One of the small army of PR people Leon had obviously hired spotted her and bustled purposefully towards her.
‘Yes, I’m Sadie,’ she admitted, on being questioned. ‘Is my cousin Raoul here yet?’
‘Yes, I believe he is. If you will come with me, please?’
The press conference that Leon’s publicity people had organised was turning out to be a far larger affair than Sadie had expected, and was being held at the house in Grasse—which would still go into Leon’s possession with the signing of legal documents later on in the day.
Now, as she looked round the main salon of the house and out into the courtyard, Sadie could only be unwillingly impressed by the transformation Leon’s people had managed to achieve in such a short space of time.
Granted, the massed displays of freshly cut flowers helped to draw the eye away from the house’s shabbiness, but it had been a master stroke to have some of the old advertisements for Francine perfumes framed and hung on the walls.
Still following the PR girl, Sadie froze suddenly as she looked towards the small stage that had been erected at one end of the room and saw Leon.
The first thing she had done after Leon’s rejection of her had been to book herself into a different hotel. She’d chosen a small pension in Grasse itself, so that she would not have to run the risk of coming into contact with him. However, she was now discovering that the sight of him after several hours of not seeing him was having much the same effect as the sight of water was likely to have on a man lost in the desert!
He was standing with his back to her, and despite the anger she could still feel burning inside her, her gaze homed in on him like a missile, greedily gathering up every bit of information it could to stockpile inside her heart for the Leon-empty days that lay ahead!
She, who had always always been able to see another person’s point of view, was so angry and hurt that she could not extend that generosity to Leon. She felt as though she hated him, but she knew that she loved him! And because of that she pitied herself.
From his position on the small stage—a position he assured himself he had not chosen simply because it gave him an uninterrupted view of anyone entering the room—Leon had witnessed Sadie’s arrival, and the manner in which she was so obviously ignoring him. His mouth compressed. He had virtually lost a full nights’ sleep—and not because his second in command on the board had telephoned to warn him that another board member, who had been the most keenly opposed to the acquisition of Francine had been demanding to know what was causing the delay, and prophesying that Leon had made a dangerous error in judgement.
No, it wasn’t Kevin Linton’s fierce antagonism or questioning of his business acumen and judgement that had kept Leon awake last night. Sadie was solely responsible for that! And right now he was sorely tempted to go over to her and remind her in whatever way it took—and so far as he was concerned the more physically intimate the better—of just why she should not ignore him! He ached so badly for her that right now…
Leon’s jaw tightened even further. Up until now nothing, no one had had the power to come between him and his dedication to the business. And for it to be Sadie, a woman his solicitor had already cautioned him against…
But Brad didn’t know Sadie as he knew her, and Leon swore he never would! No other man ever would, if Leon had his way. No other man would be allowed to so much as look at her, never mind—
Abruptly Leon recognised that he was out of control, that his emotions were careering wildly down a one-way street and that if he didn’t get a hold of them…
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a man approaching Sadie, smiling at her, reaching out his hand to touch her…A red mist exploded inside Leon’s head. His heart was thumping, adrenalin flooding his body. He wanted—
At Leon’s side, the head of the PR company interrupted his dangerous flow of thoughts.
‘I think everyone is here. We should begin the conference, I think. The press are beginning to grow impatient…’
At the same moment, this mystery man was raising Sadie’s hand to his lips. The PR executive frowned in confusion as she heard Leon give a low, muted growl of male anger.
‘Merci, Monsieur Fontaine,’ Sadie said politely, thanking the man who had been praising the scent she was wearing. Still smiling, she firmly extracted her hand from his grasp.
‘Come on, Sadie. Leon wants us both up on the stage,’ Raoul announced, suddenly appearing at her side and taking hold of her arm.
Sadie could feel the PR executive and Leon looking at them as she and Raoul approached the stage. Immediately she averted her face, looking very deliberately past Leon, her chin lifting with haughty female pride.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of the icy, brief look Leon gave her. From out of nowhere, Sadie jealously wondered, would the elegant Frenchwoman at his side be the one to share his bed tonight?
