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‘Mass-market perfume is big business,’ he told her harshly. ‘The production of a perfume which can only be afforded by a few élite buyers does not interest me.’
‘Well, it should,’ Sadie countered. ‘Because it is the scent worn by the élite buyers that the mass-market buyers most want to wear themselves. And why shouldn’t they aspire to do so? Why should they be fobbed off with a synthetic substitute that is never going to come anywhere near equating to the real thing?’
‘Perhaps because the synthetic substitute is affordable and the real thing is not,’ Leon told her pungently.
‘You say that, but it could be!’ Sadie claimed immediately. ‘It is perfectly feasible for high-quality natural perfumes to be made at a reasonable cost. But of course the profit margin on them would be much smaller, and that is the real reason why big business like you refuse to produce them. Because profit is all that matters to you. You and men like you are as… as soulless as… as… synthetic perfume!’ Sadie told him passionately.
‘Is that a fact?’
The silky tone of Leon’s voice made Sadie quiver inwardly with wariness, but she refused to heed her body’s own protective warning, eyeing Leon defiantly.
‘Well, you, of course, would be in a perfect position to judge me, wouldn’t you? Having met me how often? Twice?’
‘Three times,’ Sadie corrected him, and then felt her body burn with self-conscious heat as he looked thoughtfully at her.
‘Three times?’
‘How many times I’ve seen you is an irrelevance.’ Sadie overrode him.
‘The world’s opinion of the status of the corporation you run and its aims and beliefs are written about publicly and frequently in the financial press, and—’
‘The financial press?’ Leon stopped her. ‘They report company and corporation policy. They do not make it,’ he told her acidly.
‘I don’t care what you say,’ Sadie protested emotionally. ‘Raoul already knows my views on his plans to sell Francine to you—against my wishes. In fact I came here hoping that I might be able to dissuade him, but I can see that there is no hope of that! I cannot stop him from selling to you, since he is the majority shareholder, but there is no way that I would ever—ever… prostitute my… my gift of a good “nose” for perfume by selling 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.
‘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—’
‘That was Raoul’s idea,’ Sadie protested defensively.
‘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.
‘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.
‘No idea?’ The contempt in his eyes left her sensitivities burned raw. ‘Oh, come on. You can’t expect me to believe that! You paraded yourself openly and deliberately, wearing—’
Sadie had had enough.
‘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 woman 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!’
‘You seem remarkably unconcerned about your cousin, if I may say so,’ Leon commented dryly.
Carelessly, and without any trace of embarrassment, Raoul told him, ‘Certainly I am not as concerned for her as I am for myself. Why should I be? We’ve only been in contact for the last few months. I need to sell Francine, Leon. If not to you then to someone else. And there is no way I am going to let Sadie or anyone else interfere with that.’
‘I think I’d prefer to speak with your cousin myself,’ Leon announced coolly, adding warningly, ‘It’s true that I want Sadie’s expertise, and that I want the Myrrh formula, but there’s no way I would agree to her being deceived about my future plans for the business. I’m afraid that in my book honesty can never be sacrificed for expediency!’
Initially, when he had seen Sadie at the trade fair, Leon had assumed that she was made much in the same mould as her cousin. But now he wasn’t nearly so sure.
But he could not afford the luxury of sympathy, Leon warned himself, and unless he had misjudged her Sadie would certainly not welcome receiving it from him.
Raoul gave a careless shrug.
‘Fine—if that’s what you want to do. After all, you’re going to be the boss!’
Going to be, but was not as yet, Raoul reminded himself angrily after Leon had gone.
There was no way he was going to allow Sadie to mess up this deal for him, and no way he was going to risk leaving it to Leon to persuade his cousin to change her mind. Not when Raoul knew that he could do so much more easily and quickly.
In the privacy of his elegant hotel suite, Leon completed the telephone conversation he had been having with his chief executive in Sydney and then went to stand in front of the large window that opened out onto his private balcony.
Sadie’s ownership of the Myrrh formula was a complication he had not anticipated, as was Sadie herself. But he had no intention of using Raoul’s suggested underhand tactics to rectify it! Underhandedness and deceit were weapons of engagement that were never employed in the Stapinopolous business empire—even though once they had been used against it to devastating and almost totally destructive effect.
Leon’s expression hardened. Those dark years when his family had almost lost the business were behind them now, but they had left their mark on him. However, right now it wasn’t the past he was thinking about so much as…
A little grimly Leon acknowledged that he wasn’t sure which had distracted him the most—the tantalising length of Sadie’s slim legs encased in the jeans she had been wearing, or the intensity with which her eyes had reflected her every emotion.
She was, he decided grimly, impossibly stubborn, fiercely passionate and hopelessly idealistic. She was a go-it-aloner, a renegade from the conventional business and profit-focused world of modern perfumes. She was, in short, trouble every which way there was. A zealot, a would-be prophet, intent on stirring up all kinds of disorder and destined to cause chaos!
She would make his board of directors shake in their corporate shoes and question his financial judgement for even thinking about wanting to get involved in a business in which she played even the smallest part.
Did she really believe that it was feasible to produce what amounted to a handmade scent in the quantities needed to satisfy a mass-market appetite at an affordable price, using old-fashioned methods and natural raw materials?
He was already facing opposition from some members of his board over his plans to acquire Francine—but it was an opposition he fully intended to quash! An opposition he had to quash if he was not to find himself in danger of being voted off his own board!
‘Why Francine?’ one of his co-directors had demanded belligerently. ‘Hell, Leon, there are dozens of other perfume houses in far better financial condition, with more assets, and—’
‘It is precisely because Francine is Francine that I want it,’ Leon had countered coolly. ‘The name has a certain resonance. An allure. And because of its current run-down state we can acquire it at a reasonable cost and build up a completely new profile for it. The new Francine perfume, when it comes on the market, is going to be the perfume to wear.’
‘The new Francine perfume?’ one of the others had questioned. ‘Hell, Leon, if there’s to be a new perfume why buy the damned outfit at all? Why not just get some chemist to come up with a new perfume for us and get some actress or model to front it for us? That’s what everyone else is doing.’
‘Which is exactly why it is not going to be what we shall do,’ Leon had responded briskly.
He was taking a very big gamble. He knew that. For every classic fragrance there were a hundred perfumes that had been forgotten, buried in obscurity. Leon wasn’t a fool. He knew that he had his detractors and his enemies in the shark-infested waters of the business world in which he lived; he knew too that there were also those who were simply plain jealous of his success. And all of them, whatever their motivation, would enjoy seeing him fail and fall.
Launching a new perfume was always a risk, even for a well-established perfume house with a stable of existing popular products. All Francine had was a name and a couple of old-fashioned formulae.
A couple, but not Myrrh, it now seemed.
Broodingly, Leon turned his back on the view. On the bedside table amongst his personal possessions was a small framed photograph. Going over to it, he picked it up and studied the delicately pretty feminine features of its subject, a sombre expression darkening his eyes.
