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DEAR READER LETTER
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
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
To Gerald Jackson, Sr.—thanks for being
the special man that you are.
To all my readers who enjoy a good love story
that centers on family.
To my Heavenly Father, who shows me each
and every day how much he loves me.
Withhold not good from them to whom it is due,
when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
Proverbs 3:27
Contents
Cover
Dear Reader
About the Author
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Copyright
Chapter 1
HE started with her ankles, which were the most delicious ankles he had ever seen, then his eyes traveled slowly to her knees, and beyond.
From across the room, he made a leisurely appraisal of slim hips and a tiny waist, exquisite breasts and hair the color of fire. He saved the face until last, and when at last his gaze reached the huge emerald eyes and pouty pink lips, he almost choked on his glass of champagne.
“Josephine?” he silently mouthed in incredulous question, and because she hadn’t moved, he walked over to where she stood. “Josephine?”
Josephine’s heart was racing and her hands felt clammy, but not just because he was the most devastating man in the room—he had always had precisely that effect on her.
“Of course it’s me, Blake,” she remonstrated. “Surely you recognized me?”
There was a pause. “Not really.” Last time he’d seen her, she’d had braces on her teeth and freckles. The little girl next door. In the tiny village they’d lived in he had watched her grow from toddler to teenager. And now? He swallowed, even though he was no longer drinking. “You’ve … you’ve grown up all of a sudden.”
“But I’m 23 years old now, Blake,” she said softly.
“And you live in London now?” he guessed.
“That’s right. You, too?”
“Mmm.” God, she was beautiful! More than beautiful. “How long since we’ve seen each other?”
She stared into the ice-blue eyes. She could have told him to the exact minute. “Oh, must be about seven years,” she said casually. “Not since you moved away.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “What kind of work do you do?” he questioned casually.
“I’m a model.”
A model. Yes. That would explain the sudden transformation from duckling to dazzling swan.
“A successful model?” he questioned.
She gave a modest smile. “Kind of.” She sipped her drink and smiled at him. “How about you?”
The smile beguiled him. “I’m a venture capitalist.”
“Sounds like a bandit!”
He laughed. “Does it?” A bandit might have carried her straight off to bed with him, something he—uncharacteristically—felt just like doing.
“Do I look like a bandit?”
Kind of, she thought, but shook her head. “No, you look like a venture capitalist!”
“How about another drink?” His lips curved in a smile. “Or would you rather dance?”
There was no choice! But she managed to shrug her shoulders, as if she didn’t mind either way. “I love dancing,” she admitted.
Normally, he could take it or leave it, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had danced with a woman who wasn’t Kim. But the opportunity to hold her was too much to miss. “Me, too. Come on, then.”
The gods must have been looking down on her, because at that moment the music slowed, and he took her in his arms and she felt almost dizzy, achingly aware of the hard, lean strength of his body.
“I—I like this song,” she said, rather shakily.
“Mmm.” He liked the drift of her scent even more.
He absently pulled her closer and buried his lips in her hair and Josephine was unprepared for the shimmering of heat that skittered such debilitating sensations across her skin.
Blake felt the sudden jackknifing of desire as her slender curves melted against his flesh like butter, and he had to stifle a moan.
Maybe he’d better just take her home and say good-night.
Sooner, rather than later.
But he was seduced by the moonlight and the way she walked, the way she made him laugh. And a shared past could produce nostalgia … and nostalgia could be pretty potent stuff.
He accepted coffee. And then another, and her eyes mesmerized him with their dazzling green fire.
“Guess I’d better think about leaving,” he said reluctantly.
“I guess so. It’s been … fun.”
“Yeah.”
She was lost in the light of his eyes. “Goodbye, Blake.”
“Goodbye, Josephine.”
She wondered if she would ever see him again, and when she reached up on tiptoe to kiss him goodbye, her lips somehow collided with the faint rasp of his jaw, and it felt so earthy that she shivered against him in unstoppable response.
Something inexplicable exploded inside him and he turned his head and captured her mouth with his, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that this was heading for the bedroom.
“I don’t usually do this kind of thing,” he groaned, as the kiss got hotter and harder.
Neither did she, but once again his mouth had hungrily covered hers and her words somehow got lost on his lips.
It was the best night of Josephine’s life, but in the morning he had left without asking to see her again, and much later she heard that he had gone back to Kim and that they had become engaged.
And soon after that she had met his cousin Luke, and within three months they were married.
Chapter 2
LUKE had gone.
