The Paternity Claim

“Yes, I can.” He nodded his head slowly. “But you’ve compromised me now, haven’t you, querida? Your father is convinced that I sired your baby. And to tell him otherwise would risk the kind of commotion you’re anxious to avoid.”

“So what do I do?”

His eyes glittered as he considered her question, the memory of her kiss still sweet on his mouth. “You stay here. With me. And after the baby is born, well, then…” He shrugged as he gave his rare and sexy smile.

“Then what?” Isabella questioned slowly. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

“Why, then we could enjoy our mutual passion, Bella,” he purred, seeing the darkening in her eyes. “After all, why should I take all of the responsibility of impending paternity, but with none of the corresponding pleasure? Live here. With me. And we will become lovers.”

Lovers.

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

Relax and enjoy our fabulous series about couples whose passion ends in pregnancies…sometimes unexpected! Of course, the birth of a baby is always a joyful event, and we can guarantee that our characters will become wonderful moms and dads—but what happened in those nine months before?

Share the surprises, emotions, drama and suspense as our parents-to-be come to terms with the prospect of bringing a new baby into the world. All will discover that the business of making babies brings with it the most special love of all….

Delivered only by Mills & Boon Presents®

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…

The Paternity Claim

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

To Maria das Gracas Fish of the Brazilian Embassy,

London, with thanks for showing me how vibrant

and exuberant Brazilian people can be.

CONTENTS

Cover

Extract

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

COME on, come on! With a frustration born out of fear, Isabella jammed her thumb on the doorbell one last time and let it ring and ring, long enough to wake the dead—and certainly long enough to rouse the occupant of the elegant London townhouse. Just in case he hadn’t heard her the first time round.

But there was nothing other than the sound of the bell echoing and her hand fell to her side as she forced herself to accept the unthinkable. That he wasn’t there. That she would have to make a return journey—if she could summon up the courage to come here for a second time.

And then the door was flung open with a force of a powerhouse—and one very angry man stood looking down at her, his crisp dark head still damp and shining from the shower. Tiny droplets of water sparkled among the brown-black waves of his hair. Lit from behind, it almost looked as though he were wearing a halo—though the expression on his face was about as unangelic as you could get.

His black eyes glittered with irritation at this unwelcome intrusion and Isabella felt her heart begin to race. Because even in her current nerve-jangled state of crisis his physical impact was like a shock to the senses.

He was wearing nothing but a deep blue towel which was slung low around narrow olive hips and came to midway down a pair of impressively muscled thighs. Half of his chin was covered with shaving foam and in his hand he held an old-fashioned cut-throat razor which glinted silver beneath the gleam of the chandelier overhead.

Isabella swallowed. She had seen his magnificent body in swimming trunks many, many times—but never quite so intimately naked.

‘Yes?’ he snapped, in an accent which did not match the Brazilian ancestry of his looks and a tone which suggested that he was not the kind of man to tolerate interruption. ‘Where’s the fire?’

‘Hello, Paulo,’ she said quietly.

For the split second before his brain started making sense of the information it was receiving, Paulo stared impatiently at the woman who was standing on his doorstep looking up at him with such wary expectation in her eyes.

He ignored the sensual, subliminal messages which her sultry beauty was hot-wiring to his body, because his overriding impression was how ridiculously exotic she looked.

She wore a brand-new raincoat which came right down to a pair of slender ankles, so that only her face was on show. A face covered with droplets of rain from the summer shower, her dark hair plastered to her head. Huge, golden-brown eyes—like lumps of old and expensive amber—were fringed with the longest, blackest lashes he had ever seen. Her lips were lush, and unpainted. And trembling, he thought with a sudden frown. Trembling…

She looked like a lost and beautiful waif, and a warning bell clanged deep within the recesses of his mind. He knew her, and yet somehow he also knew that she shouldn’t be here.

Wrong place. Definitely.

‘Hello,’ he murmured, while his mind raced ahead to slot her into her rightful place.

‘Why, Paulo,’ she said softly, thinking for one unimaginable moment that he actually didn’t recognise her. ‘I wrote and told you that I was coming—didn’t you get my letter?’

The moment she spoke a complete sentence, the facts fell into place. Her accent matched her dark, Latin looks—although her English was as fluent as his. The almond-shaped eyes set in a skin which was the seamless colour of cappuccino. The quiet gleam of black hair which lay plastered against her skull by the rain.

