy up after rehearsals.
And all the time, Sarah thought with a softening of her expression, he was carrying a youthful torch for her that glowed in every yearning glance that came her way. He was only a few years older than her own sixth-formers, and his admiration for her must remain hopeless, but she would never dream of hurting his feelings. She knew how very real they seemed to him.
Memory sifted through Sarah’s head. She knew what Philip was experiencing. OK, she could laugh at herself now, but as a music student she’d had the most lovestruck crush on the tenor who’d taken a summer master class she’d attended. She’d been totally smitten, unable to conceal it—but, looking back now, what struck her most was how tolerant the famous tenor had been of her openly besotted devotion. Oh, she probably hadn’t been the only smitten female student, but she’d always remembered that he’d been kind, and tactful, and had never made her feel juvenile or idiotic.
She would do likewise now, with Philip. His crush, she knew perfectly well, would not outlast the summer. It was only the result of his isolation here, with nothing to do but write his vacation essays...and yearn after her hopelessly, gazing at her ardently with his dark eyes.
Out of nowhere a different image sprang into her head. The man who had walked into her dressing room, invaded her space, had rested his eyes on her—but not with youthful ardour in them. With something far more powerful, more primitive. Long-lashed, heavy-lidded, they had held her in their beam as if she were being targeted by a searchlight. She felt a sudden shimmer go through her—a shiver of sensual awareness—as if she could not escape that focussed regard. Did not want to...
She hauled her mind away.
I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about him. He asked me out, I said no—that’s it. Over and done with.
And it hadn’t even been her he’d asked out, she reminded herself. The man had taken her for Sabine, sultry and seductive, sophisticated and sexy. She would have to be terminally stupid not to know how a man like that, who thought nothing of approaching a woman he didn’t know and asking her to dinner, would have wanted the evening to end had ‘Sabine’ accepted his invitation. It had been in his eyes, in his gaze—in the way it had washed over her. Blatant in its message.
Would I have wanted it to end that way? If I were Sabine...?
The question was there before she could stop it. Forcibly she pushed it aside, refusing to answer. She was not Sabine—she was Sarah Fareham. And whatever the disturbing impact that man had had on her she had no time to dwell on it. She was only weeks away from the most critical performance of her life, and all her energies, all her focus and strength, had to go into that. Nothing else mattered—nothing.
‘So,’ she said, making her voice cheerful, accepting the coffee Philip had poured for her, ‘you’re our one-man audience, Philip—how’s it going, do you think?’
His face lit. ‘You were wonderful!’ he said, his eyes warm upon her.
Damn, thought Sarah wryly, she’d walked into that one. ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she said playfully, ‘but what about everyone else?’
‘I’m sure they’re excellent,’ said Philip, his lack of interest in the other performers a distinct contrast with his enthusiasm for the object of his devotion. Then he frowned. ‘Max treats you very badly,’ he said, ‘criticising you the way he does.’
Sarah smiled, amused. ‘Oh, Philip—that’s his job. And it’s not just me—he’s got to make sure we all get it right and then pull it together. He hears all the voices—each of us is focussing only on our own.’
‘But yours is wonderful,’ Philip said, as though that clinched the argument.
She gave a laugh, not answering, and drank her coffee, chasing it down with a large glass of water to freshen her vocal cords.
She was determined to banish the last remnants from the previous night’s unwanted encounter with a male who was the very antithesis of the one sitting gazing at her now. Philip’s company eased some of the inevitable tension that came from the intensity of rehearsals, the pressure on them all and Max’s exacting musical direction. Apart from making sure she did not inadvertently encourage Philip in his crush on her, sitting with him was very undemanding.
With his good-natured, sunny personality, as well as his eagerness and enthusiasm for what was, to him, the novelty of a bohemian, artistic enterprise, it wasn’t surprising that she and the other cast members liked him. What had been more surprising to her was that Max had not objected to his presence. His explanation had not found favour with her.
