And he would be holding the winning hand!
‘Sa...Sabine’s a singer,’ Philip was saying, his eyes alight and sweeping admiringly over the chanteuse who had him in her coils.
Bastiaan sat back, his eyes flickering over the slinkily dressed and highly made-up figure next to his cousin. ‘Indeed?’
It was his turn to use the French language to his advantage—allowing the ironic inflection to work to her discomfiture...as though he doubted the veracity of his cousin’s claim.
‘Indeed, m’sieu,’ echoed Sarah. The ironic inflection had not been lost on her and she repaid it herself, in a light, indifferent tone.
He didn’t like that, she could see. There was something about the way his dark brows drew a fraction closer to each other, the way the sensual mouth tightened minutely.
‘And what do you...sing?’ he retaliated, and one dark brow lifted with slight interrogation.
‘Chansons d’amour,’ Sarah murmured. ‘What else?’ She gave a smile—just a little one. Light and mocking.
Philip spoke again. ‘You’ve just missed Sabine’s first set,’ he told Bastiaan.
His glance went to her, as if for reassurance—or perhaps, thought Bastiaan, it was simply because the boy couldn’t take his eyes from the woman.
And nor can I—
‘But you’ll catch her second set!’ Philip exclaimed enthusiastically.
‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ he said dryly. Again, his gaze slid to the chanteuse.
A new reaction was visible, and it caught his attention. Was he mistaken, or was th
ere, somewhere beneath the make-up, colour suffusing her cheekbones?
Had she taken what he’d said as sarcasm?
If she had, she repaid him in the same coin.
‘You are too kind, m’sieu,’ she said.
And Bastiaan could see, even in the dim light, how her deep-set eyes, so ludicrously enhanced by false eyelashes and heavy kohled lids, flashed fleetingly to green.
A little jolt of sexual electricity fired in him. He wanted to see more of that green flash...
It would come if I kissed her—
‘Sa...Sabine’s voice is wonderful.’
Philip cut across his heated thoughts. Absently, Bastiaan found himself wondering why his cousin seemed to stammer over the singer’s name.
‘Even when she’s only singing chan—’
Sarah’s voice cut across Philip’s. ‘So, M’sieu Karavalas, you have come to visit Philip? I believe the villa is yours, is it not?’
She couldn’t care less what he was doing here, or whether he owned a villa on Cap Pierre or anywhere else. She’d only spoken to stop Philip saying something she could see he was dying to say, despite her earlier plea to him—
Even when she’s only singing chansons in a place like this.
I don’t want him to mention anything about what I really sing—that I’m not really Sabine!
Urgency filled her. And now it had nothing to do with not wanting Bastiaan Karavalas to know that Sarah Fareham moonlighted as Sabine Sablon. No, it was for a quite different reason—one that right now seemed far more crucial.
I can’t handle him as Sarah. I need to be Sabine. Sabine can cope with this—Sabine can cope with a man like him. Sabine is the kind of sophisticated, worldly-wise female who can deal with such a man.