Jess’s teeth ground together. Whenever she revealed her occupation it invariably evoked a chorus of amused astonishment and puerile jokes, in particular from men. Because she was young and blonde and shapely they seemed to regard her as a comic-cuts Killer Bimbo, and she had grown tired of it.

‘I’m meaner than I look,’ she said crisply.

Lorcan Hunter fixed her with piercing blue eyes. ‘That I do not doubt. You’re a whizz at the unexpected attack?’ he enquired.

‘I have my moments,’ she replied, silently defying him to tell his companions about their earlier meeting, which would be embarrassing and could damage her credibility.

‘You make grown men cower?’

‘From time to time.’

‘And put your life and limb at risk?’

She recalled his fury in the lift. ‘It can happen, though I always emerge intact,’ she said, gazing steadily back.

‘How about damage control?’

Her chin firmed. ‘I do my best.’

As if sensing something hidden beneath their byplay and resenting it, Gerard placed his hand on her arm. ‘Let’s sit down,’ he said, drawing her with him onto a small upright sofa, while his father returned behind the desk and Lorcan Hunter sat in a wing chair.

At the rub of the young man’s thigh against hers, Jess eased away. She did not care for his touchy-feely familiarity nor for the pungent reek of his cheroot, which smelled like a fusion of burnt treacle, drains and sweat-soaked socks.

‘To bring you up to speed, Miss Pallister,’ Sir Peter said, passing her a sheet of paper, ‘this arrived in the post this mourning.’

Made up from stuck-on printed words which had been cut from a newspaper, the note read:

So you think you can outwit me. Big mistake. Your hotel in Mauritius will never be completed. If Hunter returns to the island, he and his precious brunette are doomed to disappear.

‘Do you have any idea who might’ve sent this?’ Jess enquired. ‘And why?’

Sir Peter hesitated. ‘No. The envelope bore a London postmark, but that doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Come on, Pa,’ Gerard protested. ‘Charles Sohan is responsible.’

‘You mean Charles Sohan of the Sohan hotel chain?’ she asked.

‘The same. He and my father are rivals.’

Cosmopolitan and commercially shrewd, Charles Sohan owned luxury hotels all over the world. She had stayed in the New York Sohan once when she had been guarding an Arabian princess, Jess remembered, and been most impressed. Her brow crinkled. Whilst her only knowledge of the hotelier came from the media, to her it seemed unlikely that if he wished to launch an attack he would do so in such a petty, melodramatic and hackneyed way.

‘But sending something like this is so amateurish. It’s not Charles’s style at all,’ Sir Peter protested, echoing her thoughts.

‘The note is a hoax dreamed up by some airhead who wants to cause trouble,’ Lorcan Hunter declared, ‘and isn’t worth bothering about.’ Ice-cool blue eyes met hers. “The last thing I need is a couple of bodyguards lurking in the background.’

Jess gave a narrow smile. ‘You’re mistaken, Mr Hunter,’ she said. ‘We do not lurk. We blend seamlessly and unobtrusively into a client’s habitat.’

‘Not into mine,’ he rapped.

She moved her shoulders. ‘So be it.’

She had decided that if there was a snag she would refuse the assignment and there was one crucial snag—him. Three months in his company were unlikely to be dull, yet they would be intensely trying on the nerves. Everyone else she had looked after had been grateful—a shadow crossed her face: sometimes too grateful—and she was damned if she would be an unwelcome guest.

Gerard shone a soothing, slightly oily smile. ‘We’re only thinking of your safety,’ he told him.

‘I realise that, but I would’ve appreciated it if you’d consulted me before bringing Miss Pallister here today,’ the architect said, and gave a noticeably irritated tweak at his damp sleeve. ‘It would’ve saved a lot of hassle.’

‘No hassle. It’s been my pleasure,’ Jess said sweetly, and received a stony glare in reply. She turned to Gerard. ‘Have you notified the police?’

He shook his head. ‘Any danger would be on Mauritius.’

‘Even so, if you believe the threat is genuine—’

‘It isn’t,’ Lorcan interjected.

‘It could be,’ stated Gerard. ‘Yes, Pa?’

His father shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘I can’t decide, but whoever composed the note knows about Lorcan working on the hotel and his personal arrangements—’

‘And if there’s doubt it pays to be cautious, though we don’t need to bother the police at this stage,’ the young man declared‘, taking over the proceedings again. ’“Precious brunette” seems an unusual phrase. Has Sohan ever described Harriet like that?’

