Page 125 of The Tycoon's Affair: Tempted By Desire

She took a sip of champagne and looked at him. ‘What aboutyourparents?’

Arkim’s expression immediately darkened. It was visible even in the flickering light of the dozens of candles and lanterns.

‘As you’ve pointed out—you know very well who my father is.’

Sylvie flushed when she recalled throwing that in Arkim’s face in her father’s study. She refused to cower, though. This man had judged her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

She thought of how he was doing everything he could to distance himself from his parent and she was doing everything to follow in her mother’s footsteps. The opposite sides of one coin.

‘I don’t know about your mother—were they married?’

His look could have sliced through steel. Clearly this wasn’t a subject he relished, and it buoyed her up to see him lose that icy control he seemed to wield so effortlessly. It reminded her of how she’d wanted to shatter it when she’d first met him. Well, it had shattered all right—taking her with it.

Arkim’s tone was harsh. ‘She died in childbirth, and, no, they weren’t married. My father doesn’tdomarriage. He’s too eager to hang on to his fortune and keep his bedroom door revolving.’

Sylvie didn’t like the little dart of sympathy she felt to hear that his mother had died before he’d even known her. She moved away from that kernel of information. ‘So, you grew up in America?’

His mouth tightened. ‘Yes. And in England, in a series of boarding schools. During holidays in LA I was a captive audience for my father’s debauched lifestyle.’

Sylvie winced inwardly. There was another link in the chain to understanding this man’s prejudices.

Hesitantly she said, ‘You’ve never been close, then?’

Arkim’s voice could have chilled ice. ‘I haven’t seen him since I was a teenager.’

Sylvie sucked in a breath.

Before she could think how to respond, Arkim inserted mockingly, ‘Living with him taught me a valuable lesson from an early age: that life isn’t some fairytale.’

The extent of his cynicism mocked Sylvie’s tender memories of her own parents. ‘Most people don’t experience what you did.’

His eyes glittered like black jewels. He looked completely relaxed, but she could sense the tension in his form.

The question was burning her up inside. ‘Is that one of the reasons why you agreed to marry Sophie? Because you don’t believe real marriages can exist?’

‘Do you?’ he parried.

Sylvie cursed her big mouth and glanced away. She longed to match his cynicism with her own, but the truth was that even after witnessing how grief had torn her father apart shehadseen real love for a while.

She looked back. ‘I think sometimes, yes, they can. But even a happy marriage can be broken apart very easily.’By devastating illness and death.

He looked at her consideringly for a long moment and she steeled herself. But then he asked, ‘What was your mother like?’

Sylvie’s insides clenched harder. She looked at her glass.

‘She was amazing. Beautiful, sweet...kind.’ When Arkim didn’t respond with some cutting comment, she went on, ‘I always remember her perfume...it was so distinctive. My father used to buy it in the same shop for her whenever he was in Paris. It was opposite the Ritz hotel, run by a beautiful Indian woman. He took me with him once. I remember she had a small daughter...’ Her mouth quirked as she got lost in the memory. ‘I used to sit at my mother’s feet and watch her get ready to go out with my father. She used to hum all the time. French songs. And she would dance with me...’

‘Sounds just like one of those fairytales—too good to be true.’

Arkim’s voice broke through the memories like a rude klaxon. Sylvie’s head jerked up. She’d forgotten where she was for a moment, and with whom.

‘Itwastrue. And good.’

She hated it that her voice trembled slightly. She wouldn’t be able to bear it now if Arkim was to delve further and ask about her mother’s death. That excruciating last year, when cancer had turned her mother into a shadow of her former self, would haunt Sylvie for the rest of her life. She’d lost both her parents from that moment.

She felt prickly enough to attack. ‘Why did you agree to marry my sister? Really?’

Arkim was expressionless. ‘For all the reasons I have already explained to you.’