Free Once in Paris by Diana Palmer Page A

off, once he’s got what he wants.” She was the picture of a stubborn woman rationalizing an untenable situation. “He loves me. He does. He loves the baby, too. He won’t do anything to hurt us, no matter what he told you,” she added.
    â€œGood. Then I won’t have to marry Philippe Sabon to keep you safe, will I?”
    The question took all the color out of the older woman’s face. She moved forward quickly, almost frantically. “Brianne, you must think carefully about this,” her mother said frantically. “You mustn’t make any snap decisions!”
    â€œI won’t.” She turned her purse in her hands, all too aware that she looked like an Amazon next to her pretty little mother. Brianne had nice legs and pretty hair, but she fell far short of Eve’s idea of what her daughter should be.
    Eve seemed to sense that. She reached out, hesitantly, and for the first time in years, she touched her daughter, touched the long, thick, straight blond hair and felt its clean texture curiously.
    â€œYou do have such lovely hair,” she said slowly. “My stylist could do wonders for it. And you have the body for couture. I never noticed how elegant you are.”
    You never noticed me at all until I could help you tuck some more pretty feathers in your nest, Brianne thought resentfully, but she didn’t say it. She stepped back and her mother’s small hand fell.
    She went quickly to open the door andpaused to look back at the doll-like face of her mother with sorrow and pity. “I’m only twenty and I know that happiness can’t be bought. Why haven’t you learned that in almost forty years?”
    Her mother’s pretty face closed up. “I’m barely thirty-five,” she protested with a false laugh. “And besides, I like nice things.”
    â€œYou must. You’re going to pay a very high price for yours.”
    â€œIt isn’t so much to ask, that you marry one of the richest men in the world, Brianne. Think of all I’ve done for you. Think of what Kurt’s done for you,” she added quickly when she remembered how little she could claim to have contributed to her child’s well-being. “He sent you to a very expensive school in Paris, and he’s even supporting you now. You owe him something for that, Brianne,” she added, trying to regain the upper hand. She smiled that empty, cold, social smile she used to impress Kurt’s business associates, a frightening group of people whose exact connection to her husband was something she still couldn’t quite figure out. “I know you’ll do the right thing, once you’ve thought about this.”
    Brianne didn’t say anything else. It waspointless. The two women had never had much in common, and now they had even less. Her mother wasn’t going to let go of Kurt and his money regardless of what it cost her, she’d just said so. She was even willing to sacrifice Brianne to keep it.
    But Brianne wasn’t going to be sacrificed. She was going to the one person who could rescue her.
    Â 
    Pierce, fortunately for her, was at home. He was on the phone with his security chief, but what he was hearing made him uneasy.
    â€œWe had an attempt on the rig last night,” Tate Winthrop said in his deep, unaccented voice. “We foiled it,” he added, before the explosion he could hear forming on the other end of the line. “But I don’t think it will be the last. And I’ve heard some new rumblings about Sabon’s country. They say one of his poor neighbors is stockpiling weapons from a sympathetic nation and is considering an attack to capture the drill rigs in Sabon’s first oil fields. He was right about the oil, you know. They’ve hit pay-dirt, or so my sources say.”
    Pierce stretched lazily, and his eyes went to the white beach beyond the confines of theswimming pool where he was lounging alone.