that moment. He wouldn’t forgive her for that.
From this high point on the hill overlooking Monte Carlo, Amos Falcon could see the bay but, unlike his son, he failed to notice the beauty of the sea. His attention was all for the buildings on the slope, tall, magnificent, speaking of money, though none spoke so loudly as his own house, a sprawling, three-storey edifice, bought because it dominated its surroundings.
It was money and the need to protect it that had first brought him to this tax haven years ago. He’d started life poor in a rundown mining town in the north of England, and got out fast. Working night and day, he’d built up a fortune of his own, helped by marrying a woman with wealth, and he’d left England for a more friendly tax regimen as soon as he could, determined that no government would be allowed to rob him of his gains.
‘Where the devil is he?’ he muttered crossly. ‘It’s not like Darius to be late. He knows I want him here before the others.’
Janine, his third wife, a well-preserved woman in her fifties with a kind face and a gentle manner, laid a hand on his arm.
‘He’s a busy man,’ she said. ‘His company is in trouble—’
‘Everyone’s company is in trouble,’ Amos growled. ‘He should be able to deal with it. I’ve taught him well.’
‘Perhaps you spent too much time teaching him,’ she suggested. ‘He’s your son, not just a business associate to be instructed.’
‘He’s no business associate of mine,’ Amos said. ‘I said I’d taught him well, but he never quite learned how to take the final, necessary step.’
‘Because he has a conscience,’ she suggested. ‘He can be ruthless, but only up to a point.’
‘Exactly. I could never quite make him see … Ah, well, maybe his recent troubles will have taught him a lesson.’
‘You mean his wife leaving him?’
‘I mean that damn fool divorce settlement he gave her. Much too generous. He just let her have whatever she demanded.’
Janine sighed. She’d heard him ranting on this subject so often, and there was no end to it.
‘He did it for the children’s sake,’ she pointed out.
‘He could have got his children back if he’d played hard, but he wouldn’t do it.’
‘Good for him,’ Janine murmured.
Amos scowled. He could forgive her sentimental view of life. After all, she was a woman. But sometimes it exasperated him.
‘That’s all very well,’ he growled, ‘but then the world imploded.’
‘Only the financial world,’ she ventured.
His caustic look questioned whether there was any other kind, but he didn’t rise to the bait.
‘And suddenly he had a pittance compared to what he’d had before,’ he continued. ‘So he had to go back to that woman and try to persuade her to accept less. Naturally, she refused, and since the money had already been transferred to her he couldn’t touch it.’
‘You’d never have made that mistake,’ Janine observed wryly, perhaps thinking of the pre-nuptial agreement she’d had to sign before their wedding five years earlier. ‘Never give anything you can’t take back, that’s your motto.’
‘I never said that.’
‘No, you’ve never actually said it,’ she agreed quietly.
‘Where the devil is he?’
‘Don’t upset yourself,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s bad for you to get agitated after your heart attack.’
‘I’m over that,’ he growled.
‘Until the next time. And don’t say there won’t be a next time because the doctor said a massive attack like that is always a warning.’
‘I’m not an invalid,’ he said firmly. ‘Look at me. Do I look frail?’
He rose and stood against the backdrop of the sky, challenging her with his pose and his expression, and she had to concede the point. Amos was a big man, over six foot, broad-shouldered and heavy. All his life he’d been fiercely attractive, luring any woman he wanted, moving from marriage to affairs and on to marriage as the mood took him. Along the way, he’d fathered five sons by four mothers in different countries, thus spreading his tentacles across the world.
Recently, there had been an unexpected family reunion. Struck down by a heart attack, he’d lain close to death while his sons gathered at his bedside. But, against all the odds, he’d survived, and at last they had returned to their different countries.
Now he had summoned them back for a reason. Amos was making plans for the future. He’d regained much of his strength, although less than he claimed.
To the casual eye, he was a fine, healthy specimen, still handsome beneath a head of thick white hair. Only two people knew of the breathless attacks that followed exertion. One of them was Janine, his wife, who regarded him with a mixture of love and exasperation.
The other was Freya, Janine’s daughter by an earlier marriage. A trained nurse, she’d recently come to stay at her mother’s request.
‘He doesn’t want a nurse there in case it makes him look weak,’ Janine pleaded, ‘but if I invite my daughter he can’t refuse.’
‘But he knows I’m a nurse,’ Freya had pointed out.
‘Yes, but we don’t have to talk about it, and you can keep an eye on him discreetly. It helps that you don’t look like a nurse.’
This was an understatement. Freya was delicately built with elegant movements, a pretty face and a cheeky demeanour. She might have been a dancer, a nightclub hostess, or anything except a medical expert with an impressive list of letters after her name.
An adventurous spirit had made her leave her last job in response to her mother’s request.
‘I was getting bored,’ she said. ‘Same thing day after day.’
‘You certainly won’t get that with Amos,’ Janine had remarked.
She was right. After only a few days Freya remarked, ‘It’s like dealing with a spoilt child. Don’t worry. I can do what’s necessary.’
Luckily, Amos liked his stepdaughter and under her care his health improved. It was she who now came bouncing out onto the balcony and said, ‘Time for your nap.’
‘Not for another ten minutes,’ he growled.
She smiled. ‘No, it’s now. No argument.’
He grinned. ‘You’re a bully, you know that?’
‘Of course I know that. I work at it. Get going.’
He shrugged, resigned and good-natured, and let her escort him as far
