- -
- 100%
- +
By Sharon Kendrick
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 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
The Greek Tycoon’s Baby Bargain
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk
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…
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.
CONTENTS
Cover
Dear Reader
Title Page
About the Author
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
EPILOGUE
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
IT WASN’T the first time he had been late—but it was the first time he hadn’t bothered to warn her.
Outside, the rain made the street look as glossy as an old black and white photo but Rebecca’s eyes were fixed at the junction which would give her the first glimpse of his car.
The palms of her hands were cold and clammy and she bit her lip, her head spinning with thoughts she could no longer ignore. Because maybe this was how it all began—the end of a relationship. With the slow, slow drip of inconsideration—rather than the passion of the blazing row.
Her lips curved into a painful smile as she recognised that even calling it a relationship gave it more importance than it deserved. When two people lived on opposite continents and merely snatched at secret moments together—did that really count?
Perhaps affair would be more accurate. An affair which should never have started and which she’d tried her best to resist, but in the end she had been weak—of course she had. For wasn’t that Xandros’s special ability: to make women weak around him? It wasn’t difficult to see why. Given the sheer charisma and powerful persuasion of the Greek billionaire, it was amazing that she had lasted out as long as she had.
Maybe this was what happened when you finally began to fall in love with a man like Alexandros Pavlidis—or Xandros to his friends and lovers. This terrible preoccupation which made all your thinking skewed. Even though you told yourself that you didn’t want to be in love, that it couldn’t possibly be love when all you’d known were some amazing dates and some even more amazing sex.
Yet you could tell yourself something again and again and sometimes almost believe it. And then he would call at the very last minute and she would hear that deep sexy voice, asking her if she’d like to have dinner, and her heart would flip—the world seeming suddenly to be lit by fairy lights. And even though she hated herself for being so available, she would be unable to say no.
The gleam of powerful headlights cut a bright channel through the night and Rebecca saw the shiny black nose of the limousine as it slowly eased its way into view. Hastily, she ducked out of sight as it stopped outside the apartment building. Not the most attractive sight in the world, was it? To be seen staring anxiously out of the window!
She checked the mirror. Her hair was clean and shining—worn loose, just the way Xandros liked it. She was wearing a dress in soft lilac and was slim enough and young enough to carry off the relatively inexpensive outfit and make the most of it. Xandros didn’t like a lot of make-up and neither did she. A slick of lipstick and a curl of mascara—that was all.
But no amount of careful preparation could hide the faint shadows beneath her eyes, or the way that she seemed to have been constantly biting her lip lately, like an exam candidate who hadn’t really understood the question.
The doorbell rang and she pinned a casual smile to her mouth, which died the instant she opened the door to see a tall man in uniform standing on the step, rain dripping from his peaked cap, and it took a moment or two to realise that she was looking at Xandros’s chauffeur.
‘Miss Gibbs?’ he said politely, as if he’d never met her before. As if he hadn’t witnessed Xandros kissing her so passionately on the back seat of the car. Or hadn’t been forced to sit in a car outside her tiny house, waiting for his Greek boss to reappear over an hour later minus his tie, his hair dishevelled, his sensual mouth curved with pleasure.
Rebecca’s cheeks burned with shame at the memory of that particular time. ‘Where’s Xandros?’ she questioned, and then her eyes widened as a thousand horrible possibilities flooded into her mind. ‘He’s okay? I mean—nothing’s happened to him?’
But the chauffeur’s face might have been made of wood. Hard, disapproving wood—as if he was used to dealing with a hundred worried-looking women like Rebecca. ‘Mr Alexandros Pavlidis asked me to convey his apologies, but he is dealing with a conference call. He asked me to bring you to him instead.’
Rebecca swallowed. Bring you to him. Like a convenience, she thought. A package. Something handy, but ultimately disposable. Yes, that was her, all right.
There was a split second while she ran through her options. What was the normal response when your lover sent his chauffeur to collect you and you suspected that was because your novelty value was wearing off and he might be tiring of you? Did you smile gratefully and thank the chauffeur and settle back comfortably in the back of the luxury car, counting your blessings?
Or would you be more respected—and desired—if you politely told the driver that he could go back to his boss with the information that you had changed your mind about dinner, and were staying in? That if he was busy, then surely the best solution was to leave him in peace to get on with his work.
