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‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘What do you think I’m doing?’ Declan drawled lazily.
‘I—’ Sam was in danger of kissing his neck, which was temptingly close. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes, you do,’ he whispered.
‘Will you let me go?’
‘Moving your hips against me like that is only likely to ensure that I won’t,’ he murmured, and Sam’s eyes widened in shock as she felt his instant arousal against her.
Dear Reader,
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
www.millsandboon.co.uk
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To the world’s greatest
living photographer—
Alastair McDavid, of Thistle.
CONTENTS
Cover
Dear Reader
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU! You’re Sam Gilbert?’
Sam swallowed, managing a smile. Of all the rotten luck—he’d remembered! ‘Yes, I am. The name’s deceptive, isn’t it? I’m a Samantha, really. But I expect you thought you’d be interviewing a man, didn’t you?’ Now she was babbling.
His eyes, a dark, glittering blue, widened by a fraction—before returning to their shuttered narrowness; seeing all, telling nothing. ‘Hardly,’ he replied, his deep voice full of sarcasm. ‘I wouldn’t have read your c.v. if I thought that, and that kind of sloppy interview technique really isn’t my style.’ He paused. ‘No, it isn’t the name I’m thinking about.’ He looked her up and down, experienced eyes flicking over her briefly. ‘You’re Charlotte Gilbert’s sister,’ he said slowly, and he made the simple statement sound as damning as an accusation.
Of course he hadn’t forgotten; why should he have done? The faintest colour flared pink over Sam’s cheeks as she recalled the other occasion when he’d seen her, just a week ago.
Charlotte had phoned, suggesting lunch. Well, not exactly suggesting lunch—demanding lunch would have been a more accurate description—but done in such a way, with an appeal to Sam’s better nature, and the assurance that only Sam could help her work through her problems, that a refusal would have been not only churlish but impossible. ‘You’ve got to see me, Sam,’ Charlotte urged on the phone. ‘I’m desperate!’
Sam’s reluctance to see too much of her sister stemmed from the time when Charlotte had cold-heartedly run off with Sam’s fiancé. Eight years on, tempers had cooled and Sam had forgiven, if not forgotten. And family was, after all, family. ‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘Where shall we meet?’
‘Luigi’s.’
‘Much too expensive,’ said Sam firmly.
‘Oh, Sam—don’t be so dreary. Let’s go there—it’s fun. And I’ll pay.’
‘No, you won’t—I’ll pay for myself.’
One o’clock found Sam sitting at a table at the side of the room, waiting for Charlotte to arrive. The table was discreet and quiet, the kind of table she was always seated at, though Charlotte was the opposite. She always insisted on, and got, the centre-stage seat.
The waiter brought her a glass of fizzy water and a plateful of crudités and Sam sat munching and sipping until Charlotte breezed in.
She looked, thought Sam, absolutely wonderful—every inch the model she had once been. She was tall, leggy, elegantly boned, with china-blue eyes and the kind of long flaxen hair which Rapunzel would have given her eye-teeth for—all combined to make her a number-one head-turner. She was dressed in a white linen sleeveless mini-dress which showed off the smooth pale toffee colour of her tanned skin. Bare brown legs were finished off with soft white leather pumps.
Sam, who had come straight from the studio, was dressed in her habitual uniform of leggings and a top, both a deep charcoal-grey colour which didn’t show the dirt, but which didn’t actually do a lot for her understated looks, so unlike her sister’s, of dark brown hair with eyes to match, set in a milky-pale complexion.
They ordered food—avocado salad then pasta for Sam while Charlotte opted for melon followed by a grilled Dover sole. ‘I’m dieting,’ she confided.
Much more weight loss and she’d fall through the slats in the chair, thought Sam, but said nothing.
‘And wine—we must have wine!’
‘Not for me,’ protested Sam. ‘I have to work this afternoon.’
‘Well, I don’t. Bring me the wine list, will you?’ Charlotte gave the waiter a dazzling smile, and he sped off to obey her.
They ate their first courses while Charlotte slugged great gulps of wine and proceeded to tear the latest sensation of the modelling world apart. ‘It almost makes me feel like starting up again,’ she said moodily, taking another sip from her glass, the liquid leaving her lips shimmering.
Sam speared a curve of chicory. ‘Well, you can’t,’ she said practically. ‘You’ve got Flora to look after. And you still haven’t told me why you wanted to see me so urgently today. What’s the panic?’
‘Bob is.’ Charlotte drained the glass and had it refilled immediately.