‘Yes, he has,’ Lorcan replied. ‘She went with me to his office once and now when we meet it’s how he refers to her. But we meet in public, so any number of people could’ve overheard.’

Sir Peter frowned. ‘I can understand your not wishing to be guarded, but you wouldn’t want to take even the slightest risk of Harriet getting hurt.’

A nerve pulsed in his temple. ‘Good grief, no,’ he said sharply.

Presumably the ‘precious’ Harriet who was to accompany him to Mauritius was his wife, Jess mused—or perhaps a live-in lover. A man like Lorcan Hunter would have his pick of women, so the brunette was bound to be some svelte beauty who dressed in style—she glanced down at her tunic and leggings—whatever the occasion. And whose face never flushed bright red, even if she ran the marathon in the Olympics.

‘Harriet is—Mrs Hunter?’ she enquired, thinking that she hated the woman already.

‘Sorry? No. The reference is to my daughter.’ The nerve throbbed again in his temple. ‘I’m a widower.’

‘So, to be on the safe side, you need someone to watch over her,’ Sir Peter said. ‘And Gerard thought that if it was a young lady no one would suspect her presence.’ He smiled at Jess. ‘People will believe you’re an au pair or perhaps Lorcan’s girlfriend.’

‘No, thanks,’ the architect said brusquely.

Jess’s spine stiffened. She had been about to object to the second description herself, but she saw no reason for him to be so anti!

‘OK, we forget the whole idea of bodyguards,’ Gerard declared, with a careless wave of his cheroot. He smiled at her through clouds of cloying smoke. ‘Sorry you’ve had a wasted journey.’

‘It isn’t a problem,’ she replied, thinking that for someone who, minutes ago, had been insisting on taking precautions he had undergone a swift change of mind. Yet perhaps Lorcan Hunter was getting a long way up his nose, too?

‘We won’t forget it,’ Sir Peter declared, suddenly sitting up straight and taking charge. ‘I’m willing to accept that you prefer to take care of yourself, Lorcan, but I still believe we should consider protection for Harriet. It’s another week until you return to Mauritius so there’s no need to make a final decision until then, but I’d like her and Miss Pallister to meet. To see if they get along together, if needs be. Do you have any experience of four-year-olds?’ he asked her.

She shook her head. Two of her brothers had children, but they were still only babies. ‘None.’

‘Harriet is four and a quarter,’ Lorcan said, and grinned. ‘She considers the quarter is of the utmost importance.’

Jess stared. It was the first time he had smiled and it transformed him. His blue eyes had warmed and sparkled, and attractive little dents had appeared in his cheeks. When he relaxed, he was handsome. Her gaze fixed on his mouth. Several years ago, she had illustrated book jackets and Lorcan Hunter had the mouth of a hero. His upper lip was thin and sculpted, the lower sensually full. It was a mouth which any artist would drool over. A mouth which ought to be cast in bronze.

‘Do you have an hour or two to spare?’ Sir Peter enquired. ‘Do you have the rest of the afternoon free, Miss Pallister?’ he said, and Jess realised, with a start, that he was talking to her.

She sprang back to attention. ‘Um—yes,’ she replied.

The businessman spoke to Lorcan. ‘Then perhaps they could meet this afternoon? You mentioned how you’d brought Harriet up to London with you today to see your folks, so it would seem the perfect opportunity.’

A beat went by before he nodded. ‘Whatever you wish.’

Jess frowned. Instead of concocting some polite excuse, turning down the assignment and walking away, she had allowed herself to be drawn in. Though only for the next couple of hours. The architect’s hesitation had made it plain that he had agreed to the meeting to oblige his paymaster and was merely going through the motions. And if she went through the motions, too, it would burnish the name of Citadel Security and could persuade Sir Peter to use them should his company require a bodyguard—or hotel guards or mobile patrols or closed circuit TV systems—at some time in the future. Which would delight her brothers.

‘You said you didn’t tell your parents about the threat, Lorcan, and we don’t want to alarm them or Harriet unnecessarily,’ the older man went on, ‘but I’m sure you can come up with a reason for the introduction.’ Rising to his feet, he held out his hand. ‘Thank you for your time and your trouble, Miss Pallister. We’ll be in touch with your office to advise them of what action we decide to take, in a few days.’

Ten minutes later, Jess was seated beside Lorcan Hunter in his black Alfa Romeo coupé heading out of Central London and north towards Hampstead Garden Suburb where, he had told her, his parents lived in a small private retirement community.

