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    But during breaks in evening shifts she had frequently heard her co-workers discussing Dio’s private life in the most lurid of terms. He lived in the fast lane. He featured in glossy magazines and made endless gossip column headlines. Having enjoyed affairs with a string of gorgeous, high-profile women, he was a real sex god to the cleaning staff. But Ellie had always felt rather superior during those sessions. She hadn’t had the slightest interest in the exploits of a male she neither knew nor ever expected to meet. So she hadn’t listened any further.
    They changed terminals and ended up in a small, plainly furnished waiting room. Ellie was still trembling. ‘Is it always like that for you?’
    Dio shrugged a broad shoulder. Dark, deep-set awesomely beautiful eyes briefly touched her. ‘Yes…but I’m afraid Ioverlooked the more extreme interest your presence would excite.’
    â€˜I hope to heaven I’m not going to be recognisable in any of those photos,’ Ellie confided tautly.
    Dio said nothing.
    â€˜What are we waiting for now?’
    â€˜A flight out to the island where the burial will take place.’
    Another flight. She suppressed a groan. The journey seemed endless. ‘The island?’ she queried.
    â€˜Chindos. You really do know nothing about me,’ Dio remarked with a slight frown. ‘I’m not used to that.’
    â€˜But I bet it’s good for you…puts a dent in your belief that you are the sun around which the entire world must turn,’ Ellie muttered, and then froze in dismay. She grimaced. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was just thinking out loud!’
    â€˜That disastrous lack of tact must get you into trouble.’ Dio surveyed her with a shadowy suspicion of a smile momentarily softening the hard line of his expressive mouth.
    Ellie swallowed hard, grateful he hadn’t exploded. ‘It’s been known.’
    â€˜Why are you always in search of a fight?’ Dio scanned her with penetrating eyes that tightened her very skin over her bones and made her shift uneasily on her seat. ‘You look so wonderfully feminine and delicate—’
    Ellie winced. ‘Not delicate… please !’
    â€˜Cute?’
    â€˜Worse,’ she censured without hesitation. ‘Men refuse to take me seriously. It’s a big drawback being small and blonde—’
    â€˜But you’re not blonde. Your hair is the colour of platinum. It’s extremely eye-catching,’ Dio informed her with definitive derision and the distinct air of a male unimpressed by her protest. ‘If you genuinely don’t want to invite that type of male attitude, you shouldn’t dye it that shade.’
    Ellie dealt him the weary glance of a woman who hadheard it all before. ‘My hair’s natural. My grandmother was Dutch, and very fair.’
    â€˜Natural? I don’t believe you. Take your hat off,’ he urged, startling her.
    After a moment’s hesitation, Ellie did so, and flung back her head as if she was challenging him. Her bright hair shone like heavy silver silk against the darkness of her jacket. ‘You see, not fake.’
    His black eyes flared gold and lingered on that shimmering fall. The silence set in then, thick as a sheet of solid steel. She watched him covertly from beneath her lashes. So very tall, so exotically dark, so still and silent. Sheathed in a sensationally well-cut black double-breasted suit, he looked truly amazing. Stop it, stop it . What’s the matter with you? a shaken voice screamed inside her bemused head.
    Perspiration beading her short upper lip, Ellie quivered, agonised by the awful reality that her own brain seemed to be romping out of control. In directions it had never gone in before. Even in the depths of infatuation at nineteen, with the latest and last of the users and abusers she’d seemed to attract, she hadn’t felt overwhelmed and