‘Bob?’ It was, Sam reflected, almost amusing that Charlotte should be so insensitive as to ask Sam’s advice about the man she had seduced away from her without compunction. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘You mean apart from the fact that he’s dull, stuffy, totally wrapped up in golf and takes me for granted?’
‘You did marry him,’ said Sam rather pointedly, but the remark went completely over Charlotte’s head. She had almost finished the bottle and was now slurring her words slightly.
‘I need someone who understands my needs,’ she said dramatically. ‘Someone who—my God! Look who’s here!’
Sam cast a sideways glance then wished she hadn’t because, just entering the restaurant, accompanied by a stunning redhead, was the man popularly coined ‘the thinking woman’s fantasy’, Declan Hunt, the acclaimed photographer. The man who, having made a mint in the States, was back in London with his secretary to set up a brand-new photographic studio.
And the man who was interviewing Sam next week for the prestigious post of his assistant.
‘It’s Declan Hunt, isn’t it?’ she said, keeping her voice deliberately casual, as she observed Charlotte’s eyes glittering avariciously, wishing that something, anything, could transport her a hundred miles away from here.
‘Mmm,’ said Charlotte lasciviously, running a pink tongue over frosted lips. ‘Sure is. Wonder who the overblown Amazon with him is, though.’
Sam looked at her sister aghast. ‘What a dreadful expression to use,’ she objected in a whisper. ‘And apart from anything else, it’s completely inaccurate. The woman’s an absolute stunner.’
She was, too, tall, with beautiful long limbs and a shapely, magnificent bosom. Her hair was naturally auburn by the look of it and it fell in thick waves past her shoulders. She was wearing a kind of Sherwood-green jerkin and trousers tucked into brown leather boots which made her look like a very sexy bandit indeed.
‘Huh,’ said Charlotte, and, taking a last swig, she rose unsteadily to her feet. ‘Well, let’s give her something to think about.’
‘Charlotte—where the hell are you going?’
‘To see my old friend and colleague, dear Declan.’
Sam watched in silent humiliation as Charlotte weaved her way over to their table and shrieked, ‘Declan!’ to the darkly tousle-haired man whose brief frown indicated to Sam that, for a moment, he couldn’t remember her sister from Adam.
This was soon rectified by Charlotte, who reminded him in a voice loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear. And here Sam bent her head, scarlet with shame, as Charlotte threw her arms around his neck and clung to him like a limpet.
She saw him shoot an apologetic look over his shoulder at the redhead whom Charlotte had pointedly ignored, before disentangling Charlotte firmly and indicating with a polite glance at the table that he wished to proceed with his meal.
Unfortunately, that was not to be an end to it. Charlotte came back to her own table, obviously disgruntled, and hell-bent on re-establishing her reputation as a femme fatale. And it seemed that her intentions to discuss her marriage problems with Sam had flown right out of the window, since Bob was not mentioned by her again, and any attempt by Sam to reintroduce him into the conversation was firmly quashed. Instead, she flirted like mad with the men on the next table, before allowing the two braying merchant bankers with their striped shirts and gin-flushed faces to join them, bringing with them a bottle of champagne.
As their laughter grew louder and more uncontrolled, Sam looked up, aware of being caught up in the dazzle of a hauntingly bright stare, as blindingly mesmerising as the headlights of a car on a pitch-black night. There was a renewed wail of affected laughter from Charlotte and her conquests, and an unmistakably derisive twist appeared on the hard, cold mouth of Declan Hunt—before he turned away, bending his head to listen to the beautiful redhead who was whispering into his ear with an amused smile. And it wouldn’t take three guesses to imagine what she was saying to him, thought Sam gloomily.
Her torment ended only when Bob, Charlotte’s husband, appeared at the door of the restaurant, with Flora, their daughter. And while Charlotte went off to repair her lipstick in the powder-room, Sam hurried over to her niece to sweep her up in a bear-hug, and have lots of wet kisses pressed enthusiastically into her neck.
‘You’re so good with kids, Sam,’ said Bob, a touch wistfully, when the small hairs on the back of her neck started prickling as she became instinctively aware that she was being stared at, and, once again, she raised her head to look in the direction of the man who stared, frozen in time as he surveyed her with a pair of puzzled blue eyes.
Sam came back to the present to find that the eyes which studied her now were not puzzled; anything but. They were faintly disapproving.
‘So you’re Charlotte Gilbert’s sister,’ he repeated.
‘Yes. We don’t look alike.’ We aren’t alike, she wanted to say, but you couldn’t very well denigrate your sister to a total stranger.
