The Helen Bianchin And The Regency Scoundrels And Scandals Collections. Louise Allen

is it?’ Miguel demanded in a dangerously quiet tone.

      ‘What makes you think something’s wrong?’

      ‘Querida,’ he drawled with deceptive mildness. ‘Don’t stall.’

      ‘Luc came into the café opposite the boutique during my lunch break.’ She could almost see his features harden. ‘I refused to join him.’

      ‘There’s more to the story?’

      ‘Try having him follow me, sit down at the same table after I’d ordered, then, just as the waiter delivered the food, a photographer appears from nowhere and captured the two of us apparently sharing a meal.’

      ‘He set you up.’

      ‘I should have seen it coming,’ Hannah said wretchedly.

      ‘I’ll take care of him.’ His voice was tensile steel and just as dangerous.

      ‘What are you going to do?’

      Miguel smiled grimly on the other end of the line. ‘Ensure he doesn’t come near you again.’ He waited a beat. ‘Or he will answer to me.’

      Hannah shivered. ‘Miguel—’

      ‘Tomorrow there will be someone to shadow your every move.’

      Comprehension dawned. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard!’

      There was a brief silence, then he said hardly, ‘My decision, Hannah.’

      ‘Shouldn’t it also be mine?’

      ‘Accept it as a protective precaution.’

      ‘And if I choose not to?’ she pursued, angered by his high-handedness.

      ‘The bodyguard stays.’

      She took a deep breath and released it slowly. ‘I don’t like tyrannical men.’

      ‘Tough,’ Miguel reiterated succinctly. ‘Alejandro can wrap up the deal. I’ll be on the late afternoon flight Wednesday.’

      Now she was getting steamed. ‘Don’t cut an important business deal short on my account.’

      ‘You, amante, are more important than any business deal.’

      ‘Me, or my vested interest in the Martinez half of the Sanmar corporation?’

      ‘It’s as well the breadth of a continent separates us,’ Miguel declared with chilling softness, ‘or I would take you to task.’

      ‘For daring to speak the truth?’

      She had the distinct impression he was actively controlling his temper. ‘It will keep.’

      Hannah had had enough. ‘Goodnight, Miguel.’ She cut the connection, and replaced the receiver.

      Overbearing, autocratic man! A bodyguard? Was he mad?

      She picked up the book and tried to get back into the characters, the story, only to close the cover and toss it down onto the bed.

      A protective precaution, indeed! Her teeth worried the soft part of her lower lip. Luc was unlikely to do her physical harm. She doubted he’d risk life or limb or arrest, no matter what price Camille offered him. Or could she be wrong?

      It wasn’t a comfortable thought, and one that kept her awake long after she’d switched off the bedside lamp.

      Dreams invaded her subconscious, a series of scary sequences where she was mysteriously pushed from behind into the path of an oncoming vehicle, and worse, driving a car with brakes that didn’t respond when she most needed them.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      HANNAH was in the middle of eating breakfast when the ’phone rang, and she answered it on the third ring.

      ‘Buenos días.’ Miguel’s faintly accented voice curled round her nerve-ends and tugged at something she was loath to analyse. ‘You slept well?’

      No, and I missed you like hell. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘That’s not an answer,’ he reproved. Would it help her to know he’d lain awake until almost dawn?

      ‘It’s all I’m prepared to give.’

      ‘Be as angry as hell, querida,’ he warned silkily. ‘It won’t make any difference.’

      ‘That’s an ambiguous statement. I imagine there’s a purpose for your call?’

      He didn’t know whether to laugh or repress the need to wring her neck. ‘Remind me to beat you.’

      ‘Lay one hand on me, and I’ll…’

      ‘Lost for words?’

      ‘Too many choices,’ Hannah reiterated with crushing cynicism.

      At the risk of having her hang up on him, he relayed pertinent details of the man he’d hired to take care of her.

      ‘Rodney Spears is thirty-two, ex-police, average height, bulky frame, fair hair, blue eyes. He’s driving a late model dark blue Holden sedan.’ He gave the registration number. ‘He’ll be at the house in ten minutes to introduce himself.’

      The bodyguard. Hannah clenched the receiver, and threw the cat stretched out on the tiles nearby such a dark look the poor animal leapt to its feet and ran from the room.

      ‘Next you’ll tell me he’s an expert in unarmed combat and a sharp marksman.’

      Miguel didn’t answer, which in her mind was an admission by avoidance. ‘Apart from the initial introduction this morning, he’ll remain unobtrusively in the background. You won’t notice him. Nor will anyone else.’

      ‘This is beginning to sound like a scene from a cheap detective movie,’ she alluded cynically.

      ‘Indulge me.’

      ‘How long is this subterfuge to continue?’

      ‘For as long as it takes.’

      ‘Do I entertain him for breakfast and dinner?’

      Miguel’s faint laughter sent goose bumps scudding down her spine. ‘He has the days, querida. I get to take care of you at night.’

      ‘My guardian angel,’ Hannah remarked in droll tones.

      ‘You could thank me.’

      ‘I’m more likely to hit you,’ she retaliated fiercely.

      ‘Do you have any plans for tonight?’

      ‘Dinner with my parents.’

      ‘Why don’t you stay with them overnight?’

      This was too much. He was too much! ‘I’m way past the age of requiring a babysitter.’ She took in a deep breath in an effort to control her anger. ‘Aren’t you taking this protection thing just a bit too far?’

      ‘No,’ Miguel declared with hard inflexibility. ‘Do as I ask. Please.’

      ‘I’ll think about it.’

      He wanted to reach down the line and shake her. Stubborn independence didn’t come close! Yet it was those very qualities he admired in her. But not when he was several thousand miles away.

      ‘I don’t want to see you upset or hurt.’ His voice deepened slightly. ‘Comprende?’

      ‘Okay, you’ve made your point,’ she conceded, and heard him expel a faint sigh.

      ‘Gracias.’

      Sofia escorted a man fitting the bodyguard’s description into the breakfast room, and Hannah lowered her voice.

      ‘The