A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With (Harlequin Presents)

by Julia James

  Bastiaan’s blank stare turned blanker. ‘Festival...?’ He seemed to be able to do nothing but echo the other man’s words, and Bastiaan had the suspicion, deep down, that the man was finding all this highly amusing.

  ‘Yes, the Provence en Voix Festival. We—as in our company—are appearing there with a newly composed opera that I am directing. Sarah,’ he informed Bastiaan, ‘is our lead soprano. It’s a very demanding role.’ Now the amusement was not in his voice any more. ‘I only hope she hasn’t gone and wrecked her voice with that ridiculous “Queen of the Night” tirade she insisted on.’ His mouth twisted and the humour was back in his voice, waspish though it was. ‘I can’t think why—can you?’

  Bastiaan’s eyes narrowed. It was a jibe, and he didn’t like it. But that was the absolute, utter least of his emotions right now.

  ‘I have to speak to her—’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ The pianist shook his head again. ‘I really wouldn’t, you know.’ He made a face again. ‘I have never seen her that angry.’

  Bastiaan hardly heard him. His mind was in meltdown. And then another question reared, hitting him in the face.

  ‘Philip—my cousin—does he know?’

  ‘About Sarah? Yes, of course he does. Your cousin’s been haunting this place during rehearsals. Nice kid,’ said Max kindly.

  Bastiaan’s brows snapped together uncomprehendingly. Philip knew that ‘Sabine’ was this girl Sarah? That she was in some kind of opera company? Why the hell hadn’t he told him, then? He spoke that last question aloud.

  ‘Not surprisingly, Sarah’s being a bit cagey about having to appear as Sabine,’ came the answer. ‘It wouldn’t do her operatic reputation any good at all if it got out. This festival is make-or-break for her. For all of us,’ he finished tightly.

  Bastiaan didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

  She trusted Philip with the truth about herself—but she never trusted me with it!

  The realisation was like a stab wound.

  ‘I have to see her.’

  He thrust his way bodily past the pianist, storming down the narrow corridor, his head reeling, trying to make sense of it all. Memory slashed through him of how he’d sought her out that first evening he’d set eyes on her. His face tightened. Lies—all damn lies.

  Her dressing room door was shut, but he pushed it open. At his entrance she turned, whipping round from where she was wrenching tissues from a box on her dressing table.

  ‘Get out!’ she yelled at him.

  Bastiaan stopped short. Everything he had thought he’d known about her was gone. Totally gone.

  She yelled at him again. ‘You heard me! Get out! Take your foul accusations and get out!’

  Her voice was strident, her eyes blazing with the same vitriolic fury that had turned them emerald as she’d hurled her rage at him in her performance.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t Sabine?’ Bastiaan cut across her.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you thought me some sleazy slut who was trying it on with your precious cousin?’ she countered, still yelling at him.

  His expression darkened. ‘Of course I wasn’t going to tell you that, was I? Since I was trying to separate you from him.’ A ragged breath scissored his lungs. ‘Look, Sabine...’

  ‘I am not Sabine!’

  Sarah snatched up a hairbrush from her dressing table and hurled it at him. It bounced harmlessly off his broad chest. The chest she’d clung to in ecstasy—the chest she now wanted to hammer with her fists in pure, boiling rage for what he’d said to her, what he’d thought of her...

  What he’d done to her...

  He took me to bed and made love to me, took me to paradise, and all along it was just a ghastly, horrible plot to blacken me in Philip’s eyes.

  Misery and rage boiled together in the maelstrom of her mind.

  ‘I didn’t know you weren’t Sabine. Do not blame me for that,’ Bastiaan retaliated, slashing a hand through empty air. He tried again, attempting to use her real name now. ‘Look... Sarah...’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak my name. You know nothing about me!’

  His expression changed. Oh, but there was something he knew about her. From the shredded remnants of his mind, the brainstorm consuming him, he dragged it forth. Forced it across his synapses.

  She might be Sabine, she might be Sarah—it didn’t matter—

  ‘Except, of course,’ he said freezingly, each word ice as he spoke it, ‘about the money. Philip’s money.’

