The Mistress Purchase by Penny Jordan Page A

of us the size of the car doesn’t really matter, does it?’
    Leon took the keys from the receptionist and turned to smile warmly at her.
    â€˜Does having such a good nature come naturally to you, or do you have to work at it?’ he teased her gently as he took her arm and guided her out into the warm morning sunshine.
    Sadie cast him a wry look.
    â€˜You didn’t give me the impression that you thought I had a good nature when we first met,’ she reminded him dryly.
    â€˜Ah.’ Leon gave her a droll look. ‘But that was before.’
    â€˜Before what?’ Sadie couldn’t resist asking as he led her towards the small compact hire car parked just outside the main entrance.
    Bending his head towards her, Leon replied wickedly, ‘Before I kissed you.’ He was playing with fire and heknew it, but suddenly he felt happier than he had felt in a long long time.
    Speechlessly Sadie got into the passenger seat. Leon was quite definitely flirting with her, and somehow she didn’t think that he was the type of man to flirt with every woman he met. No, when Leon flirted, it was because…
    Because what? Because he wanted to idle away a few spare days enjoying a brief sexual liaison? Sadie shivered, as though the words ‘brief’ and ‘liaison’ were lumps of ice someone had dropped down her back.
    It really was a compact car, she acknowledged ruefully a few minutes later, as she saw the way that Leon was practically folded over the steering wheel.
    â€˜In Australia we wouldn’t give something of this size to our kids in case we were convicted of child abuse,’ he told her in disgust as he inserted the key into the ignition.
    Sadie laughed.
    â€˜I thought it was only Texas where everything was bigger than anywhere else,’ she teased him, but her laughter turned into a small anxious frown as the car refused to start.
    Cursing beneath his breath, Leon tried again—and this time, to Sadie’s relief, the engine fired.
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    The farmhouse Leon was planning to rent for the summer was in the Massif de l’Estérel region of Provence, a beautiful mountainous area made up of the volcanic rock porphyry. The sides of the mountains were cloaked in forests of pine and cork oaks. Sadie felt a thrill of excitement at the thought of visiting such a beautiful area, and an even sharper one at the thought of visiting it with Leon.
    However, because of some roadworks in the centre of Mougins they had to take a circuitous route in order to get to the road that would take them up into the region.As they drove through the countryside surrounding Mougins Sadie couldn’t resist pointing out to Leon the fields full of flowers grown for the perfume industry.
    â€˜How can anything made in a laboratory come anywhere near rivalling the scent of these?’ she asked him passionately, gesturing towards fields of roses and jasmine.
    â€˜No, it doesn’t,’ Leon agreed with a glinting look towards her. ‘For one thing with a chemically based scent there’s no risk of the final product differing from batch to batch because the sun shone for three days less one year! And that means that when a woman buys a chemically created perfume she can be sure she is getting exactly the same scent that was in her previous bottle—and at an affordable price!’
    Sadie’s forehead puckered into a frown. From listening to Leon it would be easy to imagine that he had not changed his stance at all on the creation of the new perfume. Or was he simply trying to bait her?
    She opened her mouth to vigorously defend her own stance, but Leon shook his head and gave her a meaningful look.
    â€˜Remember our pact?’ he warned her.
    Sadie laughed, but inwardly she couldn’t help wishing that she could talk with him about her excitement and enthusiasm for her work on creating their new perfume. Their new perfume…She was also aching to get to work on the