He hadn’t even taken his toothbrush, but she knew he had gone. That fact hit her with a certainty even more intense than the blade of lightning that illuminated the bathroom with its harsh blue-white light. Josephine momentarily shrank from its impact, and winced.
The toothbrush was still there, yes, but further investigation showed that her husband of just one year had cleared the rest of the house like a locust.
Gone were the rows of designer suits and the handmade Italian shoes. Gone, too, were the priceless objets d’art which he had always insisted they buy.
Or rather, that she buy, Josephine reminded herself bitterly.
The lightning was followed by a thunderbolt that could have deafened the hounds of hell. And then the rain began—a rain so heavy and remorseless that the loud banging on the front door didn’t register straight away.
And when it did, she froze with a sinking feeling that felt almost like disappointment.
Had he left, only to return?
She ran into the hall and pulled open the door and the sight of the tall, drenched figure made her heart briefly suspend its frenzied beat.
For it wasn’t Luke who stood there like a dark avenging angel, but his cousin Blake. Blake. The man she had not seen for over a year—not since he had stormed round to her flat and told her that she would be a crazy fool to marry a man like Luke.
“B-Blake!” she gasped, but the word dried to sawdust in her mouth.
“Disappointed?” he drawled, but at least she was here. And she seemed to be okay. “Expecting your husband, were you, sweetheart?”
She shook her head, wishing he wouldn’t use that word, not when he didn’t mean it. “He’s taken all his clothes. He’s gone.”
“I know he has,” he said grimly.
Her eyes narrowed. “How can you possibly—”
But Blake wasn’t listening. He had unceremoniously pushed his way past her, to stand dripping raindrops onto the beautiful, polished wooden floor.
“Shut the door!” he commanded, his eyes raking reluctantly over her skimpy evening dress. A pulse began to beat at his temple. So she still dressed to kill. “Or were you hoping to freeze to death? Just shut the door, Josephine! Now!”
Mutely she obeyed him. There was something about the tone of his voice that was impossible to ignore. But maybe if she had listened to him the last time around, she wouldn’t be in this situation.
She stared at him. They said that time healed, but time didn’t always change the way someone made you feel. She hadn’t seen him in over a year, but the sheer force of his personality was devastating as ever. As were his looks. The blue eyes were as vibrant as a summer sky and the hard, lean body as formidably gorgeous as it had ever been.
Lucky Kim, she thought, forcing herself to remember in the most painful way possible that he had a fiancée.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered. “And how on earth did you know that Luke had left, when I’ve only just found out myself?”
He gave a cynical smile, which iced over her. “Because he rang me from the airport.”
“The airport?” she repeated dully. “Where was he going?”
“He didn’t say.”
“I don’t understand,” she breathed, and she heard him swear softly beneath his breath.
“I think you’re just about to,” he gritted. “He’s with someone called Sadie.” The blue eyes bored into her questioningly. “Know her?”
Josephine nodded. “Yes, I know her,” she said dully. Best friends weren’t all they were cracked up to be, were they? And yet, deep down, he wasn’t telling her anything that she hadn’t already guessed.
But despite the fact that Luke had gone, only one question nudged at the edges of her mind.
“So just why are you here, Blake?”
Chapter 3
BLAKE shrugged. “I guess I’ve come to pick up the pieces .”
Still feeling as though she was in the midst of some nightmare, Josephine stared at him uncomprehendingly. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
His eyes moved over her, noting the angular line of her collarbone and the way her hipbones jutted against the filmy material of her dress.
As a model, she had always been slim, but now she looked as though a breath of wind could blow her away. Had marriage to his cousin turned her into a mere shadow of herself?
“How the hell can he afford to take off like that?” he demanded.
Josephine stared at him blankly, because his words didn’t make sense. Come to think of it, nothing made sense right now. “What?”
“I think it might be a good idea if you took a look at your accounts,” he ground out.
All she could see was his blue eyes burning into her. “Accounts?” she echoed.
It was only a hunch, but Blake knew his cousin well enough to suspect that he had taken more than his clothes with him. “Just do it, will you?” he said quietly. “I doubt whether Luke has financed his trip with the fruit of his own labors.”
The rising sense of panic she felt was making her blood run cold, and though she shook her head in denial, she couldn’t stop herself from suspecting the worst. But he wouldn’t have taken her money, surely? Bad enough that he had walked off with one of her supposed friends—surely it couldn’t get any worse than that?