‘Cherie, anyone staying at their family villa on the Cap is loaded. The boy might not throw money around but, believe me, I’ve checked out the name—he’s one rich kid!’ Max’s eyes had gone to Sarah. ‘Cultivate him, cherie—we could do with a wealthy sponsor.’
Sarah’s reply had been instant—and sharp. ‘Don’t even think of trying to get a donation from him, Max!’ she’d warned.
It would be absolutely out of the question for her to take advantage of her young admirer’s boyish infatuation, however much family money there might be in the background. She’d pondered whether to warn Philip that Max might be angling for some financial help for the cash-strapped ensemble, but then decided not to. Knowing Philip, it would probably only inspire him to offer it.
She gave a silent sigh. What with treading around Philip’s sensibilities, putting her heart and soul into perfecting her performance under the scathing scrutiny of Max, and enduring her nightly ordeal as Sabine, there was a lot on her plate right now. The last thing she needed to be added to it was having her mind straining back with unwelcome insistence to that unnerving visitation to her dressing room the night before.
At her side, Philip was glancing at his watch. He made a face.
‘Need to go back to your essays?’ she asked sympathetically.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘it’s my cousin—the one who owns the villa on the Cap—he’s turned up on the Riviera and is coming over for lunch.’
‘Checking you aren’t throwing wild all-night parties, is he?’ Sarah teased gently, although Philip was the last type to do any such thing. ‘Or holding one himself?’
Philip shook his head. ‘Bastiaan’s loads too old for that stuff—he’s gone thirty,’ he said ingenuously. ‘He spends most of his time working. Oh, and having hordes of females trailing around after him.’
Well, thought Sarah privately, if Cousin Bastiaan was from the same uber-affluent background as Philip, that wouldn’t be too surprising. Rich men, she supposed, never ran short of female attention.
Before she could stop it, her mind homed back to that incident in her dressing room the night before. Her eyes darkened. Now, there was a man who was not shy of flaunting his wealth. Dropping invitations to flash restaurants and assuming they’d be snapped up.
But immediately she refuted her own accusation.
He didn’t need money to have the impact he had on me. All he had to do was stand there and look at me...
She dragged her mind away. She had to stop this—she had to. How many times did she have to tell herself that?
‘Sarah!’ Max’s imperious call rescued her from her troubling thoughts.
She got to her feet, and Philip did too. ‘Back to the grindstone,’ she said. ‘And you scoot, Philip. Have fun with your cousin.’ She smiled, lifting a brief hand in farewell as she made her way back to the stage.
Within minutes she was utterly absorbed, her whole being focussed only on her work, and the rest of the world disappeared from sight.
* * *
‘So,’ said Bastiaan, keeping his voice studiedly casual, ‘you want to start drawing on your fund, is that it?’
The two of them were sitting outside on the shaded terrace outside the villa’s dining room. They’d eaten lunch out there and now Bastiaan was drinking coffee, relaxed back in his chair.
Or rather he appeared to be relaxed. Internally, however, he was on high alert. His young cousin had just raised the subject of his approaching birthday, and asked whether Bastiaan would start to relax the reins now. Warning bells were sounding.
Across the table from him, Philip shifted position. ‘It’s not going to be a problem, is it?’ he said.
He spoke with insouciance, but Bastiaan wasn’t fooled. His level of alertness increased. Philip was being evasive.
‘It depends.’ He kept his voice casual. ‘What is it you want to spend the money on?’
Philip glanced away, out over the gardens towards the swimming pool. He fiddled with his coffee spoon some more, then looked back at Bastiaan. ‘Is it such a big deal, knowing what I want the money for? I mean, it’s my money...’
‘Yes,’ allowed Bastiaan. ‘But until your birthday I... I guard it for you.’
Philip frowned. ‘For me or from me?’ he said.
There was a tightness in his voice that was new to Bastiaan. Almost a challenge. His level of alertness went up yet another notch.
