Читать книгу The Prince's Pleasure - Robyn Donald - Страница 8

HALF an hour later, after separate interviews, the sergeant complimented them both. ‘I wish all our witnesses were as observant as you two! With such good descriptions we should nail them before they do any damage.’ She looked at Alexa and said, ‘We’ll contact you if we need to.’

Alexa nodded. In the small room where she’d made her statement and drawn a sketch of both assailants she’d been given tea and some bracing, professional sympathy. It had helped, but her insides still felt as though someone had taken to them with a drill, and weak, irritating tears kept stinging her eyes.

Luka’s firm hand on her elbow ushered her out to his car. ‘You’ll have to direct me to your address,’ he said after a searching glance.

In a monotone Alexa guided him to her small flat in one of the inner city suburbs. He drove skilfully and well, although a couple of times she had to fill him in on New Zealand road rules.

Once they’d drawn up outside what had used to be a Victorian merchant’s house, now converted to flats, she said sincerely, ‘Thank you very much for everything you’ve done.’

The words stumbled to silence when he looked at her with cool, dispassionate irony, his angular features clamped into an expression of aloof withdrawal. Tension sparked through her, lifting the hair on her skin. Delayed shock, she thought protectively.

Swallowing, she continued with prickly determination, ‘I don’t like to think of what might have happened if you hadn’t come along.’

‘Don’t think of it. Your scream would have brought someone running. I did nothing,’ he said negligently and got out, swinging around the front of the car to open the door for her. ‘But promise me one thing.’

Clinging to the door, she braced herself. He was too close, but even as the thought formed he stepped back and she pulled herself upright on quivering legs.

‘What?’ she asked, her throat tightening around the words so that they emerged spiky with caution.

His smile was a flash of white in the darkness—sexy, knowledgeable and implacable. ‘That from now on you will call the doorman when you leave the hotel.’

‘From tomorrow I’ll be driving my own car, but I promise I won’t go walking alone at night,’ she responded quickly, groping in her bag for her keys. In her turn she smiled at him. Keep it impersonal, she warned herself, angry because she was so acutely conscious of him, tall and lethally masculine, his dark energy feeding some kind of hunger in her. ‘And I don’t work at the hotel,’ she added.

His eyes narrowed. ‘I saw you—’

‘Handing out snacks,’ she agreed. ‘I’m on the emergency roster and I was called in tonight because flu is laying the staff low.’ It seemed days ago now, as though the telephone call had summoned a different woman.

For someone who wanted to keep things on an impersonal level, she was failing miserably. Get out of here, she told herself silently. Now!

Walking carefully past him, she went up the steps to the front door, unlocked it and turned, to flinch back with dilating eyes at the tall, dominant silhouette that blocked out most of the light.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said harshly, hands closing around her upper arms. Warm, strong, unthreatening, they gave her support and steadiness. Frowning, he said, ‘You’re too pale. You’ve had a shock, and you should have someone to make sure you’re all right.’ His arms closed around her, pulling her into the hard warmth of his body.

In spite of the warnings hammering her brain, Alexa let herself lean on him, accepting the male comfort he offered with a purely female gratitude.

‘You were brave,’ he said on an unexpected note of gentleness. ‘I saw you gauge your options and decide that screaming and fighting back offered the best chance. Quick thinking, and a refusal to accept being a victim. Do you know how to defend yourself?’

‘No. I’ve always thought I should do s-something about it, but I’ve never s-seemed to have the time.’ She stopped her stammered explanation to drag in a quick, shallow breath. It was dangerously sweet to be cosseted. Forcing a brisk note into her voice, she pulled away, both relieved and disappointed when he released her instantly. ‘I’m sorry I interrupted your evening.’

He frowned, the dim light emphasising his brutally handsome features. ‘It was nothing. Can I ring someone for you?’

‘It’s really not necessary—I’m a bit shaky, but a good night’s sleep will fix that.’ Alexa suddenly remembered his coat, still keeping her warm. ‘Oh, your jacket!’ She set her bag down on the balustrade and struggled to get out of it, hauling at the material so recklessly that her shirt lifted free of her waistband.

The Prince’s hands skimmed the silken skin on either side of her waist, then jerked back as though the touch burned him. Alexa’s breath froze in her throat. She stared up into eyes that glittered in the light of the street lamps, into a face as hard and tough as a bronze mask.