‘So,’ she said, ‘what role do you wish me to play in this charade?’

He shot her a look. ‘Charade?’ he repeated cautiously.

‘I’m well aware that we’re engaged in an exercise in futility because you intend to veto the bodyguard idea, come hell or high water. Yes?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I see no need for one.’

‘Your choice,’ she said. ‘So, who am I supposed to be?’

He frowned, thinking. ‘Before I formed my own company I was with an international design firm called the Dowling Partnership, working first here and then in the States—’

‘Which explains the American twang,’ Jess cut in.

‘I lived there for several years.’

‘It’s a super country.’

He nodded. ‘It has a lot going for it. How about we say you were a colleague at Dowling’s London office?’ he went on. ‘We met by chance in the street today and you said you’d like to meet Harriet?’

‘OK, but—’

‘But, what?’ he enquired, when she paused.

‘Whilst you may consider your daughter to be the best thing since hole-in-the-wall cash dispensers, the only reason a single woman would show such an interest in her would be because she’s interested in you.’ Jess offered him a sunny smile. ‘A bizarre concept, I know, but such are the foibles of human nature.’

‘You’re good at the smartarse comment, Miss Pallister,’ he remarked, ‘but do you have a better idea?’

‘No. I was just pointing out—’

‘Then we’ll stick with it.’

‘Yes, sir. If we’re supposed to be one-time colleagues you ought to call me Jess. Short for Jessica,’ she told him.

‘And it’s Lorcan,’ he said, a mite reluctantly.

She angled him a look. ‘Lorc for short?’

‘Only if you’re a dear, dear friend,’ he said grittily.

‘But I don’t fit into that category?’

‘Not quite.’

‘You don’t believe Charles Sohan has any connection with the note?’ she asked as they skirted the grassy area of Regent’s Park and sped up past Lord’s cricket ground.

‘None. Granted, he and Sir Peter are in competition, and Sohan was eager for me to build him a flagship hotel in Mauritius, but—’

‘Why Mauritius?’ Jess interrupted.

‘Because he originally comes from the island. Around seventy per cent of the population are of Indian extraction, mainly descended from labourers who went there to work in the sugar plantations.’

‘And the other thirty per cent?’

‘Creoles, Franco-Mauritians and Chinese. When Charles Sohan discovered I’d been engaged to design a hotel complex for the Warwick Group, he immediately offered to double my fee,’ Lorcan continued, ‘and later to treble it. I refused. Although I’d barely started, it wouldn’t have been ethical to pull out.’

‘Mr Sohan was annoyed?’

‘Hopping mad. Apparently he’d been on the point of contracting me himself and he swore that Sir Peter must’ve found out and sneaked in first. But he’s not the type to seek revenge and, besides, he has a soft spot for Harriet.’

‘Sir Peter believes that although the note threatens you and your daughter it’s intended to hit at him,’ Jess said, ‘but it could also be hitting against you. Is there anyone you know who might bear a grudge?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t have any enemies—or, at least, none that I’m aware of. But the note is mischief-making,’ he dismissed.

‘It was still sent for a reason. You may not have enemies as such, but there could be people you’ve annoyed,’ she continued, and skewered him with a look. ‘For example, people whom you’ve shouted at or blamed for something which was beyond their control.’

His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. ‘OK, OK, I lost my cool in the lift. But when Gerard rang this morning to say there’d been a death threat against Harriet and me he made it sound so imminent, so serious that it scared the—it wound me up,’ he adjusted, ‘which was no doubt what the guy intended.’ Drawing the coupé to a halt at traffic lights, he turned to face her. ‘I reacted with less grace than I should’ve done. Will you forgive me?’

‘You aren’t going to grovel?’ Jess enquired, for his apology had been clipped.

‘I never grovel to anyone,’ he replied. ‘However, in this instance I do acknowledge that I was less tolerant than I should’ve been. So?’

She made him wait for a long moment. ‘I forgive you, Lorcan.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Now you can see the funny side?’

The green light shone and he accelerated away from the junction. ‘Don’t push it, Jess,’ he said.

‘Why would Gerard want to wind you up?’ she enquired as they motored along. ‘In my work I’ve shared all kinds of confidences with all kinds of people and I can be trusted,’ she told him. ‘I won’t blab.’

He subjected her to a discerning look, then nodded, accepting her assurance. ‘The guy’d enjoy winding me up because he resents my friendship with his father, plus he feels he should’ve been consulted about the designing of the hotel.’