‘It might be the same thing,’ he said. His voice was even drier now. Deliberately he took a mouthful of black coffee, replaced the cup with a click on its saucer and looked straight at Philip. ‘A fool and his money...’ He trailed off deliberately.
He saw his cousin’s colour heighten. ‘I’m not a fool!’ he riposted.
‘No,’ agreed Bastiaan, ‘you’re not. But—’ he held up his hand ‘—you could, all the same, be made a fool of.’
His dark eyes rested on his cousin. Into his head sprang the image of that chanteuse in the nightclub again—pooled in light, her dress clinging, outlining her body like a second skin, her tones low and husky...alluring...
He snapped his mind away, using more effort than he was happy about. Got his focus back on Philip—not on the siren who was endangering him. As for his tentative attempt to start accessing his trust fund—well, he’d made his point, and now it was time to lighten up.
‘So just remember...’ he let humour into his voice now ‘...when you turn twenty-one you’re going to find yourself very, very popular—cash registers will start ringing all around you.’
He saw Philip swallow.
‘I do know that...’ he said.
He didn’t say it defiantly, and Bastiaan was glad.
‘I really won’t be a total idiot, Bast—and...and I’m not ungrateful for your warning. I know—’ Bastiaan could hear there was a crack in his voice. ‘I know you’re keeping an eye on me because...well, because...’
‘Because it’s what your father would have expected—and what your mother wants,’ Bastiaan put in. The humour was gone now. He spoke with only sober sympathy for his grieving cousin and his aunt. He paused. ‘She worries about you—you’re her only son.’
Philip gave a sad smile. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘But Bast, please—do reassure her that she truly doesn’t need to worry so much.’
‘I’ll do that if I can,’ Bastiaan said. Then, wanting to change the subject completely, he said, ‘So, where do you fancy for dinner tonight?’
As he spoke he thought of Le Tombleur. Thought of the rejection he’d had the night before. Unconsciously, his face tightened. Then, as Philip answered, it tightened even more.
‘Oh, Bast—I’m sorry—I can’t. Not tonight.’
Bastiaan allowed himself a glance. Then, ‘Hot date?’ he enquired casually.
Colour ran along his cousin’s cheekbones. ‘Sort of...’ he said.
‘Sort of hot? Or sort of a date?’ Bastiaan kept his probing light. But his mood was not light at all. He’d wondered last night at the club, when he’d checked out the chanteuse himself, whether he might see Philip there as well. But there’d been no sign of him and he’d been relieved. Maybe things weren’t as bad as he feared. But now—
‘A sort of date,’ Philip confessed.
Bastiaan backed off. He was walking through landmines for the time being, and he did not want to set one off. He would have to tread carefully, he knew, or risk putting the boy’s back up and alienating him.
In a burst, Philip spoke again. ‘Bast—could I...? Could you...? Well, there’s someone I want you to meet.’
Bastiaan stilled. ‘The hot date?’ he ventured.
Again the colour flared across his cousin’s cheeks. ‘Will you?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ Bastiaan replied easily. ‘How would you like us to meet up? Would you like to invite her to dinner at the villa?’
It was a deliberate trail, and it got the answer he knew Philip had to give. ‘Er...no. Um, there’s a place in Les Pins—the food’s not bad—though it’s not up to your standards of course, but—’
‘No problem,’ said Bastiaan, wanting only to be accommodating. Philip, little did he realise it, was playing right into his hands. Seeing his cousin with his inamorata would give him a pretty good indication of just how deep he was sunk into the quicksand that she represented.
‘Great!’
Philip beamed, and the happiness and relief in his voice showed Bastiaan that his impressionable, vulnerable cousin was already in way, way too deep...
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_4b777d36-3676-5661-b61c-910d9a7b0b47)
BEYOND THE SPOTLIGHT trained on her, Sarah could see Philip, sitting at the table closest to the stage, gazing up at her while she warbled through her uninspiring medley. At the end of her first set Max went backstage to phone Anton, as he always did, and Sarah stepped carefully down to the dining area, taking the seat Philip was holding out for her.
