The door opened so swiftly she could almost have believed he was waiting for her knock. Tony smiled appreciatively at the sight of her. ‘You look stunning,’ he said, ushering her through to the living room. ‘How did it go?’ he asked as he followed her through. They stood inches away from each other. She looked breathtaking, he thought, her hair gleaming against the darkness of the window, her lips slightly parted in a tentative smile. There was an air of arousal about her that gave him a pang of distress. He recognized it as jealousy. He wanted her to feel that way about him, not a creep like Radecki who was nothing more than a gangster with a veneer of sophistication.

‘It couldn’t have gone better earlier in the day. He took me out into the country and showed me how he runs his trafficking operations on the waterways. And this afternoon, we had a meeting with his sidekick, Darko Krasic. God, he looks a total brute. Now there’s a man who would make a girl think twice about breaking her cover. And he hates me. He’d snap my neck as soon as look at me if he thought I was going to do anything to damage his precious Tadzio.’

‘God preserve us from male bonding. That must have been scary,’ Tony said.

‘It was. But it helped me concentrate on being Caroline. And it worked, Tony, it really worked. We’ve got a deal. We’re off to Rotterdam at the weekend to check out the illegal immigrants he’s going to supply me with and we can nail him in the act. Morgan will be like a dog with two tails when he gets my report!’

Tony nodded. ‘You’ve done really well.’

She shrugged. ‘I couldn’t have done it without your help.’

‘Don’t be daft, of course you could. So how did this evening go? Were you celebrating your new business relationship?’ He couldn’t keep an edge of bitterness out of his voice.

‘He tried to jump me,’ she said, with a moue of distaste. ‘But I managed to fend him off. It’s tricky, making sure I give him enough rope to hang himself without me getting entangled in it too.’

‘It can’t be easy,’ Tony agreed, the words dragging out of him.

She took a step forward. ‘He’s an attractive man. My body seems to find that harder to resist than my head does. And that’s very confusing.’

Tony stared at the floor. He was afraid to look at her. ‘Just as well you’re so thoroughly professional,’ he muttered.

Carol put a hand on his arm. ‘It wasn’t my professionalism that got me out of it. It was because I kept thinking of you.’

‘You couldn’t stand my disapproval, huh?’ His familiar lop-sided smile crept out of hiding.