could count the boyfriends she’d had on two hands, the ones who’d been brave enough to come home with her on one. If they weren’t intimidated by her family’s sheer wealth or the stringent security, her brothers usually managed to scare them off. There was nothing sophisticated about Gray and Blade’s methods. Cold eye contact was always good for starters. A few pointed questions usually followed, and when neither of those strategies worked, her brothers resorted to blunt warnings that bordered on rudeness. Occasionally, if they happened to be out by the pool, there was a show of raw muscle—caveman tactics all the way.
Roma watched with growing suspicion as the tall stranger turned with an abrupt impatience that denoted someone who didn’t want to be where he was and hated being kept waiting, and she saw his face clearly for the first time. Her stomach sank. Suddenly the stranger didn’t look reassuring at all. He looked familiar.
He was tanned and muscular, black-haired, olive-skinned, all clean angles and blades, with a square jaw and deep-set eyes beneath straight brows. Not pretty-boy handsome, but with the kind of strong good looks that, coupled with his size and build, would make most women go weak at the knees about two seconds before they went soft in the head.
His jaw was darkly stubbled, as if he hadn’t been near a razor for a couple of days, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes as if he, too, hadn’t had a lot of sleep lately. But the one detail that fixed her attention was the scar that sliced across one cheekbone. Whoever had sewn the wound closed hadn’t made a good job of it, and the scar tissue skimming his tanned skin made him look more than just casually dangerous. She’d seen that scar before in photos, and woven more than a few fantasies about that hard masculine face.
Ben McCabe. One of Gray and Blade’s Special Air Service cronies—possibly the only SAS agent she hadn’t yet met in the flesh.
His head came up as if he’d suddenly registered her concentrated attention. His eyes were dark, slitted with irritation, and something more. His gaze in that first moment was frankly, sharply male. It was the lightning perusal of a man who knew women intimately, not lingering so that she became uncomfortable, but making her instantly aware of how male he was. And how female she was.
The abrupt awareness of her own sex startled Roma. Her family’s wealth and status usually provided a shield against this kind of overt attention, and she seldom went out on dates. She was completely unprepared for the flood of heat that swept her. The barrage of sensation was as overwhelming as it was intrusive, and she fought back the only way she knew how, by desperately trying to blank out all emotion.
A group of teenagers in sports uniforms cut across their path, momentarily blocking the man from view.
Roma’s stomach lurched when the stranger’s gaze locked on her again. Now that she was closer, she could see that his eyes were a pure, intense dark blue, wolf-cold and uncompromising. The jolting awareness escalated, and with it came a solid dose of irritation.
‘‘I’ve changed my mind,’’ she muttered to Gray. ‘‘I don’t want him. You win, I’ll take the suit.’’
‘‘Honey,’’ Gray said, with a dry humour that made her want to strangle him, ‘‘McCabe is the suit.’’
Chapter 3
Ben fought back disbelief as he watched Gray approach, his hunger and frustration forgotten. The woman with Gray was his sister, but Roma Lombard wasn’t what he’d expected.
He’d heard a lot about her—had even seen photographs of her. God only knew, her face was hard to miss when it was splashed across one of those glossy magazines his ex-wife used to read. But the glossy pictures he’d barely glanced at had nothing to do with the woman walking toward him now.
She wasn’t tall enough to be a model; next to her brother, she was decidedly petite, even dainty. She wasn’t wearing make-up or nail polish that he could see, no designer sunglasses or expensive designer clothes. Ben decided she didn’t need any of those things. In a soft black shirt, faded jeans and black boots, she was pure fantasy material. Her silky dark hair hung in a straight, careless fall around her shoulders; her features were neat and even, her mouth soft. The only part of her that fulfilled anything like the image Ben had formed were the exotic eyes that continued to stare dazedly back at him. They were midnight-dark, shadowed by lashes, as distant and aloof as a cat’s, and just as layered with mystery and secrets.
The blankness of her expression, the aura of sphinxlike remoteness, only served to intensify the mystery of her eyes, and Ben’s jaw tightened against his response to that unconscious challenge. He was growing hard, his loins warming with a slow, heavy ache.
He suppressed a whole string of curses as he accepted Gray’s handshake. Gray was a friend, more than a friend. And the woman Ben had been checking out was Gray’s sister.
Out of bounds, way out of bounds. Even if she hadn’t been his client.
Gray made the introductions. Grimly, Ben noted the brevity and firmness of Roma’s handshake, as if she didn’t want to touch him but wasn’t about to flinch from it, the cool, minimal eye contact she allowed. Most people gave something of themselves away with their initial body language; Roma Lombard was notable by her very stillness.
Her controlled reserve only intrigued him more. Ben was good at reading people—better than good—but Roma Lombard was an enigma. He considered the fact that the unexpected sexual attraction was messing up his perception, then discounted it. He was aroused, but he’d long ago learned to separate his intellect from his physical needs.
Her gaze connected with his, held just a little too long before she looked away again, a faint blush warming her cheekbones.
Damn, Ben thought mildly as Gray caught him up to date with news about mutual friends and Gray’s brother, Blade, who’d just become a father. Either Roma disliked him intensely or she was as attracted as he was. Ben was betting on the second possibility.
He needed to hit something, preferably his head, against a wall, a block of stone, something that would hurt. Anything to take his mind off the fact that he was too interested in Ms. Lombard, and that most of his interest centred around backing her up against the nearest wall and seeing if she tasted as good as she looked.
Not that he would have to go looking for bruises. If Gray or Blade ever found out he’d fallen in instant lust with their sister, all the years of shared camaraderie in the SAS wouldn’t count for a thing.
His lashes drooped as he talked with Gray, shielding his intense interest in the woman he’d been hired to protect.
He could see why photographers went wild over her, why men dropped like flies. She wasn’t flashy or charismatic; on the contrary, she was curiously understated, as if she kept even her own femininity under wraps.
Sweet hell, who was he trying to kid? She probably had that air of mystery perfected. Any man who ever looked at the lady would want her. No wonder Gray was tearing his hair out trying to keep her protected. Ben had been taken in by the aloof act, but he had to remember that she’d checked him out just as thoroughly as he’d done her.
She glanced at him again, and he discovered her eyes weren’t black, as he’d first thought; they were a rich, velvety chocolate, bare shades lighter than the dark sable of her hair.
Ben almost groaned out loud. He loved chocolate. And he would have his work cut out swatting men off left, right and centre—and that would be when she wasn’t sneaking them in the back door.
Some