She smiled across at him. ‘I thought you’d be out with your cousin tonight, painting the Côte d’Azur red!’ she exclaimed lightly.
‘Oh, no,’ said Philip dismissively. ‘But speaking of my cousin...’ He paused, then went on in a rush, ‘Sarah, I hope you don’t mind... I’ve asked him here to meet you! You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked entreatingly.
Dismay filled her. She didn’t want to crush him, but at the same time the fewer people who knew she appeared here nightly as Sabine the better. Unless, of course, they didn’t know her as Sarah the opera singer in the first place.
Philip was a nice lad—a student—but Cousin Bastiaan, for all Sarah knew, moved in the elite, elevated social circles of the very wealthy, and might well be acquainted with any number of people influential in all sorts of areas...including opera. She just could not afford to jeopardise what nascent reputation the festival might build for her—not with her entire future resting on it.
She thought rapidly. ‘Look, Philip, I know this might sound confusing, but can we stick to me being Sabine, rather than mentioning my opera singing?’ she ventured. ‘Otherwise it gets...complicated.’
Complicated was one word for it—risky was another.
Philip was looking disconcerted. ‘Must I?’ he protested. ‘I’d love Bastiaan to know how wonderful and talented you really are.’ Admiration and ardent devotion shone in his eyes.
Sarah gave a wry laugh. ‘Oh, Philip, that’s very sweet of you, but—’
She got no further. Philip’s gaze had suddenly flicked past her. ‘That’s him,’ he announced. ‘Just coming over now—’
Sarah craned her neck slightly—and froze.
The tall figure threading its way towards their table was familiar. Unmistakably so.
She just had time to ask a mental, What on earth? when he was upon them.
Philip had jumped to his feet.
‘Bast! You made it! Great!’ he cried happily, sticking to the French he spoke with Sarah. He hugged his cousin exuberantly, and went on in Greek, ‘You’ve timed it perfectly—’
‘Have I?’ answered Bastiaan. He kept his voice studiedly neutral, but his eyes had gone to the woman seated at his cousin’s table. Multiple thoughts crowded in his head, struggling for predominance. But the one that won out was the last one he wanted.
A jolt of insistent, unmistakable male response to the image she presented.
The twenty-four hours since he’d accosted her in her dressing room had done nothing at all to lessen the impact she made on him. The same lush blond hair, deep eyes, rich mouth, and another gown that skimmed her shoulders and breasts, moulding the latter to perfection...
He felt his body growl with raw, masculine satisfaction. The next moment he’d crushed it down. So here she was, the sultry chanteuse, making herself at home with Philip, and Philip’s eyes on her were like an adoring puppy’s.
‘Bastiaan, I want to introduce you to someone very special,’ Philip was saying. A slight flush mounted in the young man’s cheeks and his glance went from his cousin to Sarah and back again. ‘This...’ there was the slightest hesitation in his voice ‘...this is Sabine.’ He paused more discernibly this time. ‘Sabine,’ he said self-consciously, ‘this is my cousin Bastiaan—Bastiaan Karavalas.’
Through the mesh of consternation in Sarah’s head one realisation was clear. It was time to call it, she knew. Make it clear to Philip—and to his cousin Bastiaan—that, actually, they were already ‘acquainted.’ She gave the word a deliberately biting sardonic inflection in her head.
Her long fake lashes dipped down over her eyes and she found herself surreptitiously glancing at the dark-eyed, powerfully built man who had just sat down, dominating the space.
Dominating her senses...
Just as he had the night before, when he’d appeared in her dressing room.
But it wasn’t this that concerned her. It was the way he seemed to be suddenly the only person in the entire universe, drawing her eyes to him as irretrievably as if he were the iron to her magnetic compass. She couldn’t look away—could only let her veiled glance fasten on him, feel again, as powerfully as she first had, the raw impact he had on her, that sense of power and attraction that she could not explain—did not want to explain.
