Scanning the ground floor from his bird’s-eye view, Nat’s attention was caught by two burly men in dark suits who’d paused in the entrance. They were looking about them, but not in the baffled, slightly desperate way of men trying to decide what gift would make their Christmas a memorable one.

Men didn’t shop in pairs and he could tell at a glance that these two weren’t here to pick out scents for the women in their life.

He’d seen the type often enough to recognise them as either close protection officers or bodyguards.

The doorman, well used to welcoming anyone from a royal to a pop star, would have alerted the store’s security staff to the arrival of a celebrity, but curiosity held him for the moment, interested to see who would follow them through the doors.

No one.

At least no one requiring a bodyguard, just the usual stream of visitors to the store, excited or harassed, who broke around the pair and joined the throng in the main hall.

Frowning now, he remained where he was, watching as the two men exchanged a word, then split up and began to work their way around the glittering counters, eyes everywhere, clearly looking for someone.

Make that a charge who had given her bodyguards the slip.

In the main hall, mobbed in the run-up to Christmas as shoppers desperately tried to tick names off their gift lists and stocked up on exotic, once-a-year luxuries, Lucy had hoped that no one would notice her. That once she was inside the store she’d be safe.

She’d been fooling herself.

She did her best to style it out, but she hadn’t fooled the doorman and several people turned to look as she tried-and failed-to keep herself on an even keel. And then looked again, trying to think where they’d seen her before.

The answer was everywhere.

Rupert was Celebrity magazine’s new best friend and his and her-mostly her-faces had been plastered over it for weeks. Their romance was news and cameras had followed her every move.