‘No, you don’t.’ The eyes held her in their thrall, piercing and direct, like twin blue swords.
That day in the restaurant, he had been wearing a dark and superbly cut suit with a dazzlingly white collar and a tie and, barring the thick and unruly waves of his dark hair that had stubbornly refused to lie flat, he had looked the epitome of elegant sophistication.
But today he looked different. Today, he was dressed from head to foot in denim, with the dark hair curling untidily over the collar of his denim shirt, and the blue of the material only emphasised the cold blueness of his eyes. The denim of his jeans was faded to a paler blue, the fabric stretched almost indecently over long, muscular thighs which seemed to go on forever . . . Today, he was worlds away from the man she had seen in the restaurant. Today, he looked earthy, an innate sexuality shimmering off that lean physique like a haze.
Sam gulped. ‘About that day—’ But he silenced her with a shake of his head, so that all those tangled curls moved with a life of their own.
‘That day had little enough to commend it without raking it over any further,’ he said coldly. ‘Tell me, do you make a habit of going on long, boozy lunches and picking up total strangers? It could get you into all kinds of trouble.’
She half wanted to say, I’m not like that—I was sober! But something in his high-handed manner angered her. Why should she attempt to defend herself to him? He probably wouldn’t give her the job now in any case. And, even though she had been embarrassed by Charlotte’s behaviour at the time, now she perversely felt a sudden stirring of loyalty. Charlotte had been out of order, yes—but, from the disapproving expression on Declan Hunt’s face, anyone would have thought that they had both stood up on a table and performed a striptease!
She stared at him, her dark brown eyes sparking with insurrection, wondering how he would terminate the interview, when she decided that she would not give him that pleasure. ‘It’s all right, Mr Hunt,’ she told him, with an attempt to sound at her most reasonable. ‘I quite understand that you probably don’t want to consider me for the job now.’
The flamboyant swoop of one ebony brow curved up by a fraction. ‘Oh? And why’s that?’
‘You obviously disapprove of how I conduct my social life—’
But he interrupted her, with a small humourless laugh. ‘Do you really think,’ he began, ‘that I only ever employ people of whose lifestyles I approve?’ He rubbed his neck at a bare piece of skin, visible through the top button being open, and she found herself noticing where the tanned column of his neck became shadowed with dark whorls of chest hair. ‘If I did that, Ms Gilbert, I can assure you that I would be chronically understaffed.’ He put his head a little to one side, and stared at her consideringly, as if lining up a shot for the camera. ‘I must admit that I do have reservations about you—but the company you mix with isn’t one of them.’
Robin, her current employer, had told her bluntly that he was a difficult man, and she had been prepared to overlook that, making allowances for his genius behind the camera—but the reality of his caustic tongue had her senses sizzling with indignation. ‘What reservations?’
He gave the smallest shrug, and Sam was irritated with herself for noticing that even that slight movement drew attention to the breadth of his shoulders, giving definition to the interplay of muscle which rippled beneath. Again, she was caught in the crossfire of his gaze.
‘Well, firstly—there’s your size,’ he commented.
‘My size?’ She stared at him in bewilderment, for the briefest second experiencing every woman’s universal fear—that he was accusing her of being fat. ‘What’s wrong with my size?’
‘You’re very small,’ he said lazily. ‘Quite tiny, in fact.’
Sam unconsciously drew herself up to her full height and tossed her head back, so that the heavy bob of her mahogany hair swayed like a wheatfield in the wind. ‘I’m five feet three inches,’ she pointed out. ‘That’s hardly midget class.’
The rugged features remained unconvinced. ‘And you probably only weigh around ninety-five pounds.’
She mentally crossed her fingers. Didn’t they say that a woman was allowed to lie about her age and her weight? And if Declan Hunt had some kind of problem with petite women, then lie she would. After all, she did want the job—and she didn’t want him thinking that she was some undersized weakling, although she had to admit that standing in front of a man who was so big, and broad, made her feel decidedly more fragile than usual. ‘I’m a hundred and ten,’ she lied. ‘And my size surely has nothing to do with my ability to handle a camera. Right?’
‘Wrong. And I’ll be handling the camera mostly, not you. I need an assistant, not a partner—and certainly not a liability. Someone to carry my equipment—hump it up and down stairs, into cars, over fields. I do not want to spend valuable time when I could be assessing the light quality worrying that you’re going to give yourself a hernia, or, even worse, to find that you simply can’t hack it and manage to drop a load of valuable and very expensive equipment.’
More used now to the intensity of that stare, Sam met his gaze squarely. ‘Try me,’ she challenged.