Call it. She heard the imperative in her head. Call it—say that you know him—that he has already sought you out...
But she couldn’t do anything other than sit there and try to conjure up some explanation for why she couldn’t open her mouth.
Into her head tumbled the overriding question—What the hell is going on here?
Because something was—that was for sure. A man she’d never seen before in her life had turned up at the club, bribed a waiter to invite her to his table, then confronted her in her dressing room to ask her out... And then he reappeared as Philip’s cousin, unexpectedly arrived in France...
But there was no time to think—no time for anything other than to realise that she had to cope with the situation as it was now and come up with answers later.
‘Mademoiselle...’
The deep voice was as dark as she remembered it—accented in Greek, similar to Philip’s. But that was the only similarity. Philip’s voice was light, youthful, his tone usually admiring, often hesitant. But his cousin, in a single word, conveyed to Sarah a whole lot more.
Assessing—guarded—sardonic. Not quite mocking but...
She felt a shiver go down her spine. A shiver she should not be feeling. Should have no need of feeling. Was he daring her to admit they’d already encountered one another?
‘M’sieu...’ She kept her voice cool. Totally neutral.
A waiter glided up, seeing a new guest had arrived. The business of Bastiaan Karavalas ordering a drink—a dry martini, Sarah noted absently—gave her precious time to try and grab some composure back.
She was in urgent need of it—whatever Bastiaan Karavalas was playing at, it was his physical presence that was dominating her senses, overwhelming her with his raw, physical impact just the way it had last night in her dressing room. Dragging her gaze to him set her heart quickening, her pulse surging. What was it about him? That sense of presence, of power—of dark, magnetic attraction? The veiled eyes, the sensual mouth...?
Never had she been so aware of a man. Never had her body reacted like this.
‘For you, mademoiselle?’ the deep, accented voice was addressing her, clearly enquiring what she would like to drink.
She gave a quick shake of her head. ‘Thank you—no. I stick to water between sets.’
He dismissed the waiter with an absent lift of his hand and the man scurried off to do his bidding.
‘Sets?’ Bastiaan enquired.
His thoughts were busy. He’d wanted to see whether she would disclose his approach to her the previous evening, and now he was assessing the implications of her not doing so.
He was, he knew, assessing a great deal about her... Predominantly her physical impact on him. Even though that was the thing least relevant to the situation.
Or was it?
The thought was in his head before he could stop it. So, too, was the one that followed hard upon its heels.
Her reaction to him blazed from her like a beacon. Satisfaction—stabbing through him—seared in his veins. That, oh, that, indeed, was something he could use...
He quelled the thought—this was not the time. She had taken the first trick at that first encounter, turning down the invitation he’d so expected her to take. But the game, Mademoiselle Sabine, is only just begun...
And he would be holding the winning hand!
‘Sa...Sabine’s a singer,’ Philip was saying, his eyes alight and sweeping admiringly over the chanteuse who had him in her coils.
Bastiaan sat back, his eyes flickering over the slinkily dressed and highly made-up figure next to his cousin. ‘Indeed?’
It was his turn to use the French language to his advantage—allowing the ironic inflection to work to her discomfiture...as though he doubted the veracity of his cousin’s claim.
‘Indeed, m’sieu,’ echoed Sarah. The ironic inflection had not been lost on her and she repaid it herself, in a light, indifferent tone.
He didn’t like that, she could see. There was something about the way his dark brows drew a fraction closer to each other, the way the sensual mouth tightened minutely.
‘And what do you...sing?’ he retaliated, and one dark brow lifted with slight interrogation.
‘Chansons d’amour,’ Sarah murmured. ‘What else?’ She gave a smile—just a little one. Light and mocking.
Philip spoke again. ‘You’ve just missed Sabine’s first set,’ he told Bastiaan.
His glance went to her, as if for reassurance—or perhaps, thought Bastiaan, it was simply because the boy couldn’t take his eyes from the woman.
