Playing the Billionaire's Game - Pippa Roscoe Page 0,23

rich, incredibly well connected, which of course has absolutely nothing to do with the first two. On the surface he appears to be open-minded, fairly interested in ecological developments, was one of the first to sign the Paris Climate Agreement, and has an incredible breeding programme for his thoroughbred racehorses which also seeks to support endangered animals.’

‘What’s not to like?’ she asked, even though she knew that something was coming. Something she almost didn’t want to know.

‘What’s not to like is that beneath the surface he is a despot who brings his full force down upon someone’s head if he deems that person to have offended or simply not done as was asked. His vengeance is cruel, bordering on psychotic, and there are areas beneath his palace where family members are kept and abused for his pleasure. Their crime? Wanting to leave the country. Four of his daughters were married in political alliances before they were sixteen, and the youngest only managed to escape this fate by the fact he literally gambled away her hand in marriage. And that, Sia, was considered a good thing by his daughter. It was her only lifeline to freedom.’

‘But that’s...inconceivable.’

‘Why, because you met him? You spent a few hours in his home? Because Bonnaire’s would do business with him?’

‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, even as his words were beginning to settle into a place that clicked with something already there in her mind.

‘Sia, if you are so good at spotting fakes, look at me and tell me whether I’m lying.’

She didn’t want to raise her eyes and meet his. Because she knew what she would find. And suddenly she was angry. Angry at Sebastian. If it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t have known about theft, forgery, nepotism, trapped family members, forced marriages and possible backroom deals at the company that employed her.

‘You should go to bed. You’ve had a long day and will have another long day tomorrow.’

‘Why?’ she said, suddenly feeling the late hour of the evening against her skin.

‘Because tomorrow we’re going to the Caribbean.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t have to come. But I’m keeping to my offer, for you to be my shadow for fourteen days. And my business doesn’t stop for you, Ms Keating.’

‘But I thought your business was doing as little as possible.’

‘It is. I just like to be surrounded by exquisite beauty while doing it.’

How could he turn her feelings around with a carefully constructed and perfectly delivered line? Because whether she was the exquisite beauty he’d easily mentioned or the Caribbean, Sia couldn’t say—not to mention her frustration at effectively being sent to bed. But she was beginning to see the pattern with Sebastian. He gave both truths and lies in equal measure so that she never knew where she stood with him.

Sebastian stayed outside for at least an hour after Sia departed. She might have been mad at him—it wasn’t that hard to tell with her—but he’d had to send her away. He’d seen how the dawning realisation of what she’d got herself into had begun to chip away at her defences and he couldn’t watch them crumble. She was going to need her armour—every inch of it—for what was coming. Because he simply could not afford to hold back.

CHAPTER FIVE

INTERVIEWER ONE: So let me get this straight. The reason you didn’t answer our calls was because you got on a plane with the man you believed to have stolen a painting from Bonnaire’s and flew to the Caribbean?

MS KEATING: I believe he stole the painting from Sheikh Abrani—but yes.

INTERVIEWER TWO: Wouldn’t you have?

INTERVIEWER ONE: [sotto] That’s not the point.

MS KEATING: I thought it possible that the painting might be there.

INTERVIEWER TWO: And was it?

WIND BUFFETED SIA’S hair, whipped at her thin long-sleeved T-shirt and almost managed to push her back an inch from where she stood beside the folded down steps to a private jet. But she braced herself against the wind, just as she ground her teeth together to prevent herself from slapping the smirk from Sebastian’s handsome face.

The reason for the smirk was presently resting by his feet. The wooden crate, approximately twenty by twenty-four inches, also happened to be the exact measurements of the Durrántez painting Woman in Love.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to see inside of it?’ he taunted.

‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

But she did. She really did. And he knew it. She couldn’t work out whether he would be either that reckless or that arrogant to wave the real painting in