The last time he had seen her, she had been standing illuminated by the brilliant sunshine of a South American day. Her silk shirt had been stretched with outrageous provocation over her ripe, young breasts and there had been the dark stain of sweat beneath her arms. He had wanted her in that moment. And maybe before that, too.

Resolutely he pushed that particular thought away, even as his eyes began to soften with affection. No wonder he hadn’t recognised her, against the grey and teaming backdrop of an English summer day, looking cold and hunched. And dejected.

‘Isabella! Meu Deus! I can’t believe it!’ he exclaimed, and he leaned forward to kiss her on each cheek. The normal and formal Latin American greeting, but rather bizarre and unsettling—considering that he was wearing next to nothing. He noticed that although she offered him each cool cheek, she shrank away from any contact with his bare skin. And he offered up a silent prayer of thanks.

‘Come in,’ he urged. ‘Are you on your own?’

‘M-my own?’

He frowned. ‘Is your father here with you?’

Isabella swallowed. ‘No. No, he’s not.’

He opened the door wider and she stepped inside.

‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ he demanded. ‘This is so—’

‘Unexpected?’ she put in quickly. ‘Yes, I know it is.’ She nodded her head in rapid agreement—but then she was prepared to agree to almost anything if he would only help her. She didn’t know how—she just knew that Paulo Dantas was the kind of man who could cope with anything that life threw at him. ‘But you got my letter, didn’t you?’ she asked.

He nodded thoughtfully. It had been an oddly disjointed letter mentioning that she might be coming to England sometime soon. But he had thought of soon in terms of years. He certainly wasn’t expecting her now, not yet—when she was still at university. ‘Yeah, I got your letter. But that was a couple of months back.’

She had written it the day she had found out for sure. The day she realised the trouble she was in. ‘I shouldn’t have just burst in on you like this. I tried ringing, but the line was engaged and so I knew you were here and I…I…’

Her voice faded away, unsure where to go from here. In her mind she had practised what she was going to say over and over again, but the disturbing sight of a near-naked Paulo had startled her, and the carefully rehearsed words were stubbornly refusing to come. Not, she thought grimly, that it was the kind of thing you could just blurt out on somebody’s doorstep.

‘I thought it might be nice to surprise you,’ she finished lamely.

‘Well, you’ve certainly done that.’

But Isabella saw his sudden swift, assessing frown. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve come at an awkward time—’

‘Well, I can’t deny that I was busy—’ he murmured, as the hand which wasn’t holding the razor strayed down to touch the towel at his hips, as if checking that the knot remained secure. ‘But I can dress and shave in a couple of minutes.’

‘Or I could come back later?’

‘What, send you away when you’ve travelled thousands of miles?’ He shook his crisp, dark head. ‘No, no! I’m intrigued to discover what brings Isabella Fernandes to England in such dramatic style.’

Isabella paled, as she tried to imagine what his reaction would be when she told him her momentous piece of news. But there was one more obstacle to overcome before she dared accept his offer of hospitality. What she had to tell him was for his ears alone. ‘Is Eduardo here?’

And some sort of transformation occurred. A face which was fundamentally hard and uncompromising underwent a dramatic softening, and a smile of pure pleasure lifted the corners of his mouth—making him look even more outrageously handsome than he had done before.

‘Eduardo? Unfortunately, no.’ The mouth curved into heart-stopping grin. ‘Ten-year-old boys prefer to play football with their friends rather than keep their father company—and my son is no exception. He won’t be back until later. A—’ Inexplicably, he hesitated. ‘A friend of mine is bringing him home.’

‘Oh.’ The word came out with just the right amount of disappointment, but Isabella wondered if the relief showed on her face. She also wondered who the friend was, as she quickly wiped a raindrop off her cheek.

Paulo watched the jerky little movement of her hand. She seemed nervous, he thought. Excessively nervous. Not a quality he had ever associated with Isabella. She could outshoot most men—and ride a horse with more grace than he had ever seen in another human being. He had watched her grow from child to woman—in the condensed, snap-shot way you did when you only saw someone once a year.

‘You’ll see him later. Come on—take off that wet raincoat. You’re shivering.’

