Once in Paris. Diana Palmer
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smiled coolly. “Indeed it could.” He said no more, but there was a new and introspective look about him that made Kurt nervous. He had so much riding on this endeavor, almost too much! He simply could not afford to let Philippe double-cross him. And the best way to accomplish that was to get in the first blow. Kurt had half the rights to the long-protected mineral wealth of Sabon’s little country. If he could overthrow the government—and what sort of defense was a sick old sheikh with a small army?—he could cut Sabon right out of the loop and deal directly with the oil consortium. He’d have all the wealth he’d ever need, and he could put his shady friends on the payroll to protect his investment. He would never have to resort to arms dealing, his true business, again. The more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea. Sabon was so trusting, really. He thought he held all the aces. He would discover that he had nothing. Nothing at all.
Chapter Four
The minute Philippe left to return to his yacht, Kurt Brauer went immediately to find his wife. She had told him that Brianne and Pierce had gone to Freeport on a shopping trip. She didn’t know that the shopping trip had been a last-minute invention, because Brianne had seen Sabon’s yacht coming into port and she’d run to Pierce’s house to keep out of his way. In fact, she’d stayed there until she was sure that Sabon had sailed away.
Kurt had been impressed by Sabon’s threats, and his finances were such that he couldn’t afford to back out. He was between the proverbial rock and the hard place, and Brianne was slowly crushing him with her determination to avoid Sabon.
He was upset that she wouldn’t help him keep in the good graces of Sabon, and angry that she seemed determined to outflank him. He didn’t know if Philippe had been serious about kidnapping her, but he was beginning to think it might be the only way to make her see sense. He spoke firmly to his wife, but he couldn’t find Brianne until the next day. He cornered her in the living room of the beach house the minute he saw her and spoke to her about it.
“Philippe went away angry about the way you avoided him. He knows that I can’t afford to back out of the deal, and he’s talking about new partners. I don’t like your refusal to help me entertain him,” he said in his faintly accented English as he glared at her, both hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers. “And I especially don’t like you hanging around with Hutton. You must know that he and I aren’t on good terms.”
“He’s my friend,” Brianne said simply. “And I like him.”
“Bosh! He’s years too old for you,” he said, conveniently forgetting that his friend Sabon was the same age as Pierce. “I don’t want you spending so much time with him. It looks bad. Besides,” he added uneasily, “Philippe has heard of it, and it made matters even worse. He doesn’t approve.”
“Philippe doesn’t app—” she burst out.
He silenced her with a raised hand. “You don’t understand how I’m placed!” he said angrily. “I can’t afford to upset him in any way! Everything I have is invested in his country’s oil exploration and development. I’m risking all of it!”
“You shouldn’t have let him talk you into the investment in the first place,” she pointed out.
He glared at her. “I talked him into it,” he corrected her, “because I saw the chance to triple my investment. My finances are not what they once were,” he said coldly. “If I do nothing, I will lose what little I have left. This is a perfect investment opportunity, absolutely foolproof. But in order to make it work, I must remain friendly with Philippe. I cannot afford to antagonize him—or permit you to do so.” He cleared his throat, aware of the building resentment in her young face. “It is time you married,” he said harshly. “Philippe has said that he wishes it. It will be the best way to cement our business partnership.”
“Marry…him!” she burst out, appalled. “Listen, I am not marrying your friend Philippe! He scares me to death! You must surely have heard the gossip about him, about what he does to young girls!”
He turned and looked at her down his nose. “Your mother is quite happy here, ja?” he asked slowly. He smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “She and the child. You wouldn’t want anything to…upset her, now, would you?”
As veiled threats went, it was a masterpiece. She felt her body going numb as she considered what he was hinting at. She knew that her mother was afraid of him and that she was deeply regretting her marriage. Brianne also knew that her mother was vulnerable with the new child. She couldn’t really afford to make Kurt madder than he already was, for her mother’s sake. But there was no way on earth she could marry that repulsive man, even to save her mother and half brother!
She stood there, defiant but frightened, uneasy, searching for the right words. Pierce could save her. She couldn’t tell her stepfather that; her words might inflame him to the point that he would do something desperate to her poor mother. For almost two years she’d blamed her mother for her hasty marriage and equally hasty pregnancy, but blood was thicker than water. She couldn’t cause her only remaining parent to come to harm, regardless of her feelings of betrayal.
“You understand me, Brianne?” Kurt continued slyly. “You will do as I say?”
“Do I have a choice?” she replied quite calmly.
He smiled, not a pleasant smile at all. “No,” he returned. “So I think we might discuss plans for the wedding. Your mother will be happy to assist you, I am sure.”
“Not today,” she said, and searched desperately for an excuse. She squared her shoulders and came up with the perfect one. “I’m meeting a girlfriend for lunch at the Lobster Bar downtown.”
“A girlfriend?” He was immediately suspicious. “Who is she?”
Her mind would barely cooperate. “My friend Cara, from school,” she invented. “She’s on a cruise and will only be in town this afternoon. I haven’t see her since graduation.”
He hesitated, still not quite trusting her. He pursed his lips and thought for a minute. “Very well. But Philippe has sailed to one of the outer islands and is to arrive back here tomorrow. I will expect cooperation from you.”
“Certainly.”
She was pale and not as confident as she sounded, but she forced a smile for him and went to dress.
Brianne’s mother, Eve, having left the baby with the live-in nurse, slipped into her room as she was changing into jeans and a green silk shirt that matched her eyes.
“Has he spoken to you?” the older woman asked quickly.
“Yes,” Brianne replied. She stared at her mother, seeing the new lines in her pretty, soft face, the new haunted look in her pale eyes. “Indeed he has.”
Eve twisted her hands together. “I had no idea that he was going to take it this far, Brianne,” she said miserably. “I know you don’t like Mr. Sabon. I know what people say about him. But he’s very rich and powerful—”
“And you think money is the most important thing in the world,” she replied with cold eyes.
Her mother averted her gaze quickly. “I didn’t say that. He could give you anything you wanted, though. And it would make Kurt happy.”
“Making your husband happy isn’t my main goal in life, Mother,” Brianne said with an unfamiliar iciness in her tone. “And if you think I’m going to marry that man to keep Kurt Brauer happy, you are sadly misinformed.”
Her mother looked horrified. “You…you didn’t say that to him?” she asked with real fear.
“Of course not!” she replied quickly. “Mother, I’m not a fool. He did make certain threats about you, and the baby,” she added reluctantly. She and Eve had never been close. At times like this, it was sad, because they could have confided in each other, comforted each other. Eve had always lied about her age.