in hiding, every sense strained to the point of pain while wolves closed in on her.
BUT even though Lauren had prepared herself mentally and emotionally on the long flight, the pack of photographers and reporters that greeted her at Heathrow both shocked and scared her. Light exploded in her face as they bayed her name and took photographs.
‘Look this way, Lauren!’ ‘Hi, Lauren—can you tell us about this marriage to—?’ ‘Lauren, Lauren, over here!’ until command and shouted comment blended into a din that mercifully blocked out individual yells.
Shaking inwardly, she clamped her lips together, tuning them out while she searched for the quickest route through the milling mass. And then salvation arrived, in the form of two burly men stamped with the indefinable mark of security personnel.
‘This way, please, Ms Porter,’ the largest and most solid one said in her ear while the other commandeered her luggage trolley as a shield.
Locking every muscle against a cowardly impulse to run, she allowed herself to be escorted away from the hordes and along a corridor. They stopped outside a door and the one in front held it open.
Bewildered, Lauren went through.
And stopped as the door closed behind her and Guy Bagaton rose to his feet, big and vital and ablaze with raw power. Her heart jumping in incredulous joy, she managed to say in a brittle voice, ‘Oh—hello. I gather that the news has broken?’
‘This morning.’ He sounded as fed up as he looked, but his size and that indefinable air of competence and authority was hugely reassuring.
Shivering, she rubbed her arms; the impersonal room reminded her sharply of that other room a world away when she and this man had exchanged the vows that now bound them in a false relationship.
‘I see,’ she said unevenly. ‘I expected interest, but nothing like that pandemonium. How did they know I was coming in today?’
With cold contempt he said, ‘There’s always someone who’ll spill the beans.’ Eyes as bright and burnished as fool’s gold narrowed. ‘You look tired. Didn’t you get any sleep on the flight?’
‘Not a lot.’ And now her head was pounding, excitement and shock producing a wild mixture of sensations: intense relief, because she trusted him to deal with any situation, and a fierce sensual charge honed by absence. ‘The plane was seething with high school students embarking on a year’s exchange in Europe. They settled down for an hour here and there.’
‘I see. Come on, let’s go.’ Still frowning, he took her arm and steered her towards a boarding bridge.
Although a debilitating combination of exhaustion and astonishment tempted her to let him take over, she croaked, ‘What’s happening? Where are we going?’
‘Dacia.’
Blinking, she wondered where Dacia was, before remembering a small princedom in the Mediterranean Sea. She balked, trying to stop. ‘Why?’
With an expression as grim as his voice, Guy exerted just enough strength to urge her on. ‘Your parents are already there.’
What on earth was going on? Her mind spun stupidly so that all she could say was, ‘But my father can’t travel by air.’
‘He can if he has a nurse with him,’ Guy told her, escorting her along the bridge. ‘He’s fine; I’ve just been speaking to your mother. I’m sorry you had to run the gauntlet back there.’
Summoning the last remnants of common sense, Lauren dug her heels in. ‘Wait. I’m not sure this is a good idea. What’s going on? Why Dacia, for heaven’s sake?’
‘Because it’s quiet and peaceful and you wanted to be out of the limelight,’ Guy said evenly. ‘A few days there will see the media frenzy die—there’s nothing so stale as last week’s news.’
‘But I—’
‘Your parents agreed that this would be the best idea.’
‘But I don’t understand—’
He rasped, ‘It’s all I can do to protect you from the sort of gossip that could destroy your life.’
‘What? In this day and age? You’ve got a very naïve attitude to modern society if you think that a marriage of convenience is going to do more than mildly titillate readers.’
Flint-hard and formidable, Guy said brusquely, ‘You’re the one who’s completely naïve. To start off with, you might as well kiss your career goodbye.’
The pain in her breast solidified into a rock, so big she couldn’t breathe properly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous—’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ he ground out, eyes cold as frozen fire. ‘Unless you’ve got enough incriminating evidence to blackmail him, Corbett’s not going to keep you once he knows that you and I were lovers. And with journalists combing through Sant’Rosa and Valanu, it won’t be long before he does know.’
‘It won’t matter,’ she said dully. It hurt that he should still believe that ancient piece of gossip.
And that was dangerous, because she shouldn’t care what he thought of her.
Guy said harshly, ‘He doesn’t strike me as a man who’s happy sharing his women, and I doubt if he’d surrender to blackmail.’ Contempt darkened his face and thinned his mouth.
‘No,’ she said, her voice muted. ‘He wouldn’t.’
They were facing each other like enemies, eyes duelling, tense with antagonism. He despised her. ‘So you’ll be notorious; no one will take you seriously. You might get offers for television or some sort of model-ling, but your career’s gone. Face that now. If you lie low on Dacia for a week or so, the fuss will die down and you can regroup.’
Taking her numb silence for consent, he urged her into the cabin. Later, she was convinced that jet lag had scrambled her brain and sapped her will-power; surely that had been why she’d surrendered so meekly to his authoritative handling!
Once inside, a harried glance revealed that the plane was a private one, and they were the only passengers.
‘You’ll get an excellent view from this window,’ Guy said, standing back to let her sink into a superbly comfortable leather seat.
When he leaned down, sensations rioted through her in a delirious mixture of fire and honey and aching need. She swallowed to ease an unbearably dry throat and closed her eyes against the arrogantly angular jaw and the bold male curves of his beautiful mouth.
But as he clicked her seat-belt into place, she couldn’t block out the subtle, spicy scent that was his alone. Memories rushed back, of heat and long tropical nights when the evocative, erotic perfume of frangipani blossoms and the drowsy sound of the sea on the reef provided the perfect setting for passion. And of Guy, taking her to heaven with his lean, skilled hands and experienced understanding of what a woman’s body needed to drive it
