Red Rose for Love
Carole Mortimer
MILLS & BOON
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE had been good, her performance perfect. She knew it and so did the audience; their wild applause brought an excited flush to Eve’s animated features. The applause was deafening, and they wouldn’t allow her to leave the stage.
Finally Eve had to give them one more song, silence falling over the standing people as she once again took up the microphone, waiting for everyone to be seated again before she indicated to her backing musicians to start playing.
It was her latest song, the song she had begun the concert with, and the audience loved it now as they had then. This time she didn’t wait for the cries for more, but took a hasty bow and left the stage, exhausted by the last two hours of her one-woman concert.
Her long dark hair was clinging damply to her forehead, falling smoothly over her shoulder, its straightness gleaming jet-black. She brushed the damp tendrils from her face, her hands long and slender, her nails long and lacquered the same purple of the clinging cat-suit she wore.
She looked to neither left nor right as she made her way to her dressing-room, a bright meaningless smile on her lips as the congratulations came her way from the staff who worked just as hard behind the scenes as she did before the audience.
Derek James, her manager, was waiting for her when she entered her dressing-room. ‘Great concert, Eve,’ he said excitedly. ‘You’re really made now. Everyone will be queueing up to book you.’
Eve sat down before the mirror, anxious to remove the heavy make-up she had worn on stage, wanting to cream her naturally peachy skin before wiping her face clean. She took out her bottle of lotion.
‘Don’t do that yet,’ Derek stopped her. ‘You look about sixteen without your make-up. Wait until we get away from here. There’ll probably be some fans waiting outside.’
‘You know I hate this look.’ She grimaced at her reflection, the face make-up giving her skin a dark glow, the eye make-up several shades of purple, her naturally dark lashes thickened by the dark mascara she had applied, her lips darkened by the plum-coloured lipstick. She looked totally unlike herself, and she hated it.
‘You may not like it,’ Derek put the lotion back in the drawer unused, ‘but the public loves it—and they’re the ones that count.’
‘Yes,’ she sighed, brushing her long hair free of tangles.
‘Don’t knock it.’ He pulled up a chair and sat down, straddling it, his arms resting on the back. ‘You were tremendous tonight, Eve. I’ve never seen you so—so damned sexy!’ he said with enthusiasm. ‘What happened to you out there?’
She shrugged. ‘I gave them what they wanted.’
‘And it worked! God, how it worked. You’ll be booked up for work for years to come.’
Her mouth twisted. ‘I can see the pound notes registering in your eyes. If I make money then so do you,’ she derided.
‘Talking of money,’ he took no offence at her rebuke, ‘you had a rich fan out there tonight.’
Eve instantly stiffened, her hand trembling slightly as she reapplied her lipstick. ‘Oh?’ She forced indifference into her voice.
‘Yes. Bartholomew Jordan. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?’ Derek asked anxiously.
‘Who hasn’t?’ she said lightly, her tension leaving her. It wasn’t Carl! After all, not every rich man could be him. Besides, there was absolutely no reason to suppose he would ever come to hear her sing again.
Derek looked disappointed by her lack of enthusiasm. A man of thirty, with an untidy attractiveness, he always looked as if he had just crawled out of bed, his clothes always badly creased, his hair untidy. He and Eve had met almost five years ago, when she was twenty and being badly managed by a man who had no interest in the style of music she projected. Derek had taken over her career from that moment, until she had now reached the peak of giving her own concert to a full audience, an audience fully attuned to her style of music, to the hard-rock songs and contrasting love songs that she enjoyed singing.
‘I said Bartholomew Jordan, Eve,’ Derek repeated crossly. ‘The Bartholomew Jordan.’
She nodded. ‘The banker.’
‘And the rest. The man’s a billionaire.’
‘Then what’s he doing at my concert?’ she dismissed scathingly, and stood up, a tall girl made even taller by the high-heeled sandals she wore. ‘I’m exhausted, Derek,’ she told him wearily. ‘I want to go home. And sleep, and sleep, and sleep,’ she yawned tiredly.
Derek shook his head. ‘You can’t do that. Mr Jordan wants to meet you.’
She pulled a face. ‘Then he’ll have to want. I’m too tired, Derek,’ she insisted as he went to protest. ‘I’m not in the mood to pamper an old man, even if he is rich as Croesus.’
‘Jordan isn’t old——’
‘Not unless you call thirty-nine old,’ drawled a third person.
Eve turned slowly, her expression giving nothing away as she looked at the man now standing in the open doorway. Yes, this would be Bartholomew Jordan; he just oozed confidence in himself and his power over other people. He was impressive to look at in the dark pin-striped suit, white silk shirt, and meticulously tied tie, his blond good looks a startling contrast to his deep tan. His hair was several shades of blond, from white to pure gold, in an overlong windswept