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to be the perfume to wear.’
    â€˜The new Francine perfume?’ one of the others had questioned. ‘Hell, Leon, if there’s to be a new perfume why buy the damned outfit at all? Why not just get some chemist to come up with a new perfume for us and get some actress or model to front it for us? That’s what everyone else is doing.’
    â€˜Which is exactly why it is not going to be what we shall do,’ Leon had responded briskly.
    He was taking a very big gamble. He knew that. For every classic fragrance there were a hundred perfumes that had been forgotten, buried in obscurity. Leon wasn’t a fool. He knew that he had his detractors and his enemies in the shark-infested waters of the business world in which he lived; he knew too that there were also those who were simply plain jealous of his success. And all of them, whatever their motivation, would enjoy seeing him fail and fall.
    Launching a new perfume was always a risk, even for a well-established perfume house with a stable of existing popular products. All Francine had was a name and a couple of old-fashioned formulae.
    A couple, but not Myrrh, it now seemed.
    Broodingly, Leon turned his back on the view. On the bedside table amongst his personal possessions was asmall framed photograph. Going over to it, he picked it up and studied the delicately pretty feminine features of its subject, a sombre expression darkening his eyes.
    The Sadies of this world didn’t really know what life was all about. Handed a silver spoon at birth, they could take what they wanted from life as a right.
    Was she really oblivious to the fact that only a small handful of women could afford the luxury of the kind of scents she blended? Or did she simply not care?
    Well, he cared. He cared one hell of a lot—as she was about to discover!
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    As she drove past the flower fields belonging to Pierre, Sadie exhaled a deep breath of pleasure and satisfaction. Pleasure because both the sight and the scent of growing flowers always lifted her spirits, and satisfaction because she had the power to prevent the Greek Destroyer from wrecking the precious heritage her grandmother had passed on to her.
    Pierre and his brother grew both jasmine and roses. A swift, delicate-fingered person could pick half a kilo of the jasmine blossoms in an hour, and the picked blossoms sold at a hefty price—as Sadie had good cause to know. The delicacy of the jasmine flower meant that it required year-round care by humans rather than machines. And in the rose fields stood the precious, wonderful Rose de Mai, from which the rose absolute which Sadie used in her perfumes was made.
    Pierre and his wife Jeannette came hurrying out to the car to welcome Sadie, embracing her affectionately.
    â€˜So Francine is to be sold and soon you will be creating a fine new perfume for the new owners? That is excellent news. A talent such as yours should be recognised and allowed to truly shine. I am already lookingforward to saying that I know the creator of the next classic scent,’ Pierre announced teasingly, once Sadie was seated at the scrubbed kitchen table, drinking the coffee Jeannette had made for her.
    Sadie frowned as she listened to him. She had expected Pierre to share her own feelings towards the sale of the business, instead of which he was making it plain that he thought it was an excellent opportunity for her.
    â€˜It is true that Leon…he…the would-be owner does wish me to create a new perfume—but, Pierre, he is only interested in mass-market perfumes made out of chemical ingredients,’ Sadie objected.
    Pierre shrugged. ‘He is a businessman, as we all must be these days, and perhaps not totally au fait with the complexities of our business. He does not have your knowledge perhaps, petite. Therefore it is up to you, in the name and memory of your grandmère, to help him,’ Pierre pronounced sagely.
    â€˜Help him!’ Sadie’s voice was a