‘Gerard is an architect, too?’ she said, in surprise.

‘No. He started to study architecture, but thanks to dabbling in drugs he got himself thrown out of college halfway through the course. He claims he would’ve sailed through his finals with flying colours, though whether that’s true is anyone’s guess.’

‘Your guess is no?’

‘My guess is that the guy has difficulty walking and chewing gum at the same time,’ he said succinctly. ‘However, this doesn’t stop him from thinking he should be running the show in Mauritius and not me. When he visited the site a month ago, he made that abundantly clear.’

‘Sir Peter let him run the show earlier,’ Jess observed. ‘Most of the time.’

‘That’s because he’s his only child and his weak spot. Sir Peter’s wife disappeared with some local heart-throb when Gerard was a few months old, so there’s always been just the two of them. I understand that when he was a kid he gave him everything he wanted and by the time it dawned that he could be raising a monster he was halfway there.’

‘Is Gerard still on drugs?’

He shook his head. ‘After the trouble with the college his father halved his allowance, which persuaded him to kick the habit, though now there’re rumours he gets his highs from gambling, plus he’s a heavy drinker. And he runs around with a very flaky crowd. But Sir Peter’s involving him more and more in the business in the hope that he’ll develop a taste for hard graft and take over when he retires.’

‘Gerard doesn’t come over as the hard graft type,’ Jess said.

‘Anything but. You don’t come over as a bodyguard,’ Lorcan remarked, and slid her a look. ‘Shouldn’t they have hair-trigger reflexes?’

‘My reflexes are excellent,’ she protested. ‘All right, when the champagne exploded—’

‘You screwed up.’

‘Well, maybe, but—’

‘There’s no “maybe” about it. You made a total, full-blown, unmitigated mess of things.’

Jess glared. There was a gleam in his blue eyes which said he was deliberately riling her—and enjoying himself.

‘The reason I wasn’t as alert as I should’ve been was that today nothing’s gone right,’ she informed him huffily. ‘So I was distracted, and a little slower off the mark and—’

‘You’re premenstrual?’ Lorcan suggested, when she sought around for another excuse. ‘I believe there’re some excellent remedies for PMT on the market.’

‘I am not premenstrual and that is so sexist! But maybe the reason you lost your cool earlier is because you’re in the throes of the male menopause?’ she said, in a feisty tit-for-tat.

‘Who’s being sexist now? Though I’m only thirty-seven.’

‘Fast approaching forty, which makes you ripe for it. And I was off duty,’ Jess completed, with an air of ‘so there!’.

‘When you’re on duty, you have your wits about you and are the mistress of any situation?’

Her jaw jutted. ‘I do. I am. Though you’ll never experience it.’

‘Alas and alack,’ he drawled, and turned off the main road and into a quiet tree-lined avenue.

Ahead on the left, a pair of wide wrought-iron gates stood open. Swinging the Alfa Romeo through them, he drove onto a cobbled courtyard which was edged by half a dozen cottage-style houses, each with its own flower-filled front garden. To one side stood a row of garages fronted by a parking bay and here he stopped.

‘Daddy!’ a child’s voice shouted as they climbed out of the car, and Jess saw a little girl with long chestnut curls skipping across the courtyard.

She had big blue eyes and dimpled cheeks which were a straight steal from her father, but was small-boned and delicately built. Wearing a white lace party dress and with a white satin bow tied in her hair, she looked like a miniature angel.

Jess had been on the far side of the coupé, but as she came round the child stopped skipping, stood on one leg and studied her. Her gaze was steely and suspicious. Another inherited trait, she thought wryly.

‘Who are you?’ the little girl demanded.

‘This is Miss Pallister,’ Lorcan said.

‘Jess,’ she amended, ‘and you must be Harriet.’

‘S’right,’ the child agreed, pouting.

He bent to swing her up into his arms. ‘Got a kiss for your daddy?’

The pout vanished. ‘Lots and lots,’ she declared, and began to cover his face with energetic kisses.

Watching on, Jess felt a softening around her heart. There was something poignant about a man bringing up a small child on his own and, whilst Lorcan Hunter seemed the last person to inspire her sympathy, she could not help feeling sorry for him. Sorry that he had lost his wife. Sorry he was a single parent with its accompanying strains and stresses—though perhaps, by now, he had a second Mrs Hunter lined up?

