‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, beloved,’ he said dryly, ‘They develop almost predator-like tendencies.’ For the first time a glint of humour lit his dark eyes. ‘You need to be particularly careful or you can find yourself shackled, roped and on the way to the altar.’

Sue smiled. ‘I don’t think you would ever have that problem.’

He shrugged. ‘Then there’s Mark and Aria’s wedding coming up shortly—the reason I’m home, anyway.’ Mark was their brother. ‘I’ve no idea what’s planned but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of partying involved.’

Sue’s smile faded as she nodded, and tears came to her eyes.

Brett frowned down at her. ‘Susie? What’s wrong?’

‘I’ve left Brendan.’ Brendan was her husband of three years. ‘I found out he was being unfaithful to me.’

Brett closed his eyes briefly. He could have said, I told you so, but he didn’t. He put his arms around his sister instead.

‘You were right about him.’ Sue wept. ‘I think all he was after was my money.’

‘I guess we have to make our own mistakes.’

‘Yes, but I feel so stupid. And—’ she gulped back some tears ‘—I feel everyone must be laughing at me. Apparently it was no big secret. I was the last person to know,’ she said tragically.

‘It’s often the way.’

‘It may be, but it doesn’t make it any easier.’

‘Are you still in love with him?’ Brett queried.

‘No! Well, how could I be?’

Brett smiled absently.

‘But one thing I do know,’ Sue said with utter conviction. ‘I refuse to go into a decline, I refuse to run away and hide and I refuse to be a laughing stock!’

‘Susie—’

But his sister overrode him, with tears in her eyes still, but determination too. ‘I’m patron of the Animal Shelter Society so I will be at the lunch. The ball is one of the festivities planned for the Winter Racing Carnival; I’m on the committee, so I’ll be there too, and I’ll make sure everyone knows who I am! But—’ she sagged a little against him ‘I—would dearly love some moral support.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mike Rafferty said to his boss, Brett Wyndham.

They were in Brett’s apartment high above the Brisbane River and the elegant curves of the William Jolly Bridge. Sue, who’d insisted on picking him up from the airport, had just left.

‘You heard,’ Brett replied shortly.

‘Well, I thought I did. You asked me to make a note of the fact that you were going to a charity lunch tomorrow and a masked fancy-dress ball on Friday night. I just couldn’t believe my ears.’

‘Don’t make too big a thing of this, Mike,’ Brett warned. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

‘Of course not. They could even be—quite enjoyable.’

Brett cast him a dark glance and got up to walk over to the window with his familiar long-legged prowl. With his short, ruffled dark hair, blue shadows on his jaw, a kind of eagle intensity about his dark eyes, his cargo pants and black sweatshirt, his height and broad shoulders, he could have been anything.

What did come to mind was a trained-to-perfection daredevil member of a SWAT team.

In fact, Brett Wyndham was a vet and he specialized in saving endangered species, the more dangerous the better, such as the black rhino, elephants and tigers.

He dropped out of helicopters with tranquilizer guns, he parachuted into jungles—all in a day’s work. He also managed the family fortunes that included some huge cattle-stations, and since he’d taken over the reins of the Wyndham empire he’d tripled that fortune so he was now a billionaire, although a very reclusive one. He did not give interviews but word of his work had filtered out and he’d captured the public’s imagination.

As Brett’s PA, it fell to Mike Rafferty to ensure his privacy here in Brisbane, amongst other duties at Haywire—one of the cattle stations in Far North Queensland the Wyndham dynasty called home—and at Palm Cove where they owned a resort.

‘So will you be saying anything to the press?’ he queried. ‘There’s bound to be some coverage of the lunch tomorrow, even if you’ll be incognito at the ball.’

‘No. I’m not saying anything to anyone although, according to my sister, my presence alone will invest the proceedings with quite some clout.’ He grimaced.

‘It probably will,’ Mike agreed. ‘And what will you be going to the masked ball as?’

‘I have no idea. I’ll leave that up to you—but something discreet, Mike,’ Brett growled. ‘No monkey suit, no toga and laurel wreath, no Tarzan or anything like that.’ He stopped and yawned. ‘And now I’m going to bed.’