A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With

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?