The Mistress Purchase

‘I was perfectly respectably dressed, and if I’d had any idea that what I had assumed to be a collection of professional businessmen would behave like…like a pack of…of…animals, I would never, ever have allowed Raoul to persuade me into helping him.’

How could her cousin even think of selling Francine to this man? To this…this monster?

With a change of tack so swift and unexpected that it caught her totally off guard, Leon demanded, ‘That scent you’re wearing today—what is it?’

Immediately Sadie tilted her chin and eyed him defiantly.

‘It’s a perfume of my own.’

‘I like it,’ Leon told her crisply. ‘Indeed, I should have thought that it would be a highly marketable addition to the Francine name. In fact, I am surprised that you are not already marketing it!’

Anger flashed in Sadie’s eyes, turning them as brilliant a gold as the sun streaming in through the dusty windows.

‘This scent was created by me for my own personal use.’

‘It’s an original formula of your own devising?’

Sadie frowned. Why was he asking her so many questions? He was beginning to seriously annoy her!

‘Not exactly,’ she admitted haughtily. ‘It’s actually based on a one-time famous Francine perfume called Myrrh.’

Sadie stopped speaking as the dark eyebrows snapped together and she was treated to a frowning look.

‘Myrrh…I see!’

In the warning-packed silence that followed Sadie could feel her nerve-ends tightening.

‘Aren’t I right in thinking that that was Francine’s most exclusive and successful scent?’ Leon asked smoothly.

Now it was Sadie’s turn to frown.

‘Yes, it was,’ she acknowledged. ‘You have done your research well,’ she admitted, unable to resist adding a little acidly, ‘Or rather someone has.’

No doubt a man like him paid other people to provide him with whatever information he needed! He could certainly afford to do so, after all!

‘You say that the scent you are wearing is based on Francine’s Myrrh? I am surprised that you allowed Sadie to tamper with something so valuable and irreplaceable, Raoul,’ he announced to Raoul, looking over Sadie’s head towards her cousin.

Infuriated as much by his manner as his words, it gave Sadie a great deal of satisfaction to tell him coldly, ‘Actually, Raoul has no power to “allow” anyone to do a thing with the original Myrrh formula, since her father left it to my grandmother and she left it to me! A fact which I’m sure Raoul intended to share with you in the near future.’

Sadie saw immediately that Leon had not been told that she owned the Myrrh formula. He looked at her, his mouth thinning, before turning and demanding, ‘So you own one-third of Francine and the Myrrh formula?’

‘Yes,’ Sadie confirmed emphatically, with a great deal of satisfaction.

‘This is a matter I shall need to discuss with my lawyers. The Myrrh name, in my opinion, belongs to Francine, and—’

‘And the Myrrh scent belongs to me,’ Sadie informed him angrily. ‘If you think that you are going to browbeat and bully me with threats of lawyers, then let me tell you that you cannot. I’m going, Raoul,’ she told her cousin shortly. ‘I’ve wasted enough time here!’

‘Sadie—’ Raoul began to protest, but Sadie ignored him, crossing the room and pulling open the heavy door.

Her visit, Sadie acknowledged bitterly as she got back to her car, had been a complete waste—not just of her time, but more importantly of her hope and her desire to somehow persuade Raoul not to sell the business.

She attempted to soothe her spirits and her senses by walking through the old town, along the narrow streets that wound between wonderful old seventeenth- and eighteenth-century buildings, pausing to glance in shop windows before stepping out of the sunlight into the shadows until she had finally made her leisurely way to the principal square at the top of the old town.

The Place aux Aires housed a daily market of fresh flowers and regional foods. However, it was so late in the day that the flowers and food had all been sold by now, and the stallholders were packing up for the day. She decided to find a café in the arcade that lined one long side of the square and drink a cup of coffee whilst she admired the pretty three-tiered fountain which graced the square.

Down below where she had parked she could see the empty shell of one of the town’s old distilleries, neglected and unused now, in these modern times—thanks to men like Leon! Before getting into her car something made her stop and look up towards the window to Raoul’s office.