There was a brief smile as he acknowledged the challenge, and the dark, tangled head was nodded in the direction of a large silver box. ‘Carry that camera over to the other side of the studio.’
The studio was vast and the box weighed a ton, but she would have died sooner than let him know that, and besides—her slight looks were deceptive. The squash she played twice a week had strengthened her, so that her ‘tiny’ frame—as he had called it so disparagingly—was surprisingly strong without being in the least bit sturdy. With a serene smile she accomplished his instruction. ‘How’s that?’ she questioned guilelessly.
He sat down on one of the two facing leather sofas, his long, denim-clad legs sprawled out in front of him, a careless movement of his hand indicating that she should sit opposite him. ‘Well, that’s reservation number one disposed of,’ he conceded.
‘And number two?’
He gave a small sigh. ‘Much more fundamental, and not so easy to reconcile, I’m afraid.’
She felt as though she was wandering through Hampton Court Maze, trying to follow his thought processes. ‘And it is?’
‘That you’re a woman.’
‘That I’m a woman?’ she repeated, slowly and deliberately, so that there could be no mistake, mentally composing a letter of complaint to the Equal Opportunities Commission.
‘That’s right.’
‘You don’t like women?’
For the first time, he laughed, and for the duration of that laugh all Sam’s indignation fled. Because the effect of that laugh softened the hard angles and planes of his face into the kind of sensational, sexy look which would knock women down like ninepins, and momentarily did the same for Sam. She felt as if some invisible punch had hit her solar plexus, robbing her not just of oxygen, but of reason, too. And yet with some unerring sense of self-preservation, she didn’t show the slightest glimpse of her reaction, merely set her face into disbelieving lines as she waited for his reply.
‘On the contrary,’ he drawled. ‘I love women.’
And some! She acidly noted his use of the plural.
‘Love them, that is,’ he continued, ‘except at work.’
Not trusting her instinctive response to such out-and-out chauvinism, she forced herself to adopt logic. ‘But you work with models all day,’ she pointed out, ‘most of whom are women.’
‘Different women, and in short bursts.’
‘So what’s wrong with one woman—constantly?’
‘Every bachelor’s nightmare,’ he murmured, half to himself, before looking up, his fingers locked as if in prayer, his eyes watching her face very closely. ‘Women are emotional creatures, Ms Gilbert, don’t you agree? And they tend to let their emotions get in the way of their work. It’s a fact of life—the way they’re made.’
‘Perhaps you could be a little more—explicit,’ Sam spluttered incredulously.
‘Sure.’ The ecclesiastical attitude of his hands changed as he moved them behind him to rest his head on them. ‘Tell a man he’s made a mistake, and what does he do? He learns from his mistake. Tell a woman the same thing, and what does she do?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Hunt, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’
The firm lips gave a cool imitation of a smile. ‘She usually bursts into tears. Do you deny that?’
She could understand some women crying, especially with a man like this around to provoke them. Frankly, if she were incarcerated with Mr Declan Hunt all day long, she might just consider taking out shares in Kleenex! Not that she was likely to be incarcerated with him. She was destined for the door, no doubt, but let her leave him believing her to be a cool cookie. She mimicked his cool smile with one of her own. ‘Some women, perhaps, Mr Hunt. Not this one.’
Another cool smile. ‘So you’ve been working for Robin Squires for—how long?’
‘Nearly two years.’
‘My ex-boss,’ he observed, an indefinable note in his voice. ‘Tell me why you want this job so much,’ he said suddenly.
Did it show that much? she wondered. Was her hero-worship of this man’s work so apparent? She looked into his eyes. They had fenced for the whole of the interview; she probably didn’t stand a chance. She had lied about her weight and let him carry on thinking that she behaved as outrageously as her sister, but she respected him enough as an artist to give him her reply from the heart.
‘I want to work with you,’ she said simply, ‘because of your book—The Innocents.’
His eyes shuttered like the closing of a lens, and his features became stony-cold—as forbidding as if they had been hewn from granite. ‘I don’t do that kind of work any more,’ he said, and there was a new, harsh note to his voice.
My, but he was touchy! She wondered what she had said that was so wrong, and struggled to make amends. ‘No. I know. But you can. You’re capable of it, and that’s enough for me.’ She was aware that she had raised her voice, speaking with all the zeal that his masterpiece of a book had inspired in her when it had first been published three years ago. That book had changed her life in a way. Because of it she had gone to work for Robin—she had wanted to learn from the man who had taught Declan. And now, today, she was here with a chance of working for the man himself—if she hadn’t blown it.