‘Sensible girl.’ Wordlessly, he pushed her coffee towards her. And a glass of champagne.
With shaky fingers Eve took the glass, and drank from it.
‘You’d do better with me, cherie. You wouldn’t weep in the morning.’
Lightly, he brushed her bare arm with his fingers. Then he started to tell her another gossipy anecdote.
She tried to smile.
It wasn’t possible.
Alexei walked back to the bar. His gait was very controlled, his face expressionless. Beneath the mask of his face, emotions roiled like dark waters. He’d been insane, all right, but he’d got his sanity back now. Forced it back. Eve Hawkwood could resume her attentions to her original target.
Was she sleeping with Roflet already? Or was she holding out until Roflet père rode to her father’s rescue?
No, don’t think about Pierre Roflet enjoying Eve Hawkwood. The woman he’d wanted was not her. It was an illusion, a fantasy that did not exist. A mirage.
‘M’sieu?’
The barman was hovering attentively. Alexei gave his order.
‘Vodka,’ he instructed tersely.
The barman nodded, and turned to pour the drink. He placed it in front of Alexei and watched him knock it back, then replace the glass on the surface of the bar. Silently, he refilled it.
Alexei reached for it, let his fingers curl around the cool edge of the glass, but he did not drink it. Already the first one was burning down his throat. Deadening his senses.
‘Russe?’
The husky voice at his side was female. He turned his head.
There was a woman sitting on the barstool, nursing a glass of champagne. Young. No more than twenty, perhaps. Low-cut dress with a high hem. A lot of make-up.
Good-looking.
Expensive-looking.
Available-looking.
Alexei’s eyes narrowed slightly. Assessingly.
Then he answered her.
As he did so, he saw surprise—and wariness—flicker in her eyes. Then it was gone. Instead, she laid a hand with red-lacquered nails on his sleeve. She smiled.
Invitingly.
It took Alexei only a handful of minutes to persuade her to come up to his suite with him.
Eve watched him walk out of the nightclub. He was difficult to miss. The woman on his arm had the highest heels possible, and was swaying provocatively in her tight-cut dress that moulded over her bottom, skimming high across her thighs. Her long dark hair waved extravagantly down her back.
Her hand, with its long red nails, curled around Alexei Constantin’s forearm with blatant possession.
Eve’s hand curled tightly around the stem of her champagne flute. As if to break it.
How many more illusions could she stand seeing destroyed?
Yet one more, it seemed.
Pierre was looking where she watched, her eyes wide and stricken.
‘Definitely not a good idea, cherie,’ he murmured.
She tore her eyes away. She looked down into her champagne glass.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘You’re right. Not a good idea.’ Her voice was strained.
She made herself look up, look across at Pierre. He gave a little grimace, half-sympathy, half-warning.
‘And a health risk.’ He nodded in the direction that Alexei Constantin was walking off in. ‘The girl is a hooker.’
Eve stared.
Pierre gave a light shrug. ‘I know—they shouldn’t let them in here. But they—or their pimps—bribe the staff. And she is one, cherie, believe me. She offered me her services when I was getting your drink while you were dancing.’ He made another slight grimace. ‘She is no doubt most expensive. But then, price is not a problem for Alexei Constantin.’
Eve hardly heard him. The sound of the final shattering of her last illusion drowned him out.
For one last, despairing second she felt herself try to fight against what she was seeing, but she was crushed down. Crushed by the damning reality of who and what the man was.
No one worth wanting. No one worth dreaming over.
Bleakly, she lifted her champagne glass to her lips.
CHAPTER THREE
ALONG the line of the sea’s edge, to the south, there was still the glimmer of light. Eve stood at the yacht’s rail in the cooling air, looking out to sea, not wanting to see the garish brightness of the shore.
Not wanting to think about the ordeal ahead.
Alexei Constantin was coming to dine with her father. And she would have to do her duty as her father’s hostess, be gracious and polite, ensure that the conversation flowed smoothly, that the staff performed to the standard her father required, ensure the evening went well.
How could the evening go well? How could it be anything other than a horrible nightmarish ordeal?
Her hands tightened over the rail. She had spent the previous night tossing and turning in bed, bitter and hopeless and angry with herself—and all day she had dreaded the coming dinner. How could she cope with seeing again the man she had made such a fool of herself over? Engaging in some idealised moonlit tryst, a fleeting kiss, then making her swift flight from the scene of her stupidity? The man who had turned out to be the predator slowly circling her father? A man who, whether he was Alexei Constantin or not, saw nothing wrong in dancing with her one moment, then picking up a prostitute in the space of a handful of minutes and taking her off for some expensive, professionally serviced sex?
But she was going to have to cope with it, she knew. If she tried to pretend she was feeling ill, the repercussions from her father would be severe. Financially punitive. It was the way he controlled her. Threatening to hold back money.
She could not risk that. Not when her father’s money was so desperately needed. And for that reason she steeled herself for the ordeal ahead. Her mother had taught her well, because it was how she got through her own life. Her mother’s stringent drilling would get her through the evening.
As for her frail, pathetic fantasy—that was dead. Quite dead.
What was the saying in English? thought Alexei, as he started to eat the elaborately prepared food placed in front of him. Take a long spoon when you sup with the devil?
Well, he was supping with the devil tonight, all right. His own personal devil.
But as of tomorrow morning, when the news of AC International’s Australian acquisition was made official—giving the coup de grâce to Hawkwood’s failing fight to remain independent—his devil would finally be exorcised.
The years of calculating, planning, executing, would be over.
Justice would finally be served on Giles Hawkwood.
Oh, it would not be the killing blow, he knew, but he would not need to finish him off. Others would do that. Enemies even more ruthless than he. Serving Hawkwood with the justice he so thoroughly deserved.
But now, while the man did not yet realise his time was up, Alexei could watch him—coldly and silently—behaving as if there were still time to escape, time to do a face-saving deal that would allow him to emerge from this takeover bid with advantage.
Not that he was raising the subject now. No. Now, as Giles Hawkwood entertained his nemesis, the subject was quite different. It was art. The topic had been picked