She was shivering for a variety of reasons—and coldness was the least of them.

‘Th-thank you.’ She stood blinking beneath the glow of the artificial light which danced overhead, frozen by the strangeness of this new environment. And the fact that Paolo was standing next to her, still wearing next to nothing, a faint drift of lemon about him—as indolently at ease with his semi-naked state as if he had been wearing a three-piece suit.

With numb fingers, she began fumbling with the buttons of her coat and Paulo felt the strongest urge to unbutton it for her, as you would a child—except that the first lush glimpse of her T-shirted breasts reinforced the fact that she was anything but a child. And that if he didn’t put some decent clothes on in a minute…

‘I can’t believe you didn’t buy an umbrella, Bella?’ he teased, in an attempt to divert his uncomfortable thoughts. ‘Did nobody tell you that in England it rains and rains? And then it rains some more—even in summer!’

‘I thought I’d buy one when I got here, and then I…well, I forgot,’ she finished lamely, although an umbrella had been the very last thing on her mind. She had spent weeks and weeks just wearing her father down. Telling him that it was her life and her decision. And that lots of people of her age dropped out of university. She had told him that it wasn’t the end of the world, but the look on his face had told her otherwise. Isabella shivered. And he didn’t the know the half of it.

He felt the slight tremor in her body as he tugged the cuff of her jacket over her wrist and hung the garment on a peg above a radiator. ‘There. You’re dry underneath. Come into the sitting room.’

Reaction set in. He was letting her stay. Her teeth started to chatter but she clamped them shut. ‘Thank you.’

‘Need a towel for your hair?’ he asked, shooting her a quick glance. ‘Or maybe borrow a sweater?’

‘No. Honestly. I’ll be fine.’ But she didn’t feel fine. Her limbs felt stiff and icy as he led her along a wide, deep hallway and into a large, high-ceilinged room, its cool, classic lines made warmly informal by the pulsating colours he had chosen.

Isabella looked around her. It was a very Latino colour scheme.

The walls were painted a rich, burnt orange colour and deepest red and covered with vibrant pictures—there was one she instantly recognised as the work of an up-and-coming Brazilian painter. Two giant sofas were strewn with scatter cushions and a low table contained magazines and papers and a book about football. Dotted around the place were photographs of a young boy in various stages of growing up—Paulo’s son—and a black and white studio portrait of a cool, beautiful blonde, her pale shining hair held close to a little baby. And that, Isabella knew, was Elizabeth—Paulo’s wife.

‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he instructed, ‘while I get dressed and then I’ll make you some coffee—how does that sound?’

‘Coffee would be lovely,’ she replied automatically.

Paulo went back upstairs and into the bathroom to finish shaving and frowned at himself in the mirror. Something was different about her. Something. And not just that she’d put on a little weight. Something had changed. Something indefinable…And it was something more than the dramatic sexual flowering he had noticed a few short months ago. He moved the blade swiftly over the curved line of his jaw.

He had known her for ever. Their fathers had been friends—and the friendship had survived separation when Paulo’s father had eventually settled in England, the home of his new wife. Paulo had been born in Brazil, but had been brought to live in London at the age of six and his father had insisted he make an annual pilgrimage back to his homeland. It was a pilgrimage Paulo had carried on after the deaths of his parents and the birth of his own son.

Every year, just before Carnival erupted in a blaze of colour, he and Eduardo would travel to the Fernandes ranch for a couple of weeks and Paulo had seen Isabella grow up before his eyes.

He had watched with interest as the little girl had blossomed to embrace the whole spectrum of teenage behaviour. She had been stubborn and sassy and sulky, like all teenage girls. By seventeen she had begun to develop a soft, voluptuous beauty all of her own, but at seventeen she had still seemed so young. Certainly to him. Even at eighteen and nineteen she had seemed a different generation to a man who was, after all, a decade older, already widowed and with a young son of his own.

But something had happened to Isabella in her twentieth year. In the blinking of an eye, her sexuality had exploded into vibrant, throbbing life and Paulo had been touched by it; his senses had been scorched by it.

He had lifted her down from her horse and there had been a split-second of suspended movement as he held her in his arms. He had felt the indentation of her waist and the dampness of her shirt as it clung to her sweat-sheened skin. Their laughter had stilled and he had seen the suddening darkening of her pupils as she had looked into his eyes with a hunger which had matched his own.

