A Tycoon To Be Reckoned With. Julia James

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СКАЧАТЬ the shadows did nothing to dim her impact. If anything it emphasised it, casting her features into relief. On stage, she’d been illuminated in a pool of light, her features softened by the distance at which he’d sat. He’d deliberately taken a table at the rear of the room, wanting at that point only to observe without being noticed in return.

      It hadn’t taken him more than two moments to realise that the female poised on the stage possessed a quality that signalled danger to his young, impressionable cousin.

      Allure—it was an old-fashioned word, but that was the one that had come to his mind as his eyes had rested on the slender figure sensuously draped in low-cut clinging satin, standing in a pool of soft, smoky light, her fingers lightly curved around her microphone, the lustrous fall of her long blonde hair curled over her bare shoulder like a vamp from the forties.

      Her mouth was painted a rich, luscious red, her eye make-up was pronounced, with long, artificial lashes framing luminous eyes. Seeing her now, close up, she was even more alluring.

      No wonder Philip is smitten!

      His eyes completed his swift scrutiny and he was interested to see a line of colour running along her cheekbones. Curious... he thought. Then the tightening of her mouth told him what had accounted for that reaction. It was not a blush—a woman like her probably hadn’t blushed since puberty—it was annoyance.

      Why? he found himself wondering. Women were not usually annoyed when he paid them attention. Quite the reverse. But this chanteuse was. It was doubly unusual because surely a woman in her profession was well used to male admirers courting her in her dressing room.

      An unwelcome thought crossed his mind—was it his cousin’s wont to hang out here? Did she invite him to her changing room?

      Just how far has she got with him?

      Well, however far it was, it was going to stop from now on. Whatever story she’d trotted out to Philip in order to get him to give her money, the gold mine was closing down...

      She was looking at him still, that scarlet mouth of hers pressed tightly, and something sparking now in her eyes.

      ‘Oui?’ she said pointedly.

      His eyelids dipped over his eyes briefly. ‘Did the waiter not pass on my invitation?’ he asked, speaking in French, which he spoke as well as English and a couple of other languages as well.

      Her arched eyebrows rose. ‘It was you?’ she said. Then, without bothering to wait for a reply, she simply went on, ‘I’m afraid I don’t accept invitations to share a drink with any of the club’s guests.’

      Her tone was dismissive, and Bastiaan felt a flicker of annoyance at it. Dismissive was not the kind of voice he was used to hearing in women he was speaking to. Or indeed from anyone he was speaking to. And in someone whose career relied on the attention and appreciation of others, it was out of place.

      Perhaps she thinks she does not need to court her audience any longer? Perhaps she thinks she already has a very comfortable exit from her profession lined up?

      The flicker of annoyance sparked to something sharper. But he did not let it show. Not now—not yet. At the moment, his aim was to disarm her. Defeating her would come afterwards.

      ‘Then allow me to invite you to dinner instead,’ he responded. Deliberately, he infused a subtly caressing note into his voice that he’d found successful at any other time he’d chosen to adopt it.

      That line of colour ran out over her cheekbones again. But this time there was no accompanying tightening of her red mouth. Instead she gave a brief smile. It was civil only—nothing more than that, Bastiaan could see.

      ‘Thank you, but no. And now...’ the smile came again, and he could see that her intention was to terminate the exchange ‘...if you will excuse me, I must get changed.’ She paused expectantly, waiting for him to withdraw.

      He ignored the prompt. Instead one eyebrow tilted interrogatively. ‘You have another dinner engagement?’ he asked.

      Something snapped in her eyes, changing their colour, he noticed. He’d assumed they were a shade of grey, but suddenly there was a flash of green in them.

      ‘No,’ she said precisely. ‘And if I did, m’sieu—’ the pointedness was back in her voice now ‘—I don’t believe it would be any of your concern.’ She smiled tightly, with less civility now.

      If it were with my cousin, mademoiselle, it would indeed be my concern... That flicker of more than annoyance came again, but again Bastiaan concealed it.

      ‘In which case, what can be your objection to dining with me?’ Again, there was the same note in his voice that worked so well with women in general. Invitations to dine with him had never, in his living memory, been met with rejection.

      She was staring at him with those eyes that had gone back to grey now, the flash of green quite absent. Eyes that were outlined in black kohl, their sockets dramatised outrageously with make-up, their lashes doubled in length by artificial means and copious mascara.

      Staring at him in a way he’d never been stared at before.

      As though she didn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Or hearing.

      For just a second their eyes met, and then, as if in recoil, her fake lashes dropped down over her eyes, veiling them.

      She took a breath. ‘M’sieu, I am desolated to inform you that I also do not accept invitations to dine with the club’s guests,’ she said. She didn’t make her tone dismissive now, but absolute.

      He ignored it. ‘I wasn’t thinking of dining here,’ he said. ‘I would prefer to take you to Le Tombleur,’ he murmured.

      Her eyes widened just a fraction. Le Tombleur was currently the most fashionable restaurant on the Côte D’Azur, and Bastiaan was sure that the chance to dine at such a fabulous locale would surely stop her prevaricating in this fashion. It would also, he knew, set her mind instantly at rest as to whether he was someone possessed of sufficient financial means to be of interest to her. She would not wish to waste her time on someone who was not in the same league as his young cousin. Had she but known, Bastiaan thought cynically, his own fortune was considerably greater than Philip’s.

      But of course Philip’s fortune was far more accessible to her. Or might be. If she were truly setting Philip in her sightline, she would be cautious about switching her attentions elsewhere—it would lose her Philip if he discovered it.

      A thought flickered across Bastiaan’s mind. She was alluring enough—even for himself... Should that be his method of detaching her? Then he dismissed it. Of course he would not be involving himself in any kind of liaison with a woman such as this one. However worthy the intention.

      Dommage... He heard the French word in his head. What a pity...

      ‘M’sieu...’ She was speaking again, with razored precision. ‘As I say, I must decline your very...generous...invitation’.

      Had there been a twist in her phrasing of the word ‘generous’? An ironic inflection indicating that she had formed an opinion of him that was not the one he’d intended her to form?

      He felt a new emotion flicker within him like a low-voltage electric current.

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