Well, any rival was to be welcomed, even one with wheels. What she really wanted to conjure up, though, was a flesh and blood rival to take his mind off her—someone suitable for his age and circumstances. She frowned slightly. What had Bastiaan Karavalas been saying the previous evening? About dispatching Philip to his villa in the first place because he’d been pursued by some spoilt teen in Greece? That was a good sign, because it could only mean that Philip’s cousin would be amenable to her suggesting that another rescue was needed.
Except that I’m going to have to speak to him alone.
That was not something she wanted to have to do. Not even behind the protection of being Sabine. But right now she would grab any protection she could.
Walking into the white-plastered, low-rise villa, set in spacious grounds out on the promontory of the Cap, she felt the need of Philip’s familiar innocuous presence as they crossed the cool, stone-floored hall into a wide reception room and she saw the tall, sable-haired figure of Bastiaan Karavalas strolling in from the vine-shaded terrace beyond to greet them.
As she had the night before, and the first time she’d laid eyes on him, Sarah felt an instinctive, automatic reaction to him. It was like a switch being thrown inside her—a buzz of electric current in her veins, a kick in her heartbeat. She saw his dark eyes narrow as they lit on her, and the electric current ran again—and then Philip was greeting him and ushering her forward.
‘Here we are, Bast,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Is lunch ready? I’m starving. Are we eating out on the terrace?’
‘We’ve time for a drink first,’ Bastiaan replied, and Sarah saw that he was carrying a champagne bottle in one hand and three glasses loosely by their stems in the other. ‘But let’s head out anyway. Mademoiselle...?’
He stepped aside from the door to let her go through first. It meant passing close to him, and she felt his eyes on her as she walked out on to the terrace. Then all thoughts of the disturbing Bastiaan Karavalas left her.
‘Oh, this is beautiful!’ she heard herself exclaim.
The wide, shady terrace, roofed by vines and vivid bougainvillaea, opened to verdant lawns beyond, which were edged with richly foliated bushes and sloped down to a glittering azure pool, behind which stretched the even more glitteringly azure reaches of the Mediterranean Sea.
‘Welcome to my villa, Sabine,’ said Bastiaan.
She turned at the accented voice. His eyes were sweeping over her and she could feel their impact. Feel the electricity course through her again.
Not in a tuxedo, as she had previously seen him, but in a pair of long, pale grey chinos and a short-sleeved, dark burgundy open-necked polo shirt, which moulded his powerful torso. He looked lean, lithe and devastatingly attractive. She felt her stomach give a little clench of appreciation.
‘Sab—come and sit down,’ Philip was saying, indicating the ironwork table set for lunch.
He’d taken to calling her ‘Sab’ on the way there, and Sarah was glad. It might make him less likely to call her Sarah. She was also glad about her choice of outfit. OK, so she was probably slightly too smartly dressed for what was clearly going to be an al fresco meal, with Bastiaan in casual clothes and Philip in his customary designer-labelled T-shirt and jeans, but her retro-chic dress felt almost like a costume—and that had to help her be Sabine and not Sarah, who was perilously out of her depth in such deep waters as swirled about this powerfully, devastatingly sensual male...
As she carefully seated herself where Philip was holding a chair out for her, in a position that afforded her a view right out over the gardens, she could feel those heavy-lidded eyes on her while Bastiaan settled himself at the head of the table.
‘May I tempt you to champagne, Sabine?’ The deep-voiced question required an answer.
‘Thank you,’ she said politely. Inside, the inner voice that whispered to her so seductively in Sabine’s husky tones was teasing her... You tempt me to so much more...
She silenced it sharply, making herself look not at the man who drew her eyes, but instead out over the beautiful gardens to the sea beyond. Her expression softened. It really was absolutely beautiful, she thought with genuine pleasure. Private, verdant, full of flowers, with the azure sea sparkling beyond—a true Mediterranean idyll.
‘What a beautiful spot this is!’ she could not help exclaiming warmly. ‘If it were mine I’d never leave!’
‘Oh, Bast has an entire island to himself at home,’ Philip answered. ‘This place is tiny in comparison.’
Sarah’s eyes widened. Bastiaan saw it as he busied himself opening the champagne. Thank you, Philip, he thought, that was helpful. His appreciation was sincere—he wanted to see how Sabine reacted to his wealth. Whether it would cause her to turn her attentions to him instead of his cousin.
And would that be helpful too? Again he found himself contemplating using that method to detach her from Philip. It might be so much...swifter.
Enjoyable...
His eyes rested on her as he filled their glasses. He was still trying to get past his first reaction to her when he’d walked out on to the terrace. It had been—surprise.
Oh, he’d known, obviously, that she wouldn’t turn up for lunch in a skin-tight evening gown and a face full of stage make-up. But he’d expected her to wear some kind of flashy strapless brief sundress, exposing a lot of thigh and with a slashed décolletage, and to be adorned with jangly gold jewellery, her hair in a tousled mane. But her stylishly retro look had a chicness to it that drew his eye without condemnation.
Interesting, he found himself thinking. She had changed her image decisively. At the nightclub she had been all sultry vamp. Today she had moved on a couple of decades to the swinging sixties—almost as though she’d made a costume change between acts...
But then, he thought caustically, putting on an act was what a woman like Sabine was all about, wasn’t it? From standing on a stage singing throaty, amorous numbers for strangers, to manipulating the emotions of a smitten, impressionable youth.
His eyes hardened minutely as they rested on her. You will find it harder to manipulate me, mademoiselle...
If there was any manipulating to be done, then it would be coming from him—not her. He would be the one to steer her in the precise direction he wished her to go—away from Philip. And to me instead? Again the thought played in his mind provocatively. Temptingly.