And nor can I—
‘But you’ll catch her second set!’ Philip exclaimed enthusiastically.
‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ he said dryly. Again, his gaze slid to the chanteuse.
A new reaction was visible, and it caught his attention. Was he mistaken, or was there, somewhere beneath the make-up, colour suffusing her cheekbones?
Had she taken what he’d said as sarcasm?
If she had, she repaid him in the same coin.
‘You are too kind, m’sieu,’ she said.
And Bastiaan could see, even in the dim light, how her deep-set eyes, so ludicrously enhanced by false eyelashes and heavy kohled lids, flashed fleetingly to green.
A little jolt of sexual electricity fired in him. He wanted to see more of that green flash...
It would come if I kissed her—
‘Sa...Sabine’s voice is wonderful.’
Philip cut across his heated thoughts. Absently, Bastiaan found himself wondering why his cousin seemed to stammer over the singer’s name.
‘Even when she’s only singing chan—’
Sarah’s voice cut across Philip’s. ‘So, M’sieu Karavalas, you have come to visit Philip? I believe the villa is yours, is it not?’
She couldn’t care less what he was doing here, or whether he owned a villa on Cap Pierre or anywhere else. She’d only spoken to stop Philip saying something she could see he was dying to say, despite her earlier plea to him—
Even when she’s only singing chansons in a place like this.
I don’t want him to mention anything about what I really sing—that I’m not really Sabine!
Urgency filled her. And now it had nothing to do with not wanting Bastiaan Karavalas to know that Sarah Fareham moonlighted as Sabine Sablon. No, it was for a quite different reason—one that right now seemed far more crucial.
I can’t handle him as Sarah. I need to be Sabine. Sabine can cope with this—Sabine can cope with a man like him. Sabine is the kind of sophisticated, worldly-wise female who can deal with such a man.
With the kind of man who coolly hit on a woman who’d taken his eye and aroused his sexual interest, arrogantly assuming she would comply without demur. The kind of man who rested assessing, heavy-lidded eyes on her, drawing no veil over what he saw in her, knowing exactly what impact his assessment of her was having.
That kind of man...
Philip’s enthusiastic voice was a relief to her.
‘You ought to spend some time at the villa, Bast! It really is a beautiful place. Paulette says you’re hardly ever there.’
Bastiaan flicked his eyes to his cousin. ‘Well, maybe I should move across from Monaco and stay awhile with you. Keep you on the straight and narrow.’
He smiled at Philip, and as he did so Sarah suddenly saw a revelation. Utterly unexpected. Gone—totally vanished—was the Bastiaan Karavalas she’d been exposed to, with his coolly assessing regard and his blatant appraisal, and the sense of leashed power that emanated from him. Now, as he looked across at Philip, his smile carved deep lines around his mouth and lightened his expression, made him suddenly seem... different.
She felt something change inside her—uncoil as if a knot had been loosened...
If he ever smiled at me like that I would be putty in his hands.
But she sheered her mind away. Bastiaan Karavalas was unsettling enough, without throwing such a smile her way.
‘Make me write all my wretched essays, you mean—don’t you, Bast?’ Philip answered, making a face.
But Sarah could see the communication running between them, the easy affection. It seemed to make Bastiaan far less formidable. But that, she knew with a clenching of her muscles, had a power of its own. A power she must not acknowledge. Not even as Sabine.
‘It’s what you came here for,’ Bastiaan reminded him. ‘And to escape, of course.’
His dark eyes flickered back to Sarah and the warmth she’d seen so fleetingly as he’d smiled at his young cousin drained out of them. It was replaced by something new. Something that made her eyes narrow minutely as she tried to work out what it was.
‘I offered the villa to Philip as a refuge,’ he informed Sarah in a casual voice. ‘He was being plagued by a particularly persistent female. She made a real nuisance of herself, didn’t she?’ His glance went back to his cousin.
Philip made another face. ‘Elena Constantis was a pain,’ he said feelingly. ‘Honestly, she’s got boys buzzing all over her, but she still wanted to add me to her stupid collection. She’s so immature,’ he finished loftily.
