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that to you!’
    Abruptly Sadie realised how silent both men had become. Raoul was looking angry and embarrassed, whilst Leon…
    The chill was back in his green eyes, but strangely now there was a glow beneath it, a glitter like the beginning of the Northern lights on ice, all white fire shimmer and danger, a warning of a strength and a power that secretly she already felt vulnerably in awe of.
    Which was all the more reason why she should not give in to him, Sadie told herself militantly.
    â€˜Stirring words. Pity they don’t seem to have been matched by your actions!’
    Leon’s cool words were every bit as chillingly dangerous as the look he had given her. Outraged, Sadie turned to look to Raoul for support, but her cousin was out of earshot on the other side of the room, searching through some papers on his desk.
    Leaning closer to her, Leon continued with steely venom, ‘When I saw you at the trade fair it was quite obvious that you were—’
    â€˜That was Raoul’s idea,’ Sadie protested defensively.
    â€˜Raoul’s idea, Francine’s perfume—and your body. As a matter of interest, what kind of response, other than the obvious, did that cheap sideshow you were putting on generate? I am, of course, asking about the amount of sales it generated, and not the number of offers you received for your body!’
    Sadie glared at him.
    â€˜How dare you say that? I had no idea that men would assume I was also available.’ Her mouth compressed with anger whilst her face burned hotly with sharply remembered shame.
    â€˜No idea?’ The contempt in his eyes left her sensitivities burned raw. ‘Oh, come on. You can’t expect me tobelieve that! You paraded yourself openly and deliberately, wearing—’
    Sadie had had enough.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜It’s a perfume of my own.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜This scent was created by me for my own personal use.’
    â€˜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!
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Myrrh…I see!’
    In the warning-packed silence that followed Sadie could feel her nerve-ends tightening.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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!
    â€˜You say that the scent you are wearing is based on Francine’s Myrrh? I am surprised that you