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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?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Sadie confirmed emphatically, with a great deal of satisfaction.
    â€˜This is a matter I shall need to discuss with my lawyers. The Myrrh name, in my opinion, belongs to Francine, and—’
    â€˜And the Myrrh scent belongs to me,’ Sadie informed him angrily. ‘If you think that you are going to browbeatand 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!’
    â€˜Sadie—’ Raoul began to protest, but Sadie ignored him, crossing the room and pulling open the heavy door.
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    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 thefirst 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.
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    In the dusty silence of the room the two men looked at one another.
    â€˜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…’
    â€˜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!
    â€˜There’s