A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With

They had reached the scene where the War Bride received news of her husband’s death. Her aria in it was central to the drama—the fulcrum on which it turned. Although technically it was hard to sing, it was not that that was confounding her.

Max had been brutal in his criticism.

‘Sarah—your husband is dead! A brief while ago you were rapturously in love—now all that has been ripped from you—destroyed! We have to hear that! We have to hear your despair, your disbelief. But I don’t hear it! I don’t hear it at all!’

However hard she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to please him. Had not been able to get through that wall.

He’d made her sing an earlier aria, declaring her love, dazzled by the discovery of her headlong tumbling into its lightning-swift ecstasy, so that she could use it to contrast with her plunge into the depths of grief at its loss. But she still hadn’t been able to please him.

‘You’ve gone from love to grief in days—from bride to widow. We need to hear that unbearable journey in your voice. We need to hear it and believe it!’

She’d thrown up her hands in frustration. ‘But that’s what I can’t do! I can’t believe in it! People don’t fall in love just like that only for it to end a few days later. It doesn’t happen.’

In her head she remembered how she had wondered, on first hearing the tragic tale, what it must be like to love so swiftly, to hurt so badly. Unreal...quite unreal...

Her mind skittered onto pathways she should not go down.

Desire—yes. Desire at first sight—that was real. That she could not deny. Across her vision strolled Bastiaan Karavalas, with his night-dark eyes and his hooded, sensual regard that quickened her blood, heated her body. Desire had flamed in her the moment she had seen him, acknowledged his power over her...

But desire isn’t love! It’s not the same thing at all. Of course it isn’t.

She recalled Max’s exasperated rasp. ‘Sarah, it’s a fable! These characters are archetypes—timeless. They’re not people you see in the street. Anton—talk to her—make her understand!’ He’d called across to where the composer had been sitting at the piano.

But it didn’t matter how much Anton went through the text with her, elucidated the way his music informed and reinforced the words she sang, she was still stuck. Still could not break through.

Max’s tension cast a shadow over them all as he stepped up the intensity of their rehearsals, becoming ever more exacting. Time, as he constantly reminded them all, was running increasingly short, and their performance was not yet up to the standard it had to be. Time and again he halted them in mid-song, demanding they repeat, improve, perfect their performance. Nerves were jittery, tempers fraying, and emotions were running high amongst them all.

Now, standing on the stage, finally lowering the microphone as she took a smattering of applause for Sabine’s tedious repertoire, Sarah felt resentment fill her. Max was working them all hard, but he was working her harder than everyone else. She knew it was for her own good, for the good of her performance, the good of them all, but she was giving everything she had and it was still not enough. From somewhere, somehow, she had to find more.

Tiredness lapped at her now, and the lazy, sunlit afternoon she’d spent at the villa seemed a long time ago—far longer than a handful of days.

Memory played back the verdant flower-filled gardens, the graceful loggia and the vine-shaded terrace, the sparkling water of the pristine pool and the deep azure of the glorious Mediterranean beyond. The complete change of scene—to such a beautiful scene—had been a tonic in itself, a respite both from the rigours of rehearsal and the banal tiresomeness of performing her nightly cabaret. It had been relaxingly enjoyable despite the disturbing presence of Bastiaan Karavalas.

Because of it...

The realisation was disquieting—and yet it sent a little thrill through her at the same time. She tried to quell it. She felt it, she told herself sternly, only because she was standing here with the hot spotlight on her, in her skin-tight gown, just as she had been that first night when she’d felt his unknown eyes upon her.

More memories stirred. Her eyes moved briefly to the dance floor between the tables and the stage, and warmth flushed through her, as if she could still feel the firm, warm clasp of Bastiaan Karavalas’s hands on her as they’d danced. Still feel the shimmering awareness of his physical closeness, the burning consciousness of her overpowering attraction to him.

An attraction she could not explain, could not cope with and certainly could not indulge.

She must not think about him—there was no point. He and Philip were both gone, and her only focus must be the festival performance ahead of her. So what was the point of the strange little pang that seemed to dart into her, twisting as it found its mark somewhere deep within? None. Bastiaan Karavalas was gone from her life and she must be glad of it.

I must!

She straightened from her slight bow, glancing out over the dining tables beyond before making ready to leave the stage.

And looked straight at Bastiaan Karavalas.

As her eyes lighted on the dark, familiar form, she felt a kick inside her that came from the same place as had that pang, only moments earlier. She hurried off the stage, aware that her heart was beating faster. Why was he here? Just to tell her how he’d removed Philip? Or was there another reason—a reason she would not give name to?

But Max did. ‘You’ve lost your young, rich admirer, I see, cherie, and replaced him with a new one. Cultivate him—I’ve looked him up and he’s worth a fortune!’

Sarah’s jaw tightened, and she would have said something harsh, but there were tight lines of ingrained stress around Max’s mouth and she could see t

iredness in his face. He was working as hard as any of them—harder. And if she was working late nights, then so was he.

‘I don’t know what he’s doing here,’ she replied with a shrug.