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‘Blacked on the door with the flat of his hand

‘Come on, Ryder—just one exclusive and I’m outta here! Have you seen Foster since he came out of rehab? Are you down here to see his show? Seen Mrs Malcolm lately? She’s supposed to be at a health spa but no one can find her—’ The ital SLR, snapping off pictures as fast as his questions ‘You looking at buying your lady some jewellery? Is she anyone we know? Yo! Darlin’—how about taking off the hat, and givingsmile—’

‘For goodness’ sake!’ spluttered Veronica as Luc pushed her over towards the counter, out of sight of the door, but the photographer justbetween the shelves

‘Dao away They’re like bloody pit-bulls when they lock onto a target,’ said Luc furiously ‘They staked out my flat in London, but thank God they didn’t know about the one in Paris—’

‘Perhaps the guard can do so the intrusive attention she had suffered in New Zealand was mild in comparison

‘And make even more of a scene? He’d love that! It’s part of the pap technique—goading people into doing so that ing down the rest of the pack—where there’s one, there’s bound to be others…’

‘Hey—these are so at here in the , Ryder!’ The baying hound’s words were greatly lass, but still audible in the quiet atonna to buy her one? What’s the big occasion?’

‘Honestly! He’s not very good at goading, if that’s the best he can do,’ scorned Veronica, fir

Luc looked at her with an arrested expression, his eyes travelling down to the cabinet in front of thes, and then back up to Veronica’s flushed face, innocent of nation and dark with embarrassed empathy

She could al behind his suddenly abstracted gaze; dangerous, forked lightning—the kind that raised the hair on the back of your neck, then sizzled you on the spot before you even had tinise you were in peril Unfortunately, she seemed to have fallen in love with this particular natural hazard, and flight was no longer a desirable option

‘Well, we could try giving hi back into focus and filling with a strange, liquid war inside her quiver He reached up and pulled off her hat, dropping it beside theers through her flattened hair ‘And save both you and I a load of hassles in the process…’

‘But—there’s no reason for hi out the , she could see the photographer’s caistered that her hat hadn’t been hiding a recognisable face or glamorous beauty

‘Nor ht now because of Elise and now he’s seen you with et, too,’ he told her, turning her to face hiently aligning it more precisely over the faint tan-line on her smooth shoulder ‘If you become tabloid fodder here, because of me, it could follow you home, because you can be sure the Kiwi papers would probably pick it up, and what they don’t know about us, they’ll et your loony ex a fresh batch of publicity for his crass stunts’ As she opened her ently sealed her lips with the press of his forefinger ‘I know It’s not fair—that’s just the way it is But we could get him off our backs and kill two birds with one stone…’

‘What do youat the silky s over his face

To her shock he cupped her chin and kissed her square on her puzzledcaed, then our scandal value pluraph rather than a titillating piece of spice We can make our relationship appear to be so cosily domesticated and respectable that no tablo