  She stilled. ‘Money?’ She echoed the word as if it were in an alien tongue.

  He gave a rough laugh. Opera singer or nightclub singer—why should it be different? His mouth twisted. Why should ‘Sarah’ be any more scrupulous than ‘Sabine’?

  ‘You took,’ he said, letting each word cut like a knife, ‘twenty thousand euros from my cousin’s personal account. I know you did because this afternoon you paid another cheque into the very same bank account that the twenty thousand euros disappeared into.’

  Her expression was changing even as he spoke, but he wouldn’t let her say anything—anything at all.

  ‘And this very evening, after you’d oh-so-conveniently cut and run from my villa, I got a request to release two hundred thousand euros from my cousin’s investment funds.’ His eyes glittered with accusation. ‘Did you not realise that as Philip’s trustee I see everything of his finances—that he needs my approval to cash that kind of money? Running back to him with whatever sob story you’re concocting will be in vain. Is that why you left my bed this afternoon?’

  ‘I left,’ she said, and it was as if wire were garrotting her throat, ‘because I had to appear as Sabine tonight.’

  She was staring at him as if from very far away. Because I thought you’d had all you wanted from Sabine.

  And he had, hadn’t he? That was the killing blow that struck her now. He’d had exactly what he’d wanted from Sabine because all he’d wanted was to separate her from Philip and to keep his money safe.

  Behind the stone mask that was her face she was fracturing into a thousand pieces...

  Her impassivity made him angry—the anger like ice water in his veins. ‘I’ll tell you how it will be,’ he said. ‘Philip will go back to Athens, safely out of your reach. And you—Sabine, Sarah, whoever the hell you are—will repay the twenty thousand euros that he paid into your bank account.’

  Her eyes were still on him. They were as green and as hard as emeralds.

  ‘It wasn’t my bank account,’ she said.

  Her voice was expressionless, but something had changed in her face.

  A voice came from the doorway. ‘No,’ it said, ‘it was mine.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SARAH’S EYES WENT to Max, standing in the doorway.

  ‘What the hell have you done?’ she breathed.

  He got no chance to answer. Bastiaan’s eyes lasered him. ‘Are you claiming the account is yours? She went into that bank this afternoon.’

  ‘To pay in a cheque for three thousand euros my father had just sent me to help with the expenses of mounting the opera. I paid it directly into Max’s account.’

  She was looking at Bastiaan, but there was no expression in her face, none in her voice. Her gaze went back to Max.

  ‘You took Philip for twenty thousand euros?’ There was emotion in her voice now—disbelief and outrage.

  Max lifted his hands. ‘I did not ask for it, cherie. He offered.’

  Bastiaan’s eyes narrowed. Emotion was coursing through him, but right now he had only one focus. ‘My cousin offered you twenty thousand euros?’

  Max looked straight at him. ‘He could see for himself how we’re stretched for funding—he wanted to help.’ There was no apology in his voice.

  Bastiaan’s eyes slashed back to Sarah. ‘Did you know?’

  The question bit at her like the jaws of a wolf. But it was Max who answered.

  ‘Of course she didn’t know. She’d already warned me not to approach him.’r />
  ‘And yet,’ said Bastiaan, with a dangerous silkiness in his voice, ‘you still did.’

  Max’s eyes hardened. ‘I told you—he offered it without prompting. Why should I have refused?’ Something in his voice altered, became both defiant and accusing. ‘Are we supposed to starve in the gutter to bring the world our art?’

  He got no answer. The world, with or without opera in it, had just changed for Bastiaan.

  His eyes went back to Sarah. Her face was like stone. Something moved within him—something that was like a lance piercing him inside—but he ignored it. He flicked his eyes back to Max, then to Sarah again.

  ‘And the two hundred thousand euros my cousin now wishes to lavish on a fortunate recipient?’ Silk over steel was in his voice.

  ‘If he offered I would take it,’ said Max bluntly. ‘It would be well spent. Better than on the pointless toys that rich men squander their wealth on,’ he said, and there was a dry bitterness in his words as he spoke.

