A Tycoon To Be Reckoned With

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

‘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.