For the space of several heartbeats neither moved until Alexa regained her wits enough to leap back and hand over the jacket. Both were careful not to let their fingers touch.

‘There,’ she said in a strained, hoarse voice. ‘And don’t say it was nothing.’

His mouth compressed. In a voice that could have splintered stone, he said, ‘I don’t lie. Go inside.’

Taut with a forbidden excitement, Alexa opened the door and escaped into the hall. ‘Goodbye.’

His dark head inclined. ‘Goodbye, Alexa Mytton.’

Incredulous, she thought she heard an echo of aloneness that mirrored her own. She looked up sharply, but his hard face revealed nothing except self-contained assurance. Heart hammering, Alexa pushed the door closed with an abrupt thud.

She listened until the sound of the car engine was lost in the noise of other vehicles, and then walked along to her flat, thinking that of all the idiotic things to suspect in Prince Luka loneliness was probably the most unlikely.

Yet he was far from the playboy prince she’d imagined, a handsome surface-skimmer, all machismo and conceit. He’d changed from a warrior, quick-thinking, formidable and exceedingly dangerous, to a man who offered aloof kindness and an inherent protectiveness that still surprised her.

Luka Bagaton was a complex, deeply interesting man. ‘S-sexy, too,’ she said aloud.

In the chilly security of her own flat she glanced at her reflection in the mirror, wincing at the feverish gleam in her pale eyes and the hectic flush along her cheekbones.

She had every right to feel jumpy and restless, but she wasn’t going to be able to sleep like this. Still trembling inside, she made herself a cup of milky chocolate, took it across to her computer and sat down to log on, searching for Luka Bagaton on the internet.

An hour later she switched off the computer and got up, stretching muscles that had locked as she’d read about Prince Luka of Dacia.

‘No wonder he’s so self-contained,’ she said, picking up the empty mug of chocolate.

At eighteen his father had succeeded to a princedom on the verge of being invaded by a country across the narrow strait separating the island of Dacia from Europe. Then, amazingly—and probably desperately—he’d married the only child of the dictator who’d threatened his country. His ploy had worked—Dacia had kept a limited independence. A year later the only child of the union had been born.

‘I hope they fell in love,’ Alexa said, yawning. ‘Otherwise it would have been hell for them both.’

Ten minutes before she had to leave for work the next morning, Alexa’s bell pealed. Her brows drew together as she pushed proof sheets into an envelope and went out to answer the chiming summons.

She opened the door to a man carrying a huge bunch of Peruvian lilies, delicately formed and fragile in shades of copper.

‘Miss Alexa Mytton?’ the messenger asked. At her nod he held them out.

Alexa automatically took the lovely things, looking down at the envelope with her name written across it in bold, very definite letters. Her heart jolted as she said, ‘Thank you.’

Back in her flat she arranged them in a glass vase in front of the window, admiring the way the autumn sunlight glowed through the silky, almost translucent petals. Had he chosen them to match her hair?

Only then, overcoming a kind of superstitious reluctance, she opened the envelope. I hope you are feeling much better this morning, he’d written, signing it with an arrogant ‘L’.

A swift shimmer of excitement took her by surprise. They were lovely, she thought, touching one of the lilies with a gentle forefinger.

Oh, all right, he’d probably said to someone, Send some flowers to this address, please, and forgotten about it immediately, but it was thoughtful of him. She swung around and caught up her camera. If only she could catch that silken transparency…

Glancing at her watch, she regretfully put the camera down. It would have to wait.

Alexa stamped into the flat late that afternoon, still tense after a hideous session with an actress who’d insisted on being photographed with her pair of psychopathic Dobermanns, laughing brightly every time they made a determined attempt to eat Alexa’s equipment.

The Peruvian lilies gleamed like copper tulle when she turned on the light, and her strained irritation mutated into a sweet, futile anticipation.

Carole had rung to say she had a full roster, so Alexa knew she wouldn’t see Prince Luka again, but she’d always remember his kindness and his flowers. She’d written a note to thank him for them, and would drop it off at the hotel in a few minutes.

The front doorbell jangled through the room. ‘Oh, great!’ she said, slinging her bag onto a chair. Perhaps it was a friend who’d called in for coffee.

But the man who waited there was no friend, although he looked vaguely familiar.

Before she had time to place him he spoke in an accent that told her what that familiarity was. ‘Miss Mytton?’