Her whole body stiffened as she saw Leon standing there, looking down at her.

Angrily she held his gaze, determined not to be the first one to look away, her concentration only broken when another driver, anxious for her to vacate her parking spot, beeped his horn to attract her attention.

In the dusty silence of the room the two men looked at one another.

‘Look, Leon,’ Raoul began breezily, ‘I know what you must be thinking, but I promise you that everything will be fine. I’ll talk to her. She’ll come round. You’ll see. Of course it would help if you were a bit more, well…friendly towards her! The woman hasn’t been born who doesn’t respond to a bit of coaxing and flattery,’ Raoul told him.

Silently Leon studied him before saying gently, ‘Friendly? Well, I assume that you know your cousin far better than I do, Raoul. Although I wouldn’t have thought…’

‘Oh, Sadie is okay.’ Raoul gave a small shrug. ‘Of course, she’s had her own way all her life—been spoiled and indulged. Her grandmother saw to that! She married into a wealthy English family.’

He gave another dismissive shrug, neglecting to add that that wealth had been lost long before Sadie’s birth!

‘There’s nothing to worry about, Leon,’ Raoul continued confidently. ‘Sadie’s a bit naïve. She gets all fired up and on her high horse, all moralistic at times, that’s all. I put it down to the fact that she was virtually brought up by her grandmother! Sadie’s a bit old-fashioned, if you know what I mean, but I can soon talk her round! She’s just not had much to do with men, of course—thanks to her grandmother.’

‘Oh, yes, that would explain it,’ Leon murmured suavely, but Raoul was oblivious to his sarcasm.

‘Leave everything to me, Leon!’ he continued arrogantly.

Leon frowned. It was becoming increasingly obvious to him that Sadie was in a very vulnerable position where Raoul and the business were concerned. Had she been a member of his family…But of course she was not, and there was no way he could afford to let his Greek ancestry urge him into the self-elected role of protective paterfamilias towards her! Indeed, there was no reason why he should concern himself about her in any way—not after the open hostility she had shown him!

His frown deepened. Hostility wasn’t something Leon was used to women exhibiting towards him. Quite the opposite. There had never been a wo

man he had needed to pursue, and he certainly wasn’t going to start chasing one who had made it plain that she didn’t want him! Of course he wasn’t! No, all he felt was pique and chagrin; these were emotions so unimportant that he wasn’t even going to bother acknowledging them, never mind responding to them!

What was important—almost vital—was securing the acquisition of Francine. Leon had understood from Raoul when they had first discussed the matter that in acquiring Francine he would also be acquiring its existing scent formulae, including that for Myrrh, and the perfume-creating skills of Sadie herself. Now it seemed that Raoul had not been entirely honest with him.

‘Everything will be fine, Leon. I promise you,’ Raoul repeated insistently. ‘All we need to do is convince Sadie that you’ll let her use her precious natural ingredients and she’ll be eating out of your hand and begging you to let her concoct a new perfume for you.’

‘I’m afraid that isn’t an option, Raoul. The cost alone of simply acquiring natural raw products would give my board a collective heart attack! It just isn’t commercially viable to produce a mass-market scent by traditional methods.’

‘Well, maybe not. But you don’t have to tell her that, do you?’ Raoul challenged him.

‘Are you suggesting that I should deliberately lie to her?’

‘You want the Myrrh formula and you want her to work for you, don’t you?’ Raoul asked him shrewdly.

Leon looked away from him briefly before demanding curtly, ‘Raoul, why wasn’t I informed about your cousin’s views—and, more specifically, that she owned the formula for Myrrh?’

Raoul gave a dismissive shrug

‘I didn’t think it was that important. You only asked me for a list of the perfumes my father had sold off. Anyway, like you, I am sure you could prove that legally the formula really belongs to the business. After all, a man with your resources can afford the very best of lawyers—lawyers who can prove anything. Sadie hasn’t the money to take you on in court, but of course it will save you a lot of fuss if she gives in and hands it over to you—and I promise you that if you play it my way she will!’