PROLOGUE
Though he’d never met her before, he recognised her instantly.
Even without the grainy photographs he possessed of this woman, taken several years earlier when she’d been at the height of her indulged teenaged life, he would have known that she was his enemy’s daughter.
Their eyes were the same.
Enormous, like galaxies sparkling with ice and stone, rimmed in thick black lashes. Hers though were set in a dainty, elfin mask, framed by elegantly smoothed blonde hair. His had been belligerent, surrounded by a face that had long ago given itself over to ruddiness and middle age.
Yet they were far more alike than they were different.
Benedetto had met the father’s eyes, hoping to see some remnant of humanity and decency. There’d been none.
With the background swirl of ballroom clutter and jazz music, he stared at them in her face and was besieged by disastrous emotions.
For Benedetto Arnaud hated Augustine Beauchamp with a visceral passion that could never be expunged. He hated him with every single fiber of his body. He hated him as night must surely loathe day and flame disdain water.
Staring now at Augustine’s beautiful, untouchable daughter he hated her too. She had that indefinable air of wealth and confidence that her ilk always wore like a second skin. She was princess-like in her grace, and he ached to unsettle that smug look of self-righteousness from her pretty face.
Yes, he hated her, and her father, and all they stood for.
Thoughshecould at least be turned to usefulness.
What was that old adage? Something about revenge being best served cold.
Benedetto wasn’t sure about that. Hot, cold, he cared only that it be served at all, and that Augustine be made to suffer for his crimes.
Crimes that could never be undone; wrongs that would never be righted.
And this woman with her sylph-like body and pouting pink lips would simply be another wrong to add to the pile.
His lips lifted not into a smile exactly, but into an indication of pleasure nonetheless. He watched her take the stage and the plan began to form, as if by magic.
Revenge whispered to him and he listened, rapt and ready. Its promise was seductive; its power a bewitchment too enticing to ignore.
He had waited and fate had delivered the solution into his lap.
Finally, it was time.
CHAPTER ONE
It was unusual for Kate to have an ungenerous thought, but as she took to the stage, her mind was swimming with them.
How in the world could Melania have ever thought Kate capable of this? To stand up in front of all of these people and auction herself like a … like a piece of meat? What on Earth did she have to offer anyone? Okay, she was a decent secretary thanks to Melania, but she’d taken this job out of desperation. It was hardly her career goal, and she considered that she spent a lot of time pretending she knew what she was doing rather than feeling flush with confidence.
“You just have to stand there and smile,” Melania had insisted, in that blasé way she had. “It’ll all be over in a minute or two.”
Kate had nodded dumbly, without offering the very true argument to this point: the auction might conclude swiftly enough, but what about whomever bid on her? What would they require of her and how long would it take? What if everyone found out, finally, that she was a fraud? That her name wasn’t really Kate Jones? That she had never worked as a secretary for more than a few weeks in her life before taking up this job for Melania — and even then, she’d only been given the job because Melania had been utterly desperate after her previous assistant had called in sick one morning and never returned.
If Melania had been given more time to reference-check Kate, might she have discovered the truth herself?
Kate resisted the urge to fidget — she had been told again and again that it was one of her worst habits — and plastered a smile on her face. Fortunately, the crowd was simply a spotted field of silhouettes; the overhead lights made it impossible to see definition in any face.
At least she presented somewhat nicely, she thought with a natural gratitude for small mercies. If it hadn’t been for Saphire Arana she would have fronted up looking like a truly frumpy maven of nothing in particular.
She ran her hands over the pale blue fabric of the dress and fixed her gaze on a point in a distant corner of the room.
“Kate Jones is the go-to girl for our founder Melania. She types, she schedules, she organises, and all without breaking a sweat. She can turn any administrative nightmare into a smoothly-run paradise of calm in the blink of an eye.” At this, Kate blinked rather obviously to make light of the praise and the crowd tittered in laughter.
