another of her brothers, Gray, and the woman he’d married, Sam. They had all breathed a collective sigh of relief when Harper had been the one to die in that last encounter.
Through it all, Roma had worked to achieve a level of happiness and peace, unwilling to let Harper take anything more from her than he already had. She’d done a number of things to take control of her life, including keeping fit, and taking martial arts and gun classes, but the fact remained that safety was only an illusion. Harper was dead, but he wasn’t alone out there.
Roma didn’t see herself as paranoid. She was a realist. The entire Lombard family was a target, not only because of their wealth and high media profile, but because a branch of the family business was tied up with the development of hi-tech arms and communication equipment for the military.
For them, it wasn’t a matter of if trouble would strike, it was a matter of when.
Lewis stirred, his eyes flickering. Roma stared numbly at the grey pallor of his face, and rage built steadily inside her at what had been done to Lewis—bright, inoffensive, fun-loving Lewis, who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Roma had the odd, fragmented thought that if she’d stayed at home, read a book or watched TV, instead of going out looking for bright lights and fun, tired of her own company, Lewis wouldn’t be bleeding on the sidewalk now. No one would have gotten hurt.
The wail of the siren grew louder, then stopped, the abrupt silence punctuated by the shallow rasp of Lewis’s breathing, the rapid thud of her heart shoving blood through her veins in short, shuddering bursts. For an oddly distorted period of time Roma was unable to breathe, as if a giant fist had closed around her lungs, squeezing them tight, shutting them down, so that her vision narrowed and dimmed, and sensation faded, as if she were no longer completely connected with her physical body.
So this was what it was like to go into shock.
She could have done with never finding out.
Chapter 2
Two days later.
Ben McCabe strode across the car park of Auckland’s international airport. A gust of warm wind broadsided him as he stepped up on the kerb, forcing his already gritty eyes to narrow against the sting of dust whirling off the pavement. The acres of glass fronting the main terminal tossed his reflection back at him: crumpled T-shirt, jeans that were ripped at one knee, stubbled jaw and tired eyes.
There was a stain on his shoulder.
A disgusted groan scraped from Ben’s throat as he passed through the doors and headed for the Arrivals lounge. The stain was small—little more than a narrow streak—but, on a white T-shirt, orange was definitely orange.
So much for looking like a hotshot security consultant, but he’d been too tired, in too much of a hurry—and too ticked off with the way Gray was calling in this favour with close to zero notice—to care what he’d looked like. He’d been pulled in from a camping trip with his daughter, and after driving half the night, he’d simply dropped Bunny at his mother’s place, gone home, showered and crashed. When the alarm had rung, he’d gotten dressed in the dark. He’d hardly noticed what he’d shoved his arms and legs into.
Gray was one of the best friends he’d ever had, but in Ben’s opinion, spending the next week playing bodyguard to his kid sister while she sashayed around all of Auckland’s best society parties was more in the line of a pain in the ass than actual work.
By anyone’s standards, Roma Lombard was rich and spoiled. She was the pampered only daughter of the wealthy Lombard hotelier family. Baby Roma hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in her mouth; it had been diamond-encrusted platinum.
Ben wasn’t impressed. He’d seen rich and spoiled, and he didn’t like it. He should know. Once he’d been dumb enough to marry it, and his ex-wife, Nicola, had given him a crash course in hell he was in no mood to repeat.
A flash of dark humour momentarily lightened his mood. Not that he would be marrying Roma Lombard, just riding herd on her for the next couple of weeks. But in some ways personal bodyguarding was more intimate than being married. There was no walking out, no slamming doors—they would be stuck together, for better or worse, until he delivered her back to her doting big brother.
The information board confirmed that the red-eye flight from Sydney to Auckland had landed just minutes ago, along with a number of other flights. Ben scanned the steady stream of passengers pushing luggage trolleys. It was summer—school holidays—and the place was crazy with people flying in for a slice of Pacific paradise.
Ben couldn’t get excited, not when he’d had to cancel his camping trip with his daughter and it looked as though he would be spending the next week with a spoiled brat.
His stomach rumbled, reminding him that dinner last night had been sketchy and he hadn’t had time for breakfast. On top of everything else that was about to go wrong with today, he was hungry. Cursing beneath his breath, he began to pace.
Roma strolled with her brother, Gray, toward the luggage carousel, her mood going from bad to worse. She had a headache. She never had headaches. ‘‘I don’t need twenty-four-hour protection,’’ she said flatly. ‘‘I can’t help Evan fund-raise with a bodyguard vetoing me at every turn.’’
‘‘You’re getting protection. It’ll be discreet.’’
Discreet? Roma reined in her disbelief. After the scare just two days ago, her family had rallied around her like a bunch of hens around their only chick. As much as she loved them all, she’d had enough of all the concentrated attention and concern.
She knew she had to accept a certain level of security, but she hadn’t bargained on a bodyguard. Unfortunately, her only alternative was to catch the next flight home, and there were two very good reasons why she wasn’t going to do that. The first one was walking beside her. Any more of Gray’s security precautions and she would go crazy. The second reason was that she’d given Evan diVaggio her promise to help months ago, and she wasn’t backing out on him at the last minute.
Normally she didn’t go near high-profile social events, because she hated the media attention, but Evan’s crusade to fund a children’s cancer ward was a special case. He was a long-time friend of the family, and she’d shared in his grief when his small nephew had died of an inoperable brain tumour. ‘‘Evan’s not going to be happy.’’
Massive understatement.
Evan was artistic and temperamental; a successful fashion designer with his own exclusive house. He was a lot of fun—when he got his own way.
‘‘The hell with Evan. Your safety’s more important than his damn fashion show.’’
Gray gripped her elbow, guiding her through the thickening knots of people waiting to collect their bags. Roma did a slow, silent count to three, then disengaged Gray’s hold with a practised twist of her arm. Her brothers had always treated her like a piece of delicate bone china, despite the fact that she’d been a tomboy ever since she was old enough to lace up a pair of sneakers and tag along after them. She’d never quite figured out their logic. They remembered she was female—usually at inconvenient times—but they seemed to forget that she had camped out with them, that she could outshoot the lot of them at pool, and that she had the meanest pitching arm in Lombard history. ‘‘My safety hasn’t been directly threatened. And I gave Evan my promise months ago. I’m not letting some suit prevent me from meeting my commitments.’’
The