Her heart picked up speed. ‘I’m Alexa Mytton.’

‘The Prince wishes to see you,’ he told her impassively, although the dark eyes that lingered on her face were shrewd and perceptive. ‘I’m sorry it’s such short notice, but if you could come with me…’

When she hesitated he frowned and said, ‘I am sorry.’ He drew out a card and presented it with some ceremony.

He was Dion, followed by a long Dacian name. Alexa turned the card over, her eyes scanning the writing on the back—Prince Luka’s writing.

Please accompany Dion, it said, the brief note followed by that same ‘L’.

She was probably being paranoid after last night, but she wasn’t getting into a car with a total stranger. ‘I’m going past the hotel in ten minutes,’ Alexa said. ‘I’ll call in on my way.’

He looked taken aback, but said politely, ‘Yes, of course. I will meet you at the elevators on the third floor.’

Secretly, shamefully glad she was wearing a sleek trousersuit in her favourite bronze, with a silk mesh tank top under the blazer-cut jacket, Alexa closed the door on him and scurried back into the flat to renew her lipstick, before scooping up her car keys.

Why did Prince Luka want to see her? Expectant, yet strangely apprehensive, she parked in the visitors’ car park and took the lift into the hotel.

Sure enough, Dion with the mile-long name was waiting. Although he greeted her cordially enough she sensed his reservation as he opened another elevator with a key and ushered her inside. Kites jostling in her stomach, she stared at the wall until the lift stopped at the penthouse, where a security guard opened the door and ushered them both into a foyer.

‘In here, madam,’ her guide said, opening another door for her.

He stood back as Alexa walked through. Stopping when the door closed behind her, she ignored the huge, opulently furnished room to fix her eyes on the man who turned from contemplation of a crimson sunset to look at her with dangerous metallic eyes.

From somewhere Alexa remembered that when confronted by royalty you waited until you were spoken to. So, although she had to bite back the words that trembled on her tongue as he surveyed her with comprehensive and intimidating thoroughness, she stood silently.

But her eyes sparkled at his unsparing scrutiny, and her mouth tightened as she jutted her chin at him.

‘Have you seen today’s newspaper?’ he asked in a deep, cold voice.

Frowning, she abandoned any attempt at formality and protocol. ‘No. Why?’

He gestured at one spread out on a coffee table. ‘Perhaps you should read it now. In the last section, page three.’

After a baffled glance she walked across to the table and picked up the paper. The conference had made the front page, but the part he referred to was a lifestyle pullout. And there, in the gossip column, someone had ringed an item with a slashing black pen—the same pen that had written the letter ‘L’ on the paper accompanying her flowers.

Incredulously Alexa read the item.

The Prince of Dacia, heaven’s gift to romantic royalists now that the Prince of Illyria is married, is clearly a connoisseur of more in New Zealand than our scenery and wine. Last night, a small but dedicated bird told me, he was seen driving one of Auckland’s busiest young photographers home after the opening banquet of the banking conference. And she was wearing his jacket. What, we wonder, can this mean?

With scornful precision he asked, ‘Did you leak this?’

Alexa’s head jerked upwards. Bitterly—foolishly—hurt, she transfixed him with a furious glare. ‘Of course I didn’t!’

‘Then how did it get into the newspaper?’

She didn’t know what intimidated her more—his anger, frozen and harsh as a blizzard at the South Pole, or his flinty control.

‘I don’t know,’ she told him, clinging to her composure. ‘Someone saw us at the police station, I’d imagine. Fortunately she hasn’t linked you with any specific person.’

‘Perhaps your name will be in the next sly little morsel,’ he said with a cutting edge to his voice.

Her head jerked around and she met the full shock of his gaze. Dry-mouthed, she asked, ‘Why should there be a next one?’

‘Because whoever fed this to the columnist will make sure of it.’

‘Look,’ she said, trying to be reasonable, ‘it’s irritating and naff, but it isn’t the end of the world. People will forget it.’

‘I won’t forget it,’ he said, watching with hooded eyes the way the light smouldered across her hair, loose now around her face. With silky precision he said, ‘I don’t like being used, Ms Mytton.’

In the face of his scornful arrogance she felt hot and foolish and furious. Covering a stab of pain with seething denial, she asked indignantly, ‘Why would I want to use you?’

