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that she was not sure whether she had conjured it up from her fevered imagination.
    But then she touched her throbbing lips. It was not her imagination. God knew who he was or what he wanted but, whatever it was, he was there .
    Irrationally, recklessly, her heart began to sing.

CHAPTER FOUR
    C HRISTINA prepared the evening meal on autopilot. Luc was here. Still evasive, still mysterious, but here .
    She looked in the mirror in her tiny cabin that night and barely recognised herself. Her cornflower-blue eyes were sparkling and her mouth looked softer, fuller, as if inviting a kiss from the unknown. It alarmed her a little but it intrigued her too.
    ‘This is where you find out how much was pure fantasy,’ she told herself with satisfaction. It never occurred to her that Luc Henri would not seek her out again. He would not be able to keep away, she knew—any more than she could. She gave a soft, excited laugh
    ‘Burn, fire, burn,’ she told her reflection.
    . But he did not have to seek her out. She saw him at the little town’s smartest hotel the very next day.
    She delivered the children to the hotel’s sports complex while their mother strolled off in search of more exciting company. Christina lingered briefly. The director of the children’s activities was an old acquaintance from previous summers.
    ‘Take care of Simon Aston,’ Christina warned Karl. ‘He’s not as grown-up as he thinks he is.’
    ‘I’ll keep an eye out for him,’ he promised.
    Relieved, Christina made her way up to the lobby. She was dying for a cool drink. That was when she saw Luc Henri. Across the hall, his tall figure was unmistakable. She stopped dead.
    He was sitting at a desk in an alcove, below a notice that said ‘Press and Office Services’. He did not see her. He was frowning at the screen of a small laptop computer. As she watched he leaned forward and collected a page from the printer, scanning it.
    Christina hesitated. For the first time it occurred to her that he could be a journalist. But what sort of journalist? She could imagine him as an international correspondent—one of those soldiers of fortune that patrolled the troubled hot spots of the world looking for their exclusives, even though Athens was hardly hot these days.
    Suddenly, she was confronted with another and deeply unwelcome possibility. What if he were a different sort of journalist entirely? This sleepy little port was even less of a hot spot than Athens. What was more, it had no claim to fame either, unless it was the presence of the latest heartthrob, Stuart Define, and his film crew.
    Karl had been crisp about them. The actor’s entourage had partied into the small hours by the swimming pool, leaving glasses and cocktail detritus to be cleared by the pool attendants at breakneck speed before the first guests arrived to swim in the morning. Now, Christina thought, what if that entourage was about to include a bored and lonely princess? What if Luc Henri were here looking for an entirely different sort of scoop?
    As she watched, Luc shrugged. He turned to another machine and fed the paper into it, dialling rapidly. Simon Aston’s little face flashed before Christina’s inner eye. Her heart twisted.
    Well, if that was what he wanted, he would have to think again, she thought suddenly. Luc Henri was not going to get that scoop as long as Christina was on board the Lady Elaine. She drew a deep breath, knotted the tails of her shirt more ruthlessly round her tanned midriff and stepped forward.
    At once, as if drawn by a powerful, invisible magnet, his eyes lifted, found her. They locked onto her without expression. In spite of that impassive face, Christina sensed a jolt of surprise go through him—not a welcome surprise.
    If she had had any doubts about her hypothesis, that reaction would have banished them. He fetched up short, his eyes narrowing. He did not look guilty, exactly, but he did look as if he wished she were anywhere but here in the