But the lure of Xandros was strong, and so was her fear that a dramatic display of pique might bring about the end sooner than she had anticipated. Sooner than she could cope with.
‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said.
The traffic was heavy and the weather bleak for a Thursday night in April. Rebecca’s hair was whipped around her head by a biting wind as the hotel doorman opened the car door and she stepped out.
Had she been hoping that Xandros might have been standing in the foyer, waiting for her? That she wouldn’t have to make the endless journey across the luxurious carpet on her own, imagining that eyes were on her, wondering who the woman in the cheap dress was? Wasn’t there a part of her which was slightly terrified of being stopped by one of the hotel staff, demanding to know why she was taking the lift up to the penthouse?
But the journey passed without comment and in the mirror-lined lift she had the opportunity to drag a brush through her hair, to compose herself into the right kind of expression.
How did she look the first time he’d seen her—when he had hunted her down like a hungry predator? Surely she could recreate a similar kind of expression now. The kind of air which implied that she had a full and fulfilling life, and she wasn’t particularly fussed about any man—not even if he was a world-famous Greek billionaire.
The trouble was that things changed. People changed, once a man like Xandros had possessed them. Did he have the power to turn women into his willing slaves—so that he could ultimately despise them for wanting him so badly?
Did he despise her? Had she no pride left where he was concerned?
The lift doors slid open noiselessly and she could hear the sound of his voice coming from the direction of the sitting room. A unique voice, in Rebecca’s experience—low, soft, dangerous, sexy. He was speaking in Greek and then suddenly he switched to English as she began to walk towards its silken resonance, the heels of her boots quiet on the thick carpet.
He was sitting at the vast desk which overlooked London’s Hyde Park, wearing a white silk shirt which contrasted against his deep olive skin. His ebony hair was ruffled and it sparkled with the light from drops of water—as if someone had scattered fine diamonds over his head, though he was clearly just out of the shower.
‘Tell them no,’ he was saying. ‘Tell them …’ And then he must have become aware of her presence for his gaze flicked up from the document he was reading. He studied her for one long, unhurried moment and then the black eyes glittered, and he gave a slow smile, running the tip of his tongue over his lips—like someone starving who had just seen their meal arrive.
‘Tell them that they will have to wait,’ he said softly, and then put the phone down without any kind of conventional goodbye. ‘Rebecca,’ he murmured. ‘Rebecca mou.’
Usually, that deep, sensuous endearment made her tremble, but not tonight. ‘Hello, Xandros,’ she said evenly.
His eyes narrowed. Leaning back in his chair, he continued to study her. ‘Forgive me for not coming to collect you myself—but some business came in which I had to deal with.’
Rebecca eyed the dark arrow of hair revealed by the few shirt buttons which had been left open and she felt the habitual rush of desire which overrode everything else, even sanity. But if she ignored this lapse in plain courtesy, then wasn’t she just giving him permission to treat her any way he saw fit? If it was any other man, would she have said something? Of course she would. But with any other man you wouldn’t care!
‘You could have phoned.’
There was a split second of a pause. ‘I could indeed,’ he agreed steadily and felt the flicker of a pulse at his temple. Be careful, agape mou, he thought. Be very careful.
‘And you’re still not ready.’
His eyes narrowed. Was that a criticism? Of him? Did she not realise that he would not tolerate being judged? That no woman ever had, and no woman ever would? And was she not aware that she was in danger of treading the path of the predictable—the path that so many women before her had taken—and that if she did there could be only one outcome?
Leaning back in his chair just a little, he crossed one long leg over the other, watching the way that her eyes followed the movement as she tried to disguise the hunger in her eyes. Should he take her now? he wondered idly. Could he really be bothered to endure a restaurant dinner of small talk when all he wanted was to lose himself in the sweetness of her body?
‘Indeed I am not,’ he agreed softly, following her gaze to his bare feet and remembering that amazing time when she had … ‘But that is easily remedied,’ he said thickly. ‘I shall go into the bedroom and finish getting dressed right now.’
‘Okay,’ she said uncertainly, something telling her that he was playing a game with her.
‘Or …’ His mouth flickered in the mockery of a smile. ‘Or you could always come over here and say hello to me properly.’
Was that a subtle dig that she hadn’t already done so? Rebecca was aware of some unknown emotion hovering in the air about them—something unspoken and dangerous. Instinct told her that she was playing with fire if she continued to moan about his lateness. And an even stronger instinct made her badly want to kiss him.
