the past couple of weeks. I thought it was just nervous tension, or something I picked up doing that wretched film. The food was quite dreadful...’
Pregnancy was the one thing that she had firmly been able to rule out from her self-diagnosis. Oh, God! Her skin prickled with fresh horror. What if she had to suffer these shadow symptoms all through Olivia’s pregnancy? What an unspeakable irony that would be...
‘Well, Olivia’s been as sick as a dog and the doctor’s advised as little stress as possible in the next few weeks,’ said Jordan bluntly. ‘That’s why I was hoping that you’d graciously accept Connie’s offer. It would mean one less source of emotional turmoil for Olivia. If she thinks you’re frolicking happily in some nice, safe tropical haven she might stop beating herself up that she’s abandoning you in your time of need...’
‘So much for your wonderful idea of whisking me away to make up my own mind in my own time,’ said Rosalind, her sarcasm hiding a leap of relief that here was a cast-iron, honourable excuse for running away from her problems. If Livvy had a miscarriage, Rosalind would never forgive herself if there was even the slightest possibility that she was a contributing factor.
Jordan gave a rueful shrug. ‘I didn’t want to push it too strongly in front of Olivia. She wouldn’t thank me for trying to protect her, especially if it compromises her loyalty to you. If you don’t go to Tioman, Olivia intends to ask you to come and hole up with us at Taupo, even if it means dragging along your press contingent, not to mention your other little problem...’
Rosalind stiffened, her fingers clutching the seat as he suddenly swung sharply into a parking spot beneath the warehouse that housed her inner-city loft. ‘What other problem?’
Jordan switched off the engine. ‘You have so many you don’t know which one I’m referring to?’ he murmured, shaving much too close to the truth for her liking. ‘I’m talking about the fan who’s been making such a nuisance of himself.’
‘Oh.’ Aware of his shrewd eyes on her face, Rosalind tried not to reveal any of her turmoil as she probed warily, ‘Olivia told you about that?’
She couldn’t help a trace of outrage creeping into her voice, although, come to think of it, she had only asked that her twin not tell their parents, or their over-protective brothers.
‘We are married, Roz,’ said Jordan drily, effortlessly picking up the nuances. ‘That’s what marriage is all about—sharing a life, listening to each other’s secrets and worries. Olivia said you tried to treat it as a joke but the mere fact that you brought the subject up made her think you were a lot more concerned than you let on, and the tenor of some of the guy’s letters disturbed her. She thought they could be interpreted as stalking letters, said that he wrote as if he believed he had a personal relationship with you, one that gave him some sort of a claim on you...’
‘I told her I get lots of fans writing to me off and on—’
‘But this Peter is very persistent, Olivia said. You told her it had been going on for several years, and that lately he’d escalated from an occasional letter to one or two a week, never with a full name or a return address. He boasts of going to extraordinary lengths to see your performances and even claims to have met you several times at public appearances, though he apparently never identified himself.
‘Olivia said she didn’t like the obsessive nature of his interest, especially as he knows where you live. She said you had extra locks fitted at your apartment because you were uneasy when he started sending gifts as well as letters. She also thought that one of the reasons you took that film job in such a hurry was because you hoped he might lose interest if you weren’t performing live any more...’
‘Well, it was better than her idea of involving the police,’ Rosalind muttered, shuddering at the thought. ‘They probably would have laughed in my face...there was nothing in the letters that was overtly threatening. Anyway, I’ve thrown most of them away,’ she said truthfully, hoping that would put paid to the subject. ‘As I told Olivia, the best way to handle these things is to ignore them.’
‘Mmm.’ Jordan’s face was sceptical. Rosalind had the sinking feeling that she had just acquired another over-protective relative.
‘Nothing arrived while I was away,’ she pointed out. ‘Maybe he’s finally given up.’
‘And another sudden sojourn out of the country might be the perfect way to discourage him even further,’ Jordan said smoothly. ‘It’s either that or the police, Roz—or I could get someone from the Pendragon Corporation’s security section to provide you with personal protection while a private investigator tracks this guy down and turns him inside out.’
Rosalind blanched at the implications. ‘Me, with a bodyguard? God, can you imagine what the Press would make of that?’ She threw up her hands, hastily conceding defeat. ‘You’re something of a pirate, aren’t you, Jordan? I suppose if I don’t allow myself to be blackmailed into going I’ll find myself shanghaied...’
‘There’s little I wouldn’t do to ensure Olivia’s wellbeing,’ he agreed blandly, but with irrefutable honesty.
‘Oh, all right!’ At least he was allowing her to save face by pretending that she was doing this for her sister’s sake, rather than her own. ‘If I’m going to be shanghaied, I suppose I may as well make the most of it.’ She grinned, her eternal optimism fizzing back to the surface. ‘I might even find my own form of protection. Who knows? I might run into my beau idéal in paradise, a man “gentle, strong and valiant” who’ll romance me under the tropical stars and pledge his heart to me for ever! Or, failing that, I’ll settle for a gorgeously tanned beach boy who can make me laugh!’
CHAPTER TWO
ROSALIND stood impatiently tapping her scuffed cowboy boot as she watched the man dithering at the check-in counter.
He was tall and thin, his thick, straight, mid-brown hair flopping over his forehead as he bent over to attach the tags to his two suitcases with fumbling fingers. He had a distracted, disorganised air that had Rosalind immediately pegging him as some sort of head-in-the-clouds academic, one of those people who were sheltered by their narrowly focused intellects from the real world—or perhaps he was a computer nerd, she thought as she noted the laptop he was carefully guarding between his feet. The jacket of his dark pin-striped suit fell open as he leaned forward and she saw the pens and folded spectacles tucked into the breast pocket of his white shirt. Ah, definitely a nerd!
Whoever he was, he was holding her up. Didn’t he realise that first-class passengers didn’t expect to have to queue? They were supposed to breeze in and out while staring down their noses at the lesser mortals lining up at the parallel desks.
She glanced around the terminal. She was anxious to be out of the public arena and into the relative privacy of the first-class lounge as soon as possible. She had got this far without being spotted, by dressing in androgynous jeans, baggy shirt and denim jacket and shaggy blonde wing à la Rod Stewart under a dark fedora.
She had swopped places with Olivia the previous night and knew her regular pursuers were being well and truly led off on the wrong trail, but news organisations often employed stringers or informants at airports. In her boyish guise she hoped that no one would give her a second look, but the longer she stood around, the greater the risk of being accidentally rumbled before she boarded her seventeen-hour flight to Singapore.
The check-in clerk pointed at the weighing machine beside her desk but instead of obeying her polite instruction the