She could feel Blake’s eyes on her as she walked to the bureau to find the telephone number of the bank. She picked up the phone and punched in the numbers and when it was answered she said, shakily, “I’d like to know the balance of my current account, please. And could you check my savings account, too, please?”
The sums quoted took her breath away and her fingers were trembling as she turned round to meet the piercing brilliance of his eyes.
“Both accounts are empty,” she said in a dead, flat voice. “He’s taken everything.”
His mouth twisted, ruing an aunt who had showered everything on his pretty, petulant cousin. “It seems that your precious Luke is nothing more than a common thief.”
The rising panic was fast turning into a swamping tide. “Oh, my God,” she breathed. “He can’t have done!”
“Well, it looks as if he damned well has!” He let out a low sigh of frustration. “I told you that you were a fool to marry him, Josephine! I’ve known the guy for most of my life—I knew what he was like! You should have listened to me!”
Yes, she should have listened to him, but how could she have done, when her perception of him had been tainted by the night she had spent in his arms? And the fact that he hadn’t wanted her afterward.
“Does it make you feel better to say ‘I told you so’?” she questioned, her voice shaking with a sense of anger and outrage.
He shook his head. “You know, you’re going to have to contact the police.”
“The police?” It was unthinkable, surely, to report her husband to the police?
“Of course you will!” he stated impatiently. “Your precious Luke can’t be allowed to get away with bleeding you dry! I presume that most of it was your money?”
Of course it was. Luke’s “acting” career had dried up around about the time she’d married him. They had lived off the small fortune she had earned as a model. And when she had decided to study for an alternative career, her fees at business school and the fact that neither of them had been earning had eaten into a fair bit of it.
“Yes,” she said dully. “It was mine.”
“Well, surprise, surprise,” he murmured.
And then, with threatened tears making her mouth taste salty, she turned to stare up at the impassive man who stood before her. “Oh, Blake,” she whispered, because he might be forbidding, but at that moment he looked so damned strong. “What the hell am I going to do?”
Chapter 4
“YOU could always go back on the catwalk,” Blake murmured.
But Josephine shook her head. Her days of hanging around the cattle market, of being judged by the length of her legs and the swell of her breast were long gone. “I’m through with modeling.”
Blake’s eyes glittered. “You could always come and work for me.”
“You?” Disbelievingly, Josephine stared at the to-die-for face. “You’d give me a job? Just like that?”
“Well, no, not just like that. Didn’t I hear that you’d gone back to school? That you were planning to make your mark in the world of high finance?”
She wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm she could hear in his voice, but now was hardly the time for nitpicking about his attitude. “But I know virtually nothing about venture capitalism.”
Now the blue eyes gleamed. “Oh, so you remember what I do for a living, do you, Josephine?” he questioned softly.
She remembered a whole lot more besides, but that was a trip down memory lane that she did not intend taking. “Like I said, it’s not something I’m familiar with.”
“Well, it isn’t exactly brain surgery,” he drawled. “And you’re a fast learner, aren’t you?”
Her cheeks flushed as she wondered whether he was referring to the things he had taught her in bed, but she pushed the thought away. “Why?” she whispered. “Why would you go out of your way to help me?”
His mouth curved. Did she think that if she turned those big, green eyes on him, she could twist him around her little finger like she’d done once before, and make him act in a way that was alien to him? Because before Josephine, he’d never had a one-night stand in his life. Never.
“Oh, don’t flatter yourself that it’s because your plight is making my heart bleed for you,” he murmured. “You got yourself into this situation and part of me feels like telling you to get yourself out of it, but—”
“But?”
“Luke may be a worthless airhead,” he mused. “But the fact remains that he happens to be related to me—and his behavior leaves a rather nasty taste in my mouth.”
“And the scandal wouldn’t do your reputation any good, I suppose?”
He gave a cool smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry your head about that. My reputation speaks for itself—and some two-bit marital breakdown wouldn’t affect it. No, I’m in a position to offer you a job, that’s all. I will give you a job, until you decide what you want to do.”
She eyed him warily. “A job doing what?”
He elevated the elegant curve of his eyebrows. “Why, doing what you do best, of course—being decorative.”
Some women might have taken that as a compliment, but not Josephine. Men always took her at face value, and never saw beneath the pretty face, until sometimes even she wondered if she were all superficial glamour, with no real substance beneath. “Decorative in what way?”
His eyes narrowed. Did she think he was going to demand that she use the potent weapon of her sensuality to please him? Lie draped around his office, half-naked, perhaps? He felt the jerk of desire.
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