A tiny smile hovered at Sarah’s lips, dispelling her momentary unease. Immaturity was a relative term, after all. For a second—the briefest second—she caught a similar smile just tugging at Bastiaan Karavalas’s well-shaped mouth, lifting it the way his smile at Philip had done a moment ago.
Almost, almost she felt herself starting to meet his eyes, ready to exchange glances with him—two people so much more mature than sweet, young Philip...
Then the intention was wiped from her consciousness. Its tempting potency gone. Philip’s gaze had gone to her. ‘She couldn’t be more different from you,’ he said. The warmth in his voice could have lit a fire.
Sarah’s long, fake eyelashes dipped again. Bastiaan Karavalas’s dark gaze had switched to her, and she was conscious of it—burningly conscious of it. Conscious, too, of what must have accounted for the studiedly casual remark he’d made that had got them on to this subject.
Surely he can’t think I don’t realise that Philip is smitten with me?
Bastiaan was speaking again. ‘Sabine is certainly much older,’ he observed.
The dark eyes had flicked back to her face—watching, she could tell, for her reaction to his blunt remark. Had he intended to warn her? To show her how real his cousin’s infatuation with her was?
How best to respond...? ‘Oh, I’m ancient, indeed!’ she riposted lightly. ‘Positively creaking.’
‘You’re not old!’ Philip objected immediately, aghast at the very idea. Adoration shone in his eyes. Then his gaze shifted to the dance floor in front of the stage, where couples had started to congregate. His face lit. ‘Oh! Sabine—will you dance with me? Please say yes!’
Indecision filled her. She never danced with Philip or did anything to encourage him. But right now it would get her away from the disturbing, overpowering impact of Bastiaan Karavalas.
‘If you like,’ she replied, and got to her feet as he leapt eagerly to his and walked her happily out on to the dance floor.
Thankfully, the music was neither very fast—fast dancing would have been impossible in her tight gown—nor so slow that it would require any kind of smoochy embrace. But since most of the couples were in a traditional ballroom-style hold with each other, that was the hold she glided into.
Philip, bless him, clearly wasn’t too au fait with so formal a dancing style, but he manfully did his best. ‘I’ve got two left feet!’ he exclaimed ruefully.
‘You’re doing fine,’ she answered encouragingly, making sure she was holding him literally at arm’s length.
It seemed an age until the number finally ended.
‘Well done,’ she said lightly.
‘I won’t be so clumsy next time,’ he promised her.
She let her hand fall from his shoulder and indicated that he should let go of her too—which he did, with clear reluctance. But Philip’s crush on her was not uppermost in her mind right now.
She was just about to murmur something about her next set, and this time make sure she headed off, when a deep voice sounded close by.
‘Mademoiselle Sabine? I trust you will give me equal pleasure?’
She started, her head twisting. Bastiaan Karavalas was bearing down on them as the music moved on to another number. A distinctly slower number.
He gave her no chance to refuse. An amused nod of dismissal at his cousin and then, before she could take the slightest evasive action, Sarah’s hand had been taken, her body was drawn towards his by the placing of his large, strong hand at her waist, and she was forced to lift her other hand and let it rest as lightly as she could on his shoulder. Then he was moving her into the dance—his thigh pressing blatantly against hers to impel her to move.
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Julia James
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A remorseless seduction…Bastiaan Karavalas loves the thrill of the hunt. His prey this time is tantalising Sarah Fareham. Pity this seduction won’t be purely for pleasure… she’s a threat to his family that needs to be removed!Sarah dreams of becoming an opera singer, but must scrape a living as a night club performer, overcoming her inhibitions by hiding behind her vivacious stage persona Sabine. It also becomes her only defence against Bastiaan’s sensual onslaught.But Bastiaan is a tycoon to be reckoned with and once his true intentions are revealed, will Sarah’s façade be enough to safeguard her fragile heart?