  ‘Except—’ Sarah’s voice cut in ‘—that is exactly what Philip is planning to do.’

  She opened a drawer in the vanity unit, drew out her phone, called up a text, pointed the screen towards Bastiaan.

  ‘This is the text he sent me today, while we were driving to St Paul de Vence.’ Her voice was hollow.

  His eyes went to it. Went to a photo of the latest supercar to have been launched—one of those he and Philip had discussed over dinner in Villeneuve.

  The accompanying text was simple.

  Wouldn’t this make a great twenty-first birthday present to myself? I can’t wait!

  Underneath, he could read what she had replied.

  Very impressive! What does Bastiaan think? Check with him first!

  Sarah was speaking. ‘I was as tactful as I could be—I always have been. I don’t want him hurt, whatever he thinks he feels about me, but I never wanted to encourage him. And not about this, either,’ she replied, in the same distant, hollow voice. ‘I know you’re not keen on him having such a powerful car so young.’

  Harsh realisation washed through Bastiaan like a chilling douche. Philip had been so evasive about why he wanted money released from his funds...

  But it wasn’t for her—none of the money was for her...

  And she was not, and never had been, the person he’d thought her...not in any respect whatsoever. Neither nightclub singer, nor gold-digger, nor any threat at all, in any way, to Philip.

  My every accusation has been false. And because of that...

  His mind stopped. It was as if he were standing at the edge of a high cliff. One more step forward and he would be over the edge. Falling to his doom.

  Sarah was getting to her feet. It was hard, because she seemed to be made of marble. Nothing seemed to be working inside her at all. Not in her body, not in her head. She looked at Bastiaan, at the man she’d thought he was. But he wasn’t. He was someone quite different.

  ‘You’d better go,’ she said. ‘My set starts soon.’ She paused. Then, ‘Stay away from me,’ she said. ‘Stay away—and go to hell.’

  From the doorway, Max tried to speak. ‘Sarah...’

  There was uncertainty in his voice, but she just looked at him. He gave a slight shrug, then walked away. Her eyes went back to Bastiaan, but now there was hatred in them. Raw hatred.

  ‘Go to hell,’ she said again.

  But there was no need to tell him that. He was there already.

  He turned and went.

  Sarah stood for one long motionless, agonising, endless moment, her whole body pulled by wires of agony and rage. Then tears started to choke her. Tears of fury. Tears of misery.

  Aching, ravening misery.

  * * *

  His aunt was staring at him from across her drawing room in Athens. Bastiaan had just had lunch with her and Philip, and now, with Philip back at his studies, his aunt was cornering him about his mission to the Riviera.

  ‘Bastiaan, are you telling me that this girl in France is actually some sort of opera singer and isn’t trying to entrap Philip?’

  He nodded tautly.

  His aunt’s expression cleared. ‘But that’s wonderful.’ Then she looked worried. ‘Do you think he’s still...enamoured, though? Even if she isn’t encouraging him?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. He’s full of this invitation to go to the Caribbean with Jean-Paul and his family.’ He cast his aunt a significant look. ‘Plus, he seems to be very taken with Jean-Paul’s sister, whose birthday party it is.’

  Philip’s mother’s face lit. ‘Oh, Christine is a sweet girl. They’d be so well-suited.’ She cast a grateful look at her nephew. ‘Bastiaan—thank you. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for setting my mind at rest about that singer and my boy!’

  His eyes were veiled for a moment, and there was a fleeting look that he hid swiftly. His expression changed. ‘I made one mistake, though,’ he said.

  More than one...

  His throat closed, but he forced himself to continue. ‘I let Philip drive my car while we were there—now he’s determined to get one of his own.’

  His aunt’s face was spiked with anxiety. ‘Oh, Bastiaan—please, stop him. He’ll kill himself!’

  He heard the fear in her voice, but this time he shook his head. ‘I can’t stop him—and nor can you. He’s growing up. He has to learn responsibility. But—’ he held up a hand ‘—I can teach him to drive a car like that safely. That’s the deal I’ve struck with him.’