‘Usually it’s for money,’ he returned caustically, killing Alexa’s jab of sympathy by adding, ‘But often for notoriety—and I imagine that a link to me, however tenuous, would help you advance in your profession. I hope you took no photographs of me last night.’

Pale eyes glittering, Alexa almost ground her teeth. Her quip to Carole about hiding a camera came back to taunt her, bringing colour to her skin—which he noticed. ‘Not a single one,’ she retorted crisply. ‘And I don’t leak titbits to the press. This rubbish—’ she gestured contemptuously at the newspaper ‘—is your area, not mine. And it’s totally without any foundation.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ He crossed the room in two strides, stopping her instinctive retreat by grasping her shoulders.

The previous night Alexa had noticed the strength and support of his hands; now, knocked off-balance by hurt and anger, she felt nothing but the promise of their power.

‘I wish I could believe that there is no foundation for the sly innuendo in that rubbish,’ he said, mockery gleaming in the frozen fire of his eyes, ‘but I am a realist above all else.’

And he bent his head and kissed her.

Afterwards Alexa tried hard to convince herself that it was the sheer unexpectedness that kept her locked un-protesting in his embrace.

But she lied. The second she’d seen Luka she’d been acutely, forcefully aware of him—and in spite of his steely control, she’d recognised a like response. Each time their eyes had met they’d exchanged hidden messages that bypassed logic to kick-start a flagrant hunger.

Fed by clamouring instincts, that secret communication—primitive and involuntary—had grown in quantum leaps, burning away common sense and caution.

Without realising it, she’d been waiting for this moment, all that was female in her knowing it would come. In mute surrender, she relaxed against his taut body.

At the first touch of his mouth something buried inside Alexa split and broke, as though she’d emerged from a chrysalis.

And then, after a kiss as short, brutal and impersonal as a slap, Luka lifted his head to survey her with chilling detachment, the hunger that prowled his eyes disappearing behind their opaque, enamelled surface.

It took every ounce of self-command she could summon to ask sweetly, ‘Had enough?’ letting contempt sharpen each word.

With a bleak, twisted smile he said harshly, ‘Unfortunately, no.’

This time the kiss was neither brief nor brutal. He kissed her with fire and purposefulness, as though he’d longed for her down the years, as though they were lovers who had only this kiss to exchange before bitter fate tore them apart for ever.

Alexa struggled to remain passive, but a terrifyingly raw, untamed force sprang up to meet his open hunger, and—to the shocked astonishment of the last rational part of her mind—match it. Flames rocketed through her, eating away everything but the sheer physical magic of the Prince’s flavour and subtle scent, and the heat and power of his warrior’s body against hers.

It was the increasing hardness of that body rather than the sharp knock on the door that broke into her sensual enslavement. In some dim recess of her brain she remembered that this man might have spent the night with another woman.

When she pushed against his chest he lifted his head and released her, stepping back. Alexa forced her lashes up and looked into eyes as polished and impersonal as the gold they resembled. Oh, he wanted her—he couldn’t hide that—but with nothing more complex than simple lust.

It shouldn’t have hurt.

Yet it was pain as much as fury that drove her to ask, ‘And what did that prove, except that you’re stronger than I am?’

Caustic amusement gleamed in his gaze, curved the mouth that now knew hers intimately. ‘It proved that you want me as much as I do you,’ he returned on a note of courtesy that lacerated her composure.

‘That means nothing,’ she retorted, trying to convince herself. Beneath the surface control, she realised, he was blackly furious.

‘An admirably liberated view,’ he said, not hiding the flick of contempt in his tone.

The skin over her high cheekbones heated and she forgot tact and discretion and plain common sense to flare, ‘Perhaps, but I’m not so liberated that I sleep with every good-looking man who wants a bit of publicity.’

‘No,’ he said lethally, ‘you merely pander to the avid eagerness of people who want to read that sort of trash.’

Hot with chagrin at her humiliating rudeness, she said between her teeth, ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. But, for the last time, I did not notify the newspaper.’

He surveyed her with aggression bordering on menace. ‘If news of those kisses makes it into the media I’ll know how much your word is worth.’

‘As much as yours,’ she said tersely. ‘I’d hate to be as mistrustful as you are.’

‘I imbibed it with my mother’s milk,’ he said, adding with cold distaste, ‘Literally.’

Shocked by the stark authenticity in his words, she muttered, ‘There’s someone at the door.’

‘They’ll wait.’

