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within the African state required optimum vigilance. And why on earth anyone had ever thought it a good idea to conduct such an exercise so close to a popular Italian resort—visited by the rich and famous and followed there by the paparazzi—Luke had no way of knowing.
    Of course he had tried to initiate a change of venue, but he had been overruled.
    A smooth-talking suit from MI5 had announced that no one would suspect that the Foreign Secretary would be seeing anyone political whilst enjoying a holiday with his children.
    Children? Luke had baulked furiously at that point. No matter how many reassurances or platitudes the MI5 suit might choose to utter, this was potentially a dangerous mission.
    The African President was insisting on bringing his own private guards with him, and he was a man who was obsessed with a fear of betrayal—both at home and abroad. If things should go pear-shaped Luke did not want to have to worry about two young children as well as their father. He had said as much to Sir Peter Verey when they had been introduced, suggesting that his children might be better left with their mother.
    â€˜My dear chap,’ had been Sir Peter’s drawled response. ‘I wish I could oblige, but you see my ex-wife is insistent that they come with me. Thinks I’m not doing my fatherly duty and that sort of thing.’
    Luke knew all about Sir Peter Verey’s ex-wife. She had left him for a billionaire industrialist who had little liking of his predecessor’s offspring, with the result that she had placed both children at boarding school.
    Luke frowned as he swept the hillside for whoever had been responsible for that telltale glint.
    The resort less than a couple of miles away seethed with celebrities and minor continental royals, all of whom seemed to be followed by their own pack of predators, feeding off them as if they were carrion.
    It didn’t take Luke’s trained eye long to find its quarry—in fact, he reflected in disgust, it did not need a trained eye to spot her at all. She was standing there openly photographing the villa. She? Luke frowned as he studied the familiar features. Suzy Roberts! It was as little effort for him to conjure up her name as it had been for him to recognise her face. Suzy Roberts, reporter for Down and Dirty magazine. Automatically he swept the area around her to see if she was on her own, before focusing on her once again.
    She looked thinner, paler—and what the hell was she doing standing in the strong sunlight without the protection of a hat when any fool could see that she had the kind of delicate skin that would burn?
    How on earth had she got wind of what was going on? The editor of the magazine she worked for got his stories by trawling in the gutter for them.
    Luke’s mouth compressed. The gutter, maybe, but then Roy Jarvis did specialise in ‘revealing’ the failings and vices of those in power, as well as breaking some extraordinarily sensitive news stories. Someone was supplying him with his information, and Luke knew that if he had been in charge of finding out who it was the leak would have been stopped a long time ago.
    Luke refused to believe that anyone could have got through his own rigorous security, but he was not the only person who knew what was happening. Somehow Roy Jarvis had been given a tip-off about the upcoming meeting, and he had obviously sent Suzy Roberts to find out what she could and confirm the story so that he could publish it. After all, a reporter like Suzy had the extra assistance of her sexuality to help her get her story—and she would have no qualms about using it!
    Lucas had seen it happen over and over again in the theatre of war, and of course he had already discovered for himself that there were no lengths Suzy Roberts was not prepared to go!
    Silently Luke slipped out of the villa grounds, moving quickly and stealthily towards his quarry.
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    Oblivious to the danger, Suzy