As the kisses ended, Lorcan set his daughter down on her feet and indicated one of the houses. They were walking along the garden path when an old lady in a lilac two-piece and with her fly-away white hair caught back into a bun appeared in the doorway.

‘I thought I saw a visitor and what a lovely surprise,’ she said, in a soft Irish accent. She smiled at Jess. ‘I’m Peg Hunter.’

Smiling back, Jess gave her name. Unlike her son and granddaughter, Peg Hunter displayed an easy warmth and instant friendliness. She also confirmed her hunch that a part of Lorcan’s ancestry was derived from the Celtic.

‘Do come in,’ the old lady entreated, leading the way into a cosy, rather cluttered living room where a spare, distinguished-looking old man was sitting on a sofa reading a newspaper. ‘We have a guest, Bob,’ she told him.

‘This is Jess Pallister who used to work with me long ago at Dowlings,’ Lorcan said, introducing her. ‘We bumped into each other just now and I’ve brought her to see Harriet.’

His father greeted her with a smiling hello and everyone sat down.

‘When me and Grandma went shopping I had three ice-creams,’ Harriet announced, leaning against Lorcan’s knees.

As she had idolised her brothers, so Jess recognised that the little girl idolised her father. And as she had not cared for it when her brothers had brought a strange female into the house, so Harriet’s gimlet-eyed looks along the sofa showed that she had serious doubts about her presence.

‘Three?’ Lorcan protested. ‘Ma, that’s ridiculous. So many times I’ve—’

‘How about making us a cup of tea?’ his father suggested.

‘Right away,’ Peg said. She was halfway to the kitchen when she stopped and turned. ‘You asked me to buy Harriet a new dress; do you like it?’

Lorcan frowned at the white lace extravaganza. ‘Very nice.’

His reply had been tempered and Jess understood why. The dress was fussy and twee and Shirley Temple. Just the kind of dress which would appeal to an elderly lady, but murder to wash and iron.

‘I didn’t want it,’ piped up Harriet. ‘I wanted the blue dress.’

‘But, sweetheart, the shop didn’t have a blue one in your size,’ her grandmother said, ‘and this is almost the same.’

The little girl stamped her foot. ‘Don’t care. I don’t like this one.’ Squeezing up her face, she forced out a couple of tears. ‘I don’t like white.’

Replace ‘angel’ with ‘Hell’s angel’, Jess thought. Though what else could you expect when you considered her genes?

‘Don’t cry, sweetheart,’ Peg appealed, looking as if she might cry herself.

‘I hate white! White is stinky!’

‘So we’ll make it blue,’ Jess said.

As if clicked off by a switch, the temper tantrum stopped.

‘How?’ demanded Harriet.

Standing up, she held out her hand. ‘If you come with me to your daddy’s car where I left my bag, I’ll show you.’

‘You need the key,’ Lorcan said, lifting a hip and reaching into his pocket. ‘Here you are.’

When they returned a few minutes later, Harriet was wearing a pair of swimming goggles. They were blue-tinted goggles.

‘My dress is blue now,’ she declared, smiling down at the skirt. ‘And you’re blue, Daddy. And Grandma. And Grandpa. And—’

As the little girl lifted a cushion, turned pages in a book, peered out of the window and happily pronounced everything blue, her grandmother served tea and home-made sponge cake.

‘Where do you live, Jess?’ Peg enquired pleasantly.

‘In Wimbledon.’

‘You live alone?’

‘Yes, in a small flat. Though my family are nearby so someone’s always calling round.’

‘Have you ever been married?’ the old lady asked.

‘No. I was almost engaged once, but I’ve travelled a lot over the past few years and separations aren’t conducive to long-term relationships,’ she said ruefully.

‘How about a boyfriend now?’

She shook her head.

‘So you’re fancy-free, just like my son is fancy-free,’ Peg said, her smile swinging between the two of them. ‘Isn’t that nice?’

At the other end of the sofa, Lorcan’s grim-faced silence accompanied by a swift gulp of his tea indicated that he was becoming impatient. Jess grinned. As he had riled her and enjoyed himself, so she recognised a chance to have some fun at his expense.

‘It was wonderful to meet up after all this time,’ she declared. ‘Wasn’t it, Lorcan?’

A line cut between his brows. ‘Yes,’ he replied guardedly.

‘He’s such a friendly, easygoing kind of a guy.’ Putting down her teacup, she stretched out a hand and squeezed his knee. ‘A poppet.’

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