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PROLOGUE

‘EXCUSE nored and she had to try to wriggle her way past the sly on the every word of the ed with a se of hostile and unwanted but still undeniably fierce awareness of him If maleness was an essence, then this man possessed a potency that made Sadie’s sensitive female receptors twitch warily

He stood a good four inches above the older man who stood faithfully by his side, and whilst his voice was cool and low pitched it had a tih a soft, scented velvet glove had been slowly stroked over her bare skin

Trapped where she was by the sudden surge of people trying to move down the narrow tented corridor that led from one part of the trade fair to another, Sadie wobbled perilously on her unfah heels—the shoes, like the heavyinexorably pushed closer to the arrogant stranger So close, in fact, that she could have put out her hand and touched hi Had she? Wasn’t she secretly thinking…wanting…? Frantically Sadie hts

He, theits reaction to, had lifted his hand to look at his watch, its fingers lean, tanned, the nails neatly cut and clean, but still very ed to acompetently with any nu clearly identified that he was equally capable of writing a cheque to pay someone else to do them!

Oh, yes, he would be very good at writing cheques, Sadie decided He had that kind of arrogance A wealthy ance It was there in the cool look of hauteur he was slanting over her; a slow, thorough visual inspection that was a disturbing co assessment

Another rough push as sohtly packed crowd alht haveher blood and stop her breath

What was the matter with her? Why should she feel so alare that beneath the cool silksurely lay a body that was all raw masculinity, solid hard muscle and sinew, all…?

I away her unwanted and disruptive thoughts

Irritated with herself and her uncontrollable reaction to hi of the crowd and made herself walk away

Hot-faced, she hurried back down the corridor in search of her cousin Raoul

‘Coet a whiff of our scent’

Stony-faced, Sadie turned to face her cousin and co-director

She was still furious with Raoul for the trick he had pulled on her thisher to wear the perfume house’s current scent This was a scent created in Raoul’s father’s tied the small family-owned business And even she was h to fall for it She should have listened to her own instincts and refused to go along with Raoul’s plans theconcoction which was now offending her own olfactory senses! Instead, she had given in to a bout of senti she possibly could to mend the breach in their family!

She had assu to accompany Raoul to the trade fair But Raoul had other ideas! The clothes, the ’ hairstyle he had bullied her into were bad enough, and just not ‘her’ at all, but she had bitten on her lip and given in—in the interests of cousinly harmony But, oh, how she wished now she had not done so!

For the last few inter looks, suggestive remarks and totally unwanted physical intimacies fro to sa on her skin!

She loathed the scent It was everything that Sadie detestedin character and subtlety, with no staying power, and thin and cold where a perfuood chocolate or a lover’s caress And, even worse, this perfume had a brashness about it, a sexuality—there was really no other word—that Sadie personally found so loathso headache fro it!

‘That’s it I’ve had enough I’rimly, as she evaded the unwelcoht buyer who had been trying to nuzzle the side of her throat

‘What’s wrong?’ Raoul de slyly at her

‘What’s wrong?’ Sadie took a deep breath

Eighteen rand in the sious French perfurand with the secret recipe for what had been the house’s most famous scent

Her awareness of the rift that had existed between her grandrandfather, which had caused her grandmother to distance herself from the business and take no part in it, had initially coloured Sadie’s reaction to her inheritance But Raoul, ned the re shares in the business, had invited her to heal the rift which had developed between the two branches of the farandmother’s time and not only take her place on the board but also put her skills as a perfuood use and work in the business

But then she’d had no idea just h

ow far fros and dreams Raoul’s plans for the business were!

Raoul, with his shrewd business acumen and lack of sentimentality, seemed determined to use every means he could to promote the perfu with the house’s history and traditions!

‘What’s wrong?’ Sadie repeated furiously, her wide-set topaz eyes appearing pure gold with emotion ‘Do you really need to ask i not just me but our perfumes as well? Do you really think that what I have just had to endure will encourage wo pawed over by…by—’

‘By the world’s astores’ perfuone from his voice and his face set

‘I don’t care what you say, Raoul,’ Sadie told hi back to the hotel!’

Without giving hiument, she spun round on her heel and headed for the exit

Initially she had been excited at the prospect of this trade fair, especially when Raoul had informed her that it was to be held in Cannes, which was so close to Grasse, where their great-great-grandfather had first begun his perfuet away and return ho the sea—and to her own burgeoning business, involving perfu clients who came to her by word of mouth

No, the world of big business most definitely wasn’t for her—and as for the way that Raoul had set her up! Angrily Sadie hurried along the poorly lit tented ay, too engrossed in her own thoughts to pay any attention to the s by the exit until one of the her a look of insolent sexual inspection before addressing his colleagues

‘Couys,’ he invited

Sadie froze, anger, conteolden fireball in her eyes as she flashed a look of fierce hostility at hiht she had inherited froy-eyed leer, but a sly through her body

The otherher like a pack of jackals—not capable of hunting down their own prey, she decided, but all too eager to drag down and feed off someone else’s They were like vultures…

One of the menSadie to lock gazes with hirandmother, her own French was fluent and co to lower herself toany kind of response to what she had just overheard

Instead she stepped sideways and, keeping her head held high, walked past the group ofherself that she would ht of him and his promotional ideas when he later returned to their hotel!

She was alrabbed hold of her arm

Sadie earing a sleeveless black dress, and the sensation of the man’s unwanted touch on her bare skin made her shudder and iinning to feel queasily apprehensive, Sadie kept on walking, her gaze resolutely fixed on the exit

Which was no doubt why she didn’t see the othereither bypassed or e crowd she had just escaped from