  ‘Well...’ her acquiescence was uneasy, but resigned ‘...if you do your best to keep him safe...’

  ‘I will,’ he said.

  He got to his feet. He needed to be out of there. Needed it badly. He was heading off to his island, craving solitude. Craving anything that might stop him thinking. Stop him feeling...

  No—don’t go there. Just...don’t.

  As he walked towards the front door Philip hailed him from his room. ‘Bast! You will come, won’t you? To Sarah’s premiere? It would be so great if you do. You only ever saw her as Sabine—she’d love you to see what she can really do. I know she would.’

  His eyes veiled. What Sarah would love was to see his head on a plate.

  ‘I’ll see,’ he temporised.

  ‘It’s at the end of next week,’ Philip reminded him.

  It could be tomorrow or at the end of eternity for all the difference it would make, Bastiaan knew. Knew from her brutal, persistent refusal to acknowledge any of his texts, his emails, his letters. All of them asking...begging one thing and one thing only...

  His mind sheered away—the way he was training it to. Day by gruelling day. But it kept coming back—like a falcon circling for prey. He could sail, he could swim, he could walk, he could get very, very drunk—but it would not stay out of his head.

  Three simple words. Three words that were like knife-thrusts to his guts.

  I’ve lost her.

  * * *

  ‘Sarah?’

  Max’s voice was cautious. It wasn’t just because of the thorny issue of Philip’s generosity and Max’s ready acceptance. He was treating her with kid gloves. She wished he wouldn’t. She wished he would go back to being the waspish, slave-driving Max she knew. Wished that everyone would stop tiptoeing around her.

  It was as if she had a visible knife wound in her. But nothing was visible. Her bleeding was internal...

  It was their first rehearsal day at the festival site, a small but beautiful theatre built in the grounds of a château in northern Provence. She was grateful—abjectly grateful—to be away from the Riviera...away from the nightclub. Away from anything, everything, that might remind her of what had happened there...

  But it was with her day and night, asleep and awake, alone and with others, singing or not.

  Pain. A simple word. Agonizing to endure.

  Impossible to stop.

  ‘Are you sure you want to start with that aria?’ Max’s enquiry was still cautious. ‘Wouldn’t you rather build up to
it?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Her tone was flat, inexpressive. She wanted to do this. Needed to do it. The aria that she had found impossible to sing was now the only one she wanted to sing.

  She took her position, readied herself—her stance, her throat, her muscles, her breathing. Anton started to play. As she stood motionless, until her entry came, thoughts flowed through her head...ribbons of pain...

  How could I not understand this aria? How could I think it impossible to believe in it—believe in what she feels, what she endures?

  Her bar came. Max lifted his hand to guide her in as the music swelled on its pitiless tide. She gazed blindly outward, not seeing Max, not seeing the auditorium or the world. Seeing only her pain.

  And out of her pain came the pain of the War Bride, her anguished voice reaching out over the world with the pain of hopes destroyed, happiness extinguished, the future gone. The futility, the loss, the courage, the sacrifice, the pity of war...all in a single voice. Her voice.

  As her voice died away into silence...utter silence... Anton lifted his hands from the keyboard. Then he got to his feet, crossed to her. Took her hands. Kissed each of them.

  ‘You have sung what I have written,’ he told her, his voice full. It was all he said—all he needed to say.

  She shut her eyes. Inside her head, words came. Fierce. Searing.

  This is all I have. And it will be enough. It will be enough!

  But in the deepest recesses of her consciousness she could hear a single word mocking her.

  Liar.

  * * *

  Bastiaan took his seat. He was up in the gods. He’d never in his life sat so high above the stage, in so cheap a seat. But he needed to be somewhere where Philip, down in the stalls, could not see him.

  Bastiaan had told him that, regrettably, he could not make it to the opening night of War Bride.

  He had lied.

  What he did not want—could not afford—was for Philip to let Sarah know he would be there.

  But he could no more have stayed away than remained in a burning building.

  Emotion roiled within him as he gazed down. Somewhere behind those heavy curtains she was there. Urgency burned in him. She had blocked him at every turn, denied him all access.