The pain that tore at her almost made her cry out loud!
Unable to stop herself, she watched as Leon strode to the front of the stage and picked up the microphone.
‘I hope this is going to be quick,’ Raoul muttered at her side. ‘The sooner Leon’s cheque is in my pocket the happier I shall be! I must say you don’t look very happy for someone who’s about to pocket a couple of million euros!’
‘Francine means far more to me than money, Raoul,’ Sadie reminded her cousin in a determined whisper. ‘You know that. If it wasn’t—’
A fierce ‘shush’ from one of the hovering PR personnel made Sadie go red and stop speaking, to concentrate instead on what Leon was saying to the assembled press.
Determinedly Sadie tried not to be aware of him, not to think about him, not to remember. But as fierce as her anger was, her love was even fiercer, and helplessly she turned her head to look longingly towards him, taking advantage of his audience’s concentration on what he was saying to gaze hungrily at his dark-suited back view.
Just watching him made her whole body quiver with aching need.
Leon had reached the end of his short speech confirming the takeover.
Someone from the floor called up.
‘Are you intending to keep the Francine name?’
‘Of course,’ Leon responded immediately.
‘And the Francine perfumes?’ someone else challenged him, ‘What about them?
‘So far as I am concerned there is only one Francine perfume,’ Leon responded coolly, ‘and that is Myrrh. I am delighted to be able to tell you that the great-great-great-granddaughter of the founder of the house is going to be working for us—not only on adapting the Myrrh formula to suit modern-day tastes, but also on creating a new perfume under the Francine name. As you will all know, Sadie Roberts is already well regarded in the business as a gifted creator of exclusive scents, and I am delighted to be able to introduce her to you as Francine’s new creative director.’
As Leon turned to look at her, Sadie stood up on cue and walked towards him, knowing that he intended to introduce her to the audience.
He had extended his hand towards her in what appeared to be a gesture of warmth and appreciation, but Sadie deliberately stopped just short of it—and him—and for her pains received a look from him that threatened to collapse her fragile pride into dust.
Turning his head so that no one else could hear him, he said softly, ‘This is a business arena we are in today, Sadie, not a personal one.’
Equally softly, Sadie hissed back, ‘There is no personal arena for us any more, Leon.’
Whilst their gazes were still locked in silent combat, one of the reporters in the audience called, ‘As you say, we know of Mademoiselle Sadie, but surely it is true that she only creates perfumes made from natural sources? Are we to understand that from now on Francine perfumes are to be created in the same way?’
Sadie took a deep breath, wholly professional now as she waited confidently for her moment to make public the compromise she and Leon had reached—publicly for Francine, but privately in h
er heart for her grandmother. But before she could say anything Leon had reached for the microphone.
‘No, the new Francine perfumes will be scents that will be affordable for every woman who wishes to wear them, and for that reason they will—in common with most modern perfume houses—be created without the need for expensive and sometimes unreliable raw materials.’
Rigid with disbelief, Sadie drew in her breath, the audience momentarily forgotten as she turned to Leon and burst out, white-faced with fury, ‘How can you say that? You know I would never agree to work wholly with synthetics!’
The press conference was over, the eagerly curious audience having been hurriedly despatched by the PR company, and Sadie and Leon were confronting one another across the upstairs room of the house where they had first officially met.
‘How could you do that?’ Sadie demanded bitterly, swinging round from where she had been looking out of the window to face Leon. ‘How could you lie like that?’
‘Lie?’ Leon stopped her, his voice ominously quiet. ‘I haven’t lied, Sadie. You assured Raoul that you were in agreement with my plans. You accepted both that the Myrrh perfume rightly belongs to Francine and that you were willing to work on revamping its formula and creating a new perfume using man-made materials.’
Sadie had never looked more beautiful or more desirable to him than she did right now, Leon acknowledged, and he felt the stomach-clenching kick of his own fierce need thrust through his body.