Possibly his staff were accustomed to waiting for him to finish with the woman of the moment!

Alexa turned away, paradoxically feeling safer now they were back in adversarial mode. ‘They won’t have to. I’m going.’

‘Perhaps you should comb your hair,’ he suggested in a voice that was a maddening mix of amusement and mockery. ‘You look—tumbled.’

Glaring at him, Alexa shook her hair back from her face, but the heavy copper tresses clung to her hot cheeks and temples. She pushed it back with her fingers, but when his dark gaze lingered on her shaking hands she gave up. With a crisp ‘Goodbye’ she walked abruptly towards the door.

Halfway there, she stopped. ‘Thank you for the flowers.’

‘Don’t throw them into the garbage just because I sent them.’ He sounded more than a little bored.

‘It isn’t their fault they came from you.’ She couldn’t resist adding, ‘Although I’ll bet you ordered a minion to send them!’

‘Alas, the days of minions are long past,’ he said, deadpan, adding, ‘Have you got your car back yet?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Torn by a debilitating mixture of anger and resentment and desolation, she swept out past the man who waited on the other side of the door.

Luka’s eyes met Dion’s and he jerked his head. Obeying the unspoken order, Dion closed the door. He’d accompany her down to her car.

Alone once more, Luka turned away and walked across to the window, to stare at the elaborate terraced garden and pool outside.

Shortly after his seventh birthday he’d screwed his courage to the sticking point and dived through a waterfall to the pool behind it. He’d felt the way he did now—as though the gleaming darkness was a gateway into some other dimension, a place of perilous beauty where he risked the slow dissolution of his innermost self.

Every muscle clenched while he fought to leash an unwanted onslaught of desire. He understood the primitive strength of his own needs and instincts, and over the years he’d caged them in a prison of will-power and discretion.

Yet Alexa Mytton’s smile and the glittering promise in those pale, crystalline eyes had pushed him over the knife-edge of control.

He shouldn’t have kissed her, and once he’d done it he certainly shouldn’t have surrendered to that overmastering need to find out whether she tasted as good the second time as she did the first.

He tried to resurrect his anger, but primal impulses still raced recklessly through his cells. He had work to do.

He was leafing rapidly through papers when another knock at the door signalled Dion’s return. When the other man was inside Luka asked, ‘Did you see her to her car?’

Dion said abruptly, ‘Yes. Luka, the last sighting of Guy was a week ago, when he boarded a ship loaded with medical supplies for Sant’Rosa. I’ve checked, but no one seems to know where it went or what happened to it.’

Luka swore—low, virulent oaths that startled his companion.

When he stopped Dion drew in a sharp breath and said, ‘You’d better tell me what this is all about.’

‘Guy is a hostage,’ Luka said, only a thread of steel in the deep voice betraying his emotions.

Last night’s meeting had begun in an atmosphere that had reeked with suspicion, but he had thought he’d managed to convince the men from Sant’Rosa that he was an entirely neutral emissary. They had discussed the sort of peace they envisaged.

And then they’d produced their trump card in the form of his cousin.

‘In Sant’Rosa? We can spring him,’ Dion said instantly.

‘Without alerting the government?’ Luka shook his head. ‘He’s safe enough for the present. They really want an end to this war, and they’re convinced the rebels want it too. However, they don’t trust anyone—not even anyone from the other side of the world.’ His voice hardened into iron. ‘When Guy appeared they recognised him from the gossip columns and realised they had the perfect way to stop me from double-crossing them. According to the Prime Minister, he is quite safe.’

‘And you believe him?’

‘That far, I believe him,’ Luka said deliberately. ‘And I believe that if any word of this peace initiative gets out to the media Guy could be in serious trouble. Before anyone knows of any possible treaty, they want the deal to be signed and sealed, with a peace-keeping force already on the island.’

Dion frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Because,’ Luka said evenly, ‘the neighbouring state is poised to march across the border and take over. They’ll stay on the sidelines as long as they think the two sides are bleeding to death, but any hint of peace will see them invade. Guy is being kept three miles from the border on the main route to the capital city.’

Dion swore this time.

‘Exactly,’ his Prince said harshly. ‘He’s safe as long as no one knows anything about the possibility of a treaty between the Sant’Rosa rebels and the government.’

‘So what do we do?’ Dion asked, crisp and professional.

