CHAPTER ONE
EVE sat in the wide, soft leather aeroplane seat, legs slanted gracefully to one side, flicking unseeingly through a copy of Vogue. There was only one other passenger in the private jet winging its way south over France towards the Côte d'Azur. Across the aisle her father was working through papers, a frown on his face, his jaw clamped tight.
His mood was grim, Eve knew. It had been growing grimmer ever since the takeover bid by AC International had been launched. At first her father had been contemptuous, sneering, but as one shareholder after another had started to look favourably on the bid, or succumb to the lure of the premium price AC International was offering for Hawkwood shares, his reaction had changed.
The takeover bid had become a battle. A battle her father was now taking to the man who had the audacity to try and wrest his company from him.
'When I come face to face with him it's got to look like nothing more than a coincidence,' he'd barked at Eve. 'If you're with me it will just look like a social occasion.'
It was a familiar role for Eve to be required to play. The socially poised daughter, the charming guest, the gracious hostess-whenever her father required youthful but respectable female company. Eve's eyes hardened. The times when far from respectable females had been at her father's side were plentiful. She could still remember the shock and disgust she'd felt when she'd turned up unexpectedly at her father's Mayfair apartment once, as a student, to find a party in full swing. Except the word 'party' didn't even begin to describe it.
Naked and half-naked girls had lolled about the apartment, many of whom clearly there for the purpose of 'sexual entertainment'-if that was the polite term for what was going on-and a blue movie flickering in the background on a huge plasma screen.
Since then she'd had no illusions about what her father did to amuse himself when he wasn't increasing his wealth and being a complete s.o.b. to everyone around him. And he certainly wasn't the only one to amuse himself that way.
A look of repugnance shadowed her eyes. And foreboding.
When it came to that kind of partying some of the worst rich men were the newest rich men-especially those who came from countries just discovering how to make serious money.
Would this Alexei Constantin be like that? The country he came from was one of those in South Eastern Europe that seemed to have sprung up overnight in the last fifteen years after the fall of communism. What she knew of the place-Dalaczia-was minimal, though she'd looked it up a bit since last night. It would, she assumed hopefully, be a safe topic of conversation if she had to find one with the man. So far she had learned that Dalaczia shared a border with Greece, possessed a short Adriatic seaboard and some offshore islands, was mostly mountainous, and had been fought over for centuries by every power in the region, including Russia, Turkey, Austria, Greece, Italy and assorted Balkan states. The official religion was Orthodox, and the alphabet was a variation on Cyrillic. Its present independence was precarious and unstable-so was its current government. Not that Eve intended to discuss either-that could swiftly become contentious. Instead she had a list of notable natural features, some data on flora and fauna, and a smidgen of folk customs. That would have to do.
As for the man himself-well, if she was to go by the stereotype currently so popular in American films, Alexei Constantin would doubtless be some florid, overweight, middle-aged man, with a fleshy face and gold teeth, who'd made a bundle out of ruthlessly expropriating his country's assets since the fall of communism.
She gave a suppressed sigh. So what if he was? Her only task would be to make polite conversation with him until her father decided it was time to despatch her to her quarters and talk business. Her father's gloves would come off then. He fought rough, and very, very dirty-who knew better than she? Eve thought bitterly. But whatever he had planned for Alexei Constantin, she didn't want to know.
She didn't want to know anything of what her father did. She just wanted to keep him away from her life as much as she could. Not that that was easy, or even possible. Giles Hawkwood cast a long shadow.
She'd lived under it all her life.
And there was, she knew, no escape.
No escape at all.

Her reflection gazed back at her from the mirror of the vanity unit in the lavish ladies' room on the ground floor of the Riviera hotel, and Eve studied it. It was the way she liked to look. Silvery-grey Grecian style evening gown with a draped bodice, pale hair in a coiled chignon, simple drop pearl earrings and matching necklace, subtle make up and hint of classic fragrance.