Desire. Potent as any drug.

And his conscience had made him want no part of it.

He removed the towel from his hips, staring down at himself with flushed disbelief as he observed the first stirring of arousal. He scowled. Because that was the whole damned trouble with sexual attraction—once you’d felt it, you could never go back to how it was before. His easy, innocent relationship with Isabella had been annihilated in that one brief flash of desire. That was what was different.

His mouth twisted as he crumpled up the towel and hurled it with vicious accuracy into the linen basket, then gingerly stepped into a pair of silken boxer shorts.

Isabella wandered distractedly around the sitting room, going over in her head what she was going to say to him, forcing herself to be strong because only her strength would sustain her through this. ‘Paulo, I’m…’

No, she couldn’t come straight out with it. She would have to lead in with a casual yet suitably serious statement. No matter that deep down she felt like howling her heart out with shock and disbelief…because indulging her feelings at the moment would benefit no one. ‘Paulo, I need your help…’

She heard the jangle of cups and looked up, relieved to find that he had covered up with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. On his chin sat a tiny, glistening bead of scarlet and it drew her attention like a magnet.

He saw the amber brilliance of her eyes as she stared at him and felt the dull pounding of his heart in response. ‘What is it?’ he asked huskily.

‘You’ve cut yourself,’ she whispered, and the bright sight of his blood seemed like a portent of what was to come.

Paulo frowned, lifting a fingertip to his chin. ‘Where?’

‘To the right. Yes. There.’

The finger brushed against the newly shaven surface and drew it away; he looked at it with a frown. Had his hand been shaking? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cut his face. ‘Right,’ he said, absently licking the finger with a gesture which was unintentionally erotic. ‘Coffee.’

She tried for the light touch but it wasn’t easy when all the time she felt the weight of the great burden she carried. ‘I haven’t had a decent cup since I left home.’

‘I can imagine.’ He smiled.

She watched as he slid onto the sofa, moving with the inborn grace of an alley cat. Back home they always called him gato, and it was easy to understand why. The word in Portuguese meant ‘cat’ but it also meant a sexy and beautiful man—and no one in the world could deny that Paulo Dantas was just that.

Tall, dark and statuesque, he was a matchless mix of English mother and Brazilian father. His was a spectacular face, with an arrogant sweep of cheekbones which could have been sculpted from some gold-tinted stone and hooded eyes more black than brown. The luscious mouth hinted at a deeply sensual nature, its starkly defined curves making it look as if it had been created to inflict both pleasure and pain in equal measures.

She took the coffee that he offered her with a hand which was threatening to tremble. ‘Thank you.’

This was crazy, thought Paulo, as he observed her unfamiliar, frozen smile and her self-conscious movements. It was like being in a room with a stranger. What the hell had happened to her? ‘How is your father?’ he enquired politely.

‘He—he’s very well, thank you.’ She tried to lift the coffee cup to her lips but now her fingers were shaking so much that she was obliged to put it down with a clatter. ‘He says to say hello to you.’

‘Say hello back,’ he said evenly, but it was difficult to concentrate when that shaky movement made the lush curves of her body move so uninhibitedly beneath the T-shirt.

Isabella wondered if she was going mad with imagining, or had his gaze just flickered over her breasts? She wondered how much he had seen—and Paulo was an astute man, no one could deny that. Had he begun to guess at her secret already? Unobstrusively she glanced down at herself.

No, she was safe. The hot-pink T-shirt was relatively loose and the matching jeans were far from skin-tight. Nothing clung to the contours of her body. And besides, there was no visible bump yet. Nothing to show that there was a baby on the way, bar the aching new fullness of her breasts and the sudden nausea which could strike her at any time. And frequently did.

She tried a smile, but felt it wobble on her lips. ‘I expect you’re wondering why I’m here.’

At last! ‘Well, the thought had crossed my mind,’ he said, managing to turn curiosity into a teasing little comment. ‘People don’t just turn up from Brazil unannounced—not as a rule. Not without phoning first. And it’s a pretty long way from Vitoria da Conquista.’

Isabella turned her head to glance out of the uncur-tained window into the rain-lashed sky. It certainly was. Back home the temperature would be as warm as kisses, the land caressed by a soft and sultry breeze.