Luka said deliberately, ‘From what I heard last night, the rebels won’t be too hard to persuade—especially if they’re promised a place in the new order of things. The government has guaranteed this. I’ve put out feelers amongst the local refugees from Sant’Rosa—apparently there are several with direct links to the rebels.’ He looked at Dion, recognising the other man’s frustration and need for action. ‘Make sure the jet’s ready to fly—we may need to airlift them into Auckland and take them up to the beach house. Apart from that, you’ll do nothing—yet.’ He smiled ironically. ‘And before I start work on a peace plan that will satisfy both sides, I plan to swim.’

Dion said, ‘Guy is tough, Luka. He’ll probably get himself out of there.’

Luka gave a crooked smile. ‘I know.’ He paused and said abruptly, ‘There is something else you can do. Make sure Alexa Mytton is not permitted into the hotel until after the conference is over.’

Although he turned up the jets in the private pool to full power, swimming didn’t clear his mind. Instead of working out a way to free his cousin, or bring both bitterly divided sides to a neutral meeting place, all he wanted was to feel Alexa’s hair around him like some silken tent, each coiling tress caressing his skin into feverish ecstasy. He wanted her to look at him with her ice-clear dangerous eyes smouldering with desire, in the full knowledge of what she was doing. He wanted to feel that passionate mouth on his skin…

He hauled himself out of the pool and strode towards the shower, sweat gathering on his forehead as his body responded to the goad of his thoughts.

More than anything in the world he craved to take her, bury himself deeply in her strong slenderness, mark her by his possession so that any other man’s touch on her would be unthinkable—an insult, an unbearable horror.

Because he was fastidious—and circumspect—there hadn’t been many women in his bed, but without conceit he knew he was a good lover. Partly it was his true appreciation of women’s needs, his pleasure in their softness and their curves, his understanding that making love was an infinitely greater risk for a woman than for a man. But it was the self-mastery taught to him by the courtesan his father had summoned as a sixteenth birthday present that brought his lovers to sobbing fulfilment before he yielded to his own climax.

And it was that control that enabled him to keep himself emotionally distant from each one. He’d been trained in a hard school to think of his country before anything else.

Yet now he’d been ambushed by a hunger that clamoured to take a woman hot-bloodedly and without finesse, loosen control and let mindless white-hot passion ride him to satiety.

A photographer, for God’s sake! And sniffing around now, at the very worst of times. One hint of publicity and the desperate men he’d met last night would disappear out of New Zealand and back into their tropical jungle, and more people would die, more children would grow up uneducated, knowing only war and famine and disease.

And Guy, his younger cousin, could well lose his life.

With a quick, savage flick of his fingers he turned the shower onto full, and when that didn’t tame his rampant body he punched the palm of one hand with a clenched fist and fought the dangerous frustration with hard common sense.

Where had he seen those astonishing eyes before, so pale they were almost transparent, their colour a violent contrast to her warm Mediterranean colouring of creamy skin and copper hair?

A knock on the door brought his head up. ‘What is it?’ he asked with harsh precision.

‘A message, sir,’ his private secretary said urgently. ‘The one you’ve been waiting for.’

That night, as she cooked dinner and ate it without tasting a mouthful, Alexa replayed over and over again that scene with Prince Luka.

It didn’t take a psychologist to explain the electricity that had scorched through her at his touch. She’d been caught off guard by potent physical attraction, the kind of sensual intuition that splintered the bars of caution and common sense to whisper alluringly of feverish, compelling sex, to counsel surrender to a passion she’d never expected to feel.

Basic, earthy, almost entirely amoral, it should repel her. Emotionally and intellectually it did.

Unfortunately some rash, previously unsuspected part of her found Prince Luka wildly exciting. He’d kissed her like a conqueror, and she’d let him—worse than that, she’d gloried in it, because she’d known she’d breached some barrier in him.

Even more intriguing was that hint of vulnerability, of hidden secrets. Perhaps she could do some research on him—

‘No!’ she said, outraged.

And she should stop beating herself up! It wasn’t as though she was the first woman to have found him attractive. Every magazine and newspaper in the western world was a witness to the number of women who’d fallen for his particular brand of Mediterranean glamour. And as well as being dynamically sexy, he’d been surprisingly kind when she’d started falling to pieces.

The telephone rang. ‘Alexa,’ Carole said in a flat voice, ‘something’s happened that’s rather—upsetting.’