Letting her handbag slide to the floor, she crossed the room and went over to him, bending her face to brush a light kiss against his lips. A kiss could wipe everything away, she thought longingly, her hands reaching up to his shoulders. Oh, Xandros.
‘Nice,’ he murmured. ‘Oreos. Do it some more.’
She kissed him again. And then again—only deeper this time and more intently—until he groaned and reached for her so that she let him pull her down onto his lap. ‘Xandros!’ she gasped.
‘Touch me,’ he urged, his mouth against her ear, his nostrils inhaling her light, flowery scent and feeling the silken spill of her hair next to his skin.
‘Wh-where?’
‘Where ever you want, agape mou.’
Oh, the choice was dazzling. Where did she begin? With his face—and all its shadowy contours, its contrasting lines and curves? She let her fingers caress his cheeks, running them along the luminously gold skin as if she were measuring the high angles of his cheekbones until she encountered the rasp of the dark new growth around his jaw.
‘You didn’t shave today,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t you know what they say about men who need to shave a lot?’
‘No. What do they say?’
‘What do you think they say?’ he taunted. ‘They say that he is a real man. Shall I prove it to you?’ Taking her hand, he guided it down to between his legs and Rebecca felt the rush of blood to her cheeks as she felt the unbelievable hardness of him stretching the fabric of his elegant trousers. ‘Ne,’ he groaned. ‘Touch me there. Right there.’
‘Like that?’ she whispered, cupping him in the palm of her hand.
‘Ne. More. Do that some more.’
She drifted her fingers teasingly over the rocky shaft of him, and his soft moan became an impatient imprecation. His ebony eyes were sparking pure passion and fire and his voice was unsteady as he stroked the silken skin above her breasts. ‘I haven’t seen this dress before.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘No. I want to tear it from your body.’
‘Don’t do that, Xandros—it’s new.’
‘Then why don’t you take it off for me?’
Suddenly she felt shy, the doubts which had been assailing her all day coming back like spectres to haunt her. Was this an acceptable way to be treated by a man—to be made to feel insecure with him and then for him to ask you to perform a striptease, while he was still seated at his desk?
‘Shouldn’t we go into the bedroom?’
He gave a short laugh, but he was so hard and so hot for her that he doubted he would be able to make it to the door and this sensual power which she always seemed to exert over him made him want to wrest back control. ‘Isn’t it a little soon in our acquaintance for convention to rear its ugly head?’
Rebecca froze. Acquaintance. What kind of a word was that?
He saw her mouth tremble and he licked the tip of his tongue over it to cease its shiver, his hands slipping around her waist, fingers splaying over its slim indentation. ‘Take it off,’ he urged thickly.
She wanted to say I can’t, but then he might ask her why, and how could she possibly answer that? Telling him that she wanted him to respect her and not just treat her as a sex object might sound like emotional blackmail. Respect had to be earned, not demanded—and, besides, maybe this was the kind of high-octane way in which billionaires conducted their love affairs.
And wasn’t there a part of her which was revelling in her newly discovered ability to thrill him, to make his body rigid with tension, the black eyes opaque with a kind of helpless desire? Wasn’t this the only time she felt that she had any real say in the relationship—in that emotionally and physically fraught time just before a couple had sex?
She stood up and lifted her hands to her hair, scooping it up between her fingers, before letting the whole heavy mass fall around her shoulders, watching his black eyes following the movement almost hypnotically. She knew he loved her hair. He had told her that the first time she’d met him—he’d said it was the colour of the setting sun before the night sky swallowed it up, whole. And when he had said it, he had looked as if he would like to swallow her up whole.
Hadn’t it been his almost poetic way with words which had disarmed her just as much as the dark, good looks and the hard, lean body? The idea that a man could be the embodiment of all that was masculine and yet be unafraid to express himself in the way which would make a woman melt?
But hadn’t that just been part of his well-practised seduction technique? How long had it been since he’d told her that her eyes were like the violet-blue flowers which scrambled in among the arid rocks and bloomed during a Grecian spring? Or that her skin was pure cream, and that was why he liked to lick it?
She shivered. Pride told her she should not strip for him and yet she knew that the evening would start off badly if she started playing games by refusing.
