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CHAPTER ONE

‘SO. WHAT DO we know about him?’ Leaning her hands, palms flat, on her no-nonsense scrubbed pine table, Eva glared, first at her older, married sister, Britt, and then at her younger sister, Leila.

Leila’s cheeks flushed pink, though she was used to Eva ranting. Leila’s middle sister was strong. And that was a polite way of putting it. Eva was also one hell of a pain in the neck when she was in one of her campaigning moods as she was now. Leila adored both her sisters, though she sometimes wished Eva could find a man and move out of the family home, taking her emotional pyrotechnics with her. How tranquil would life be then? Leila could only dream. But would anyone take Eva on? Both Leila and Britt had tried to interest the available men in Skavanga in Eva by extolling the many virtues of their firebrand sister, but none of the men had been interested in taking Eva anywhere, unless it was for a game of pool or darts. They had countered Leila and Britt’s glowing recommendations by reminding them about Eva’s famous temper and how loud she could shout, before turning their attention to quieter, more amenable companions.

‘Come on!’ Eva rapped, standing straight and planting her hands on her hips. ‘I need answers here. It’s all right for you, Britt—married to the Black Sheikh, one of the leading lights in the consortium. I don’t expect you to compromise your loyalties by having an opinion. But you, Leila? Shame. On. You. I’m surprised you can’t see that, if we allow them to, the consortium will happily rampage over our polar landscape and then move on. And don’t tell me I’m overreacting. That’s what will happen if one of us doesn’t make a stand.’

That was the thing about Eva, Leila mused as she removed herself to a quiet place in her head. Eva could have an argument all by herself without anyone else even taking part.

‘I won’t let the consortium have everything its own way, even if you will,’ Eva continued heatedly, ‘and before you say a word, Britt, let me make this quite clear. I might have seen our family business stolen from under our noses by three unscrupulous men but, unlike you, I have no intention of sleeping with one of them to make me feel better—’

‘That’s enough,’ Leila cut in with unusual fire. ‘Have you forgotten your sister is married to Sheikh Sharif?’

Shaking her head, Leila smiled an apology on behalf of Eva to Britt, who shrugged. Both sisters were accustomed to Eva’s tirades. What Eva needed was a curb on that temper. Her heart was in the right place, but their sister rarely thought before she spoke—or acted. And that was far more worrying, as far as Leila was concerned.

‘Well, you two are utterly useless,’ Eva exploded as her sisters continued sipping their coffee and reading their newspapers, and generally concentrating on other things as they waited for Eva’s tirade to burn itself out.

Tossing back her flame-red explosion of waist-length curls, Eva picked up the newspaper, her frown deepening as she scanned the latest developments at the mine, spearheaded by the man she had had her knife into since her nemesis, Roman Quisvada, had first shocked her into silence at Britt’s wedding with his swarthy good looks and inflexible manner.

‘Count Roman Quisvada?’ she intoned scathingly. ‘Well, that’s a ridiculous name to begin with.’

‘He’s Italian, Eva,’ Britt murmured patiently as she carried on reading her newspaper. ‘And he’s a bona fide count. It’s an ancient title—’

‘Count? My foot!’ Eva scoffed. ‘He can count how many pickets I’m going to assemble at the mine. That should keep him busy counting!’

‘And I believe he’s quite strong-minded,’ Britt observed mildly, flashing a glance at Leila.

‘He’s the same guy I slammed the door on at your wedding?’ Eva peered at Roman’s image in the press. ‘As I remember it, he didn’t take much scaring off on that occasion.’

‘You can stop rubbing your hands with glee at the thought of taking him on again,’ Leila warned. ‘When you met him at the wedding, it was the door to the bridal suite you shut in his face, so you could hardly expect him to stick his foot in and demand entry.’

‘Anyone would think he’d made an impression on you, Eva,’ Britt remarked as she laid down her newspaper. ‘We’re certainly wasting a lot of time and energy on him if he didn’t.’

Eva gave a scornful huff. ‘I just can’t bear being pushed around, that’s all.’

‘We need the money, Eva,’ Britt calmly pointed out. ‘We must keep the consortium on board. We cannot afford to upset this man. The mine would have gone down without the consortium’s investment, throwing hundreds of people out of work. Is that what you want?’

‘Of course not,’ Eva protested. ‘But there has to be another way—a slower way, a careful way. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve asked this wretched man to meet with me so we can discuss my concerns about the speed of his drilling programme?’

‘Discuss? Or lay down the law?’ Britt demanded, cocking her chin to give her sister a look. Neither Britt nor Leila was frightened of Eva’s outbursts, though, like Leila, Britt did dream of the day when Eva found a man who could provide an alternative channel for her passionate nature.

‘He has to hear the truth from someone,’ Eva stormed. ‘And I speak Italian. So he’d got no excuse not to meet with me.’

‘I believe the count speaks six languages,’ Britt murmured mildly, which resulted in a contemptuous huff from Eva.

‘Well, if you two won’t take a stand, I will.’

‘I knew we could rely on you,’ Britt murmured wryly.

‘Fresh coffee, anyone?’ Leila, who always played the peacemaker, offered. She skirted round her middle sister as if Eva were a stick of dynamite waiting to blow.

But Eva wasn’t finished yet. ‘Just look at this,’ she said, spreading out the local newspaper on the table. The centrefold featured a large photograph of Count Roman Quisvada, while the banner headline shrieked: COUNT RESCUES SKAVANGA in extra bold type. ‘It makes it sound as if he saved us from disaster single-handed.’

‘That’s pretty much what he did do,’ Britt observed, lifting her chin to shoot a stare that curbed her sister’s flow. ‘Quisvada, Sharif and the third man, Raffa Leon, have saved Skavanga. And if you can’t see that—’

‘You don’t even get a mention, Britt,’ Eva pointed out. ‘And you’re supposed to be running the mine.’

‘I am running the mine,’ Britt confirmed. ‘And the only reason they’re making a fuss of the count is because they interviewed him when he visited the mine to see for himself how his orders were being carried out—’

‘When he was too busy to see me, do you mean?’ Eva demanded.

‘He was obviously very busy seeing me,’ Britt confirmed with a shrug and a wry glance at Leila.

‘I’m sure the count was far too busy for distractions on that occasion,’ Leila added gently.

‘Oh, well, thanks a lot.’ Eva chewed her lip as she stared at the photograph of her nemesis in the newspaper. ‘Nice to know I qualify as a distraction. From what I can see in this article, the Skavanga family has been written out of the story altogether. All this female journalist wants to write about is Mr High and Mighty, Count Roman Quisvada.’

‘Maybe because she was interviewing him?’ Leila ventured.