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“You’re a paragon, mademoiselle, if I am to believe the Baron here. Intelligent, adoring, beautiful—although my views of your beauty have been somewhat limited, so he may be lying.”
Flynn took a careful sip from the drink she handed him. “I thought you met her at the pool.”
“She was under water. And now, as you see…” He nodded dismissively toward the terry-cloth wrap.
A long look passed between the men. Was it challenge she saw in Alexi’s eyes? Belinda felt as though she were witnessing an old, familiar game between them, a game she didn’t understand.
“Belinda, darling, take that off, would you?” Flynn crumpled an empty cigarette pack.
“What?”
“Your wrap, my dear. Take it off, there’s a good girl.”
She looked from one man to the other. Flynn was putting a fresh cigarette in the amber holder, but Alexi watched her, a trace of something that might have been sympathy underlying his amusement. “You’ve embarrassed her, mon ami.”
“Nonsense. Belinda doesn’t mind.” Flynn rose and walked over to her. He tilted up her chin just as she’d seen him do so often to Olivia de Havilland. “She’ll do anything I ask. Won’t you, darling?” He leaned down and brushed a kiss over her lips.
She hesitated only a moment before she dropped her fingers to the sash on her wrap. Flynn touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Slowly she loosened the knot and let the sash fall away. Turning her body toward Flynn, she allowed the wrap to drop to the floor.
“Let Alexi see, if you don’t mind, my dear. I want him to have a good view of what his money can’t buy.”
She regarded Flynn unhappily, but his eyes were on Alexi, and his expression seemed vaguely triumphant. Slowly she pivoted toward the Frenchman. The chilly air brushed her skin, and her bikini halter felt clammy against her breasts. She told herself it was childish to feel embarrassed. This was no different from standing at the edge of the pool. But she still couldn’t bring herself to meet the slanted, Russian eyes of Alexi Savagar.
“Her body is lovely, mon ami,” he said. “I congratulate you. But your beauty is wasted on this faded matinee idol. I think I shall steal you away.” His tone was light, but something in his expression told her his words hadn’t been spoken casually.
“I think not.” She tried to sound cool and sophisticated, like Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. Something about him frightened her. Perhaps it was his air of power, the impression of authority he wore every bit as easily as the oyster-white suit. She bent to retrieve her wrap, but as she straightened, Flynn’s hand cupped her bare shoulder, preventing her from covering herself.
“Take no notice
of Alexi, Belinda. Our rivalry is an old one.” His hand moved down the length of her arm and splayed possessively across her bare midriff. His little finger slipped in the hollow of her navel. “He can’t abide seeing me with a woman he can’t have. It goes back to our younger days when I stole them all away from him. My friend is still a very bad loser.”
“You didn’t steal all of them away. I remember a few who were more attracted to my money than to your pretty face.”
Belinda sucked in her breath as Flynn’s hand, warm and possessive, dipped lower and settled over the lipstick-red crotch of her tiny bikini. “But they were old. Not our type at all.”
Against her will she looked up and saw Alexi leaning back in his chair, a portrait of aristocratic indolence with one immaculately trousered leg crossed over the other. He lifted his eyes to hers, and for a fraction of a moment, she forgot Flynn was in the room.
Chapter 4
Alexi cruised with them on the Zaca and took them out to dinner at the best restaurants in Southern California. Sometimes he bought Belinda gifts of jewelry, dainty and expensive. She kept them in their boxes and wore only Flynn’s small spinning charm on a chain around her neck.
Alexi berated Flynn for the charm. “What a vulgar bauble. Surely Belinda deserves better.”
“Oh, much better,” Flynn replied. “But I couldn’t afford it, old chap. Not all of us were born with your silver spoon.”
The two men had met on the private yacht of the Shah of Iran nearly a decade earlier, but over the years, their friendship had developed an edge. Alexi’s presence reminded Flynn of past mistakes and lost opportunities. Still, he never stopped hoping to divert some of Alexi’s wealth in his own direction, and, in the end, Alexi felt the rivalry more keenly.
Beneath his charm Alexi Savagar was a man who took life seriously. As an aristocrat, he disdained Flynn’s inferior breeding and lack of formal education. As a businessman, he scorned his playboy lifestyle and contempt for self-discipline. But at thirty-eight—his fortune secure and his power unquestioned—amusement had become a precious commodity. Besides, Flynn had never posed a serious threat to him. Not until the moment Alexi had gazed at the mermaid swimming in the pool at the Garden of Allah.
Their tastes were similar—young girls with the bloom of innocence still on their flushed cheeks. Flynn’s fame and sexual magnetism seemed to give him an advantage, but Alexi’s wealth and carefully executed charm were a formidable aphrodisiac. Flynn saw Belinda as a new pawn in the game the men had played over the years. He had no way of knowing Alexi viewed her differently.
Alexi’s visceral reaction to Belinda Britton had taken him by surprise. She was a silly child absurdly obsessed with movie stars. Except for her youth, she had little to recommend her. Although she was intelligent, she’d been badly educated. She was undeniably beautiful, but so were other women he’d known. Still, next to Belinda’s air of tainted innocence, his more sophisticated female companions seemed old and weary. Belinda was the perfect combination of child and whore, her mind untouched, her body lush and experienced.
But his attraction to Belinda went deeper than sexual desire. She was a bright-eyed child, eager for life to begin and full of trust in the future. He wanted to be the one to introduce her to the world, to shelter and protect her, to mold her into the ideal woman she could become. As the days passed, the accumulated years of his cynicism peeled away. He felt like a boy again with his life stretching before him, full of promise.
Toward the end of November, Flynn announced he was going to Mexico for a week and asked Alexi to watch after her. Alexi gave Belinda a slow smile, then turned to Flynn. “You might wish to think twice about deserting the field.”
Flynn laughed. “Belinda won’t even wear the trinkets you give her, will you, my dear? I don’t believe I have much need to worry.”