Peeling off her dress with one slow, sweeping movement, she dropped it on the desk, right in the middle of all his papers, daring him to object—wanting him to object. To somehow make this powerful man feel as helpless as she did. ‘I do hope that won’t interfere with your work,’ she said, thinking no such thing at all.
‘Rebecca,’ he said unevenly.
‘Yes, Xandros?’
‘Turn around,’ he said huskily. ‘Turn around and let me feast my eyes on you.’
She made him wait. The only time she could—and then she began to walk to the other side of the desk.
‘Rebecca?’
‘Do you mean like this, Xandros? Do you want to see my bottom?’ Slowly, she turned around and gave a flamboyant little wiggle and heard him laugh, but the laugh was tinged with a small groan as he saw the unbelievably alluring scarlet briefs and the matching bra over which her breasts spilled.
‘Ne. Just like that.’
He loved her bottom, as well as her hair. He had told her that, too, insisting that the pert globes be covered in nothing but lace, wanting to buy her sets of lingerie from one of the most exclusive stores in London—but she had refused. She would not be bought, even though sometimes he made her feel like a possession—just like one of his sleek cars or the fancy apartments he owned.
She began to slide the panties off, but her hands were trembling as she hooked them off over each foot and as she turned around, she crumpled them angrily between her palm and threw them at him.
Catching them effortlessly, Xandros raised his dark brows, and then—very deliberately—he lifted them up to his face and closed his eyes as he breathed in their scent.
Rebecca felt faint. What did he do to her? What power could he wield that could make her feel so utterly abandoned and wanton when she was with him—and yet leave her feeling abandoned in quite a different sense when he wasn’t there?
‘Delicious,’ he murmured. ‘Now the bra. Take it off.’
‘You take it off.’
‘But I can’t reach.’
‘Then move.’
‘Are you ordering me around, agape mou?’
‘You bet I am.’
Laughing softly, he rose to his feet and walked towards her with the slow stealth of the certain predator. And then, without warning, he snaked his arms around her and crushed her into his arms into a kiss of such hard—almost brutal—passion that she lost her balance.
But Xandros had her held firmly in his arms and he continued to kiss her, luxuriating in the softness of her body, enjoying the little cries she was making. For a woman who had made him wait longer than any other—his victory was almost complete.
‘Still want to go to the bedroom?’ he taunted, dragging his mouth away from hers. ‘Or did you have somewhere else in mind?’
She no longer cared, but she was damned if she was going to tell him that. Or to give into him yet again. He wanted her now and he wanted her here and he could damned well wait as he had made her wait for him to turn up tonight.
‘B-bed,’ she managed. Damn him, damn him, damn him! Everything with him was a battle—but this was one she was going to win. She didn’t care if it was conventional to want to go to the bedroom—at least it wouldn’t be insultingly convenient to have him take her there and then on the floor as he had done so many times before.
But he scooped her up in his arms as she had known he would—and all her angry thoughts melted because this bit was her fantasy come true. Her darkly virile lover taking his willing captive off to experience the perfect pleasures of his body. Wasn’t that the stuff of every woman’s secret dream—to be mastered and dominated by such a powerful man?
Rebecca kissed his neck as he carried her down the long corridor of the suite he rented whenever he was in London—which took over the entire top floor of the Park Lane hotel. She remembered the first time she had seen the bedroom—and had been rendered speechless.
Photo-spreads in glossy magazines could easily show luxury—but she’d been unaware that a single room could be so spacious. This one had a bed which was only slightly smaller than her entire bedroom back home—and everything else seemed to be controlled at the push of a button.
There was a giant TV screen and a small fridge, stocked with champagne and fancy chocolates as well as cut-glass bowls of flowers strategically placed to scent the room. There was even a bookcase and a rack which held all the international newspapers. But there was only one thing which she and Xandros did once they crossed the threshold of this room…
Xandros put her down on the bed and began to unbuckle his belt, watching her face as he did so, seeing her eyes darken in anticipation, as they always did. ‘You want me to strip for you now?’ he questioned softly.
‘Yes. I-I insist on it,’ she said unsteadily, but for her it was less of an erotic turn-on than the fact that she wanted to see him vulnerable—or as vulnerable as he was capable of.
But there was nothing remotely vulnerable about watching Xandros take his clothes off. First, he loosened his shirt, button by button—an interminable amount of buttons, or so it seemed to her.