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perfunctory smile on him again.
    Rafael got to his feet as she did. ‘I will see you home,’ he announced.
    Again, that look of immediate wariness—more than wariness...alarm—flared in her eyes.
    ‘Purely and solely,’ he continued, ‘for the purposes of ensuring that you do not risk any further unwanted attention from the uncharming Mr Reiner. My car is outside, and it is no trouble, I assure you.’ He looked down at her. His eyes were steady, their message clear. ‘I will see you safely to your home and then leave you. Does that meet with your agreement?’
    Celeste opened her mouth. She wanted to say, No, it can’t possibly meet with my agreement! I can’t want to spend the slightest further amount of time with you because there is no point—absolutely and totally no point! I am not going to let you get to know me better and I am not going to have anything more to do with you and that is all there is to it!
    But she didn’t say it. A sudden vision of Karl Reiner waiting outside her flat assailed her. However reluctant she might be to allow this magnetic, disturbing man who had behaved so chivalrously to drive her home, it was preferable to encountering Karl Reiner again—drunken and angry and still trying to press his hateful attentions on her.
    Then, without any answer from her at all, she felt Rafael Sanguardo’s strong hand cup lightly around her elbow and guide her out of the bar. It was only a light, courteous touch, but she was vividly aware of it. He dropped his hand the moment she seemed to be going the way he wanted her to—which was across the lobby and out onto the pavement. A hovering car glided to the kerb, and then a chauffeur was opening the passenger door for her and she was getting in.
    ‘Where to?’ Rafael asked her as he took his place beside her.
    With a flurry of consternation Celeste realised she was going to have to tell him where she lived. Well, if he’d found out who she was, then he’d be perfectly capable of finding out where she lived as well. So she gave her address, and the car started to make its way westward out of Mayfair towards Park Lane.
    It would take a good fifteen minutes at least to reach Notting Hill, Celeste knew, and in the meantime she had better make anodyne conversation to prevent Rafael Sanguardo getting any other ideas about how to pass the time in the back of his car...
    ‘What part of South America do you come from, Mr Sanguardo?’ she heard herself asking. Her tone was no more than politely interested.
    He glanced at her. There was amusement in his eyes. ‘Am I to take it that you’ve been making enquiries about me in return?’ he asked.
    Damn, she thought, I walked into that one!
    ‘One of my fellow models the other evening at the charity show mentioned it,’ she replied, making her voice as unconcerned as she could.
    Did she, now? Rafael thought. And does that mean that you’d asked her? A ripple of satisfaction went through him. She was not as studiedly indifferent to him as she was trying to make out. How long, he wondered, before she finally admitted that? Before she finally started to lower her guard to him?
    But whenever that happened—and it would happen; he had set his mind to it, and nothing in the intervening days since seeing her walk down that marble staircase, captivating him with her opalescent beauty, had changed his mind on that—it was not happening now.
    Her guard was sky-high. A guard consisting of polite attentiveness and the kind of impersonal conversation she could have with anyone at all. Well, he reminded himself, it was better than her doing her disappearing act again, and he would make the most of it.
    ‘She was a little out,’ he answered. ‘My country of origin is Maragua, which is in Central America.’
    He could see her give a little frown in the passing street lights as the car drew out into Park Lane.
    ‘I thought Managua was the capital of Nicaragua?’ she commented.
    ‘It is. Which is why my country,