CHAPTER ONE
BASTIEN HEIDECKER THREW OPEN the doors of his boardroom and strode in. For several seconds none of his board members noticed his presence, absorbed as they were by the catastrophe playing out in high definition on the big screen.
Henry Lang, his CFO, spotted him first.
‘Mr Heidecker! We were just catching up on the latest development...’ The short dark-haired man grabbed the remote, pressed a button and dashed to his seat.
Bastien watched the rest of his staff scramble into their places, his already simmering anger mounting as his gaze shifted to the screen.
Her frozen image stared back at him. Despite the storm brewing beneath the surface of his calm, Bastien couldn’t fault his team for being enthralled by the woman at the centre of the chaos engulfing his company.
Ana Duval was stunning perfection. The half-Colombian, half-English supermodel’s beauty combined innocence and defiance with a hint of cultivated vulnerability that had been skilfully honed into the perfect commodity. That combination had ensnared every red-blooded male in the western hemisphere and ensured her a permanent place in the limelight by the time she’d turned twenty-one.
Hell, it had nearly ensnared him...
Even at fifteen Bastien had known the skinny, doe-eyed, eight-year-old he’d had the misfortune of spending that unforgettable winter with was nothing but trouble. What he hadn’t foreseen was that sixteen years later Ana Duval would bring bedlam right to his doorstep.
His gaze skimmed the silky fall of her straight black hair, the slim, delicate structure of her lissom figure and the legs that had once been described by a fawning companion as forty-two inches of creamy paradise.
Against his will his body stirred in remembrance of having that body close to his only two months ago, of soft, meaningless words whispered in his ear.
He smashed away the memory, took his seat at the head of the table and focused on his second-in-command. ‘What’s the latest on the share price?’
He received a wary grimace. ‘Less than half of what it was yesterday and still falling.’
‘What are the lawyers saying? Can they make this go away?’ he shot back.
Henry glanced down at his watch. ‘There’s a court hearing at two o’clock this afternoon. They’re hoping since this is Miss Duval’s first offence the judge will be lenient—’
‘Alleged offence.’ Bastien ground out the words.
Henry frowned. ‘Excuse me, sir?’
‘Until there’s clear evidence to prove otherwise, this is merely an alleged offence, non?’
Other board members fidgeted. Henry’s gaze darted to the screen. ‘But she was caught on camera with the drugs in the VIP area of the nightclub—’
Bastien’s lips compressed. He’d already seen the footage some enterprising fool had flooded the internet with on the way from Heathrow. So had the Geneva board members of Heidecker Bank—the largest, most elite private bank in the world and the mother company of Diamonds by Heidecker. Their reaction had reflected his own outrage. He needed to nip this problem in the bud.
He had the trust of most of the board, but the stigma never went away.
Like father, like son.