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SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition by 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, and her books feature 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…
CHANTELLE SHAW lives on the Kent coast and thinks up her stories while walking on the beach. She has been married for over thirty years and has six children. Her love affair with reading and writing Mills & Boon stories began as a teenager, and her first book was published in 2006. She likes strong-willed, slightly unusual characters. Chantelle also loves gardening, walking and wine!
MELANIE MILBURNE read her first Mills & Boon novel at the age of seventeen, in between studying for her final exams. After completing a master’s degree in education, she decided to write a novel, and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and a keen dog-lover and trainer. She enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the HOLT Medallion, a prestigious award honouring outstanding literary talent.
Growing up near the beach, ANNIE WEST spent lots of time observing tall, burnished lifeguards—early research! Now she spends her days fantasising about gorgeous men and their love-lives. Annie has been a reader all her life. She also loves travel, long walks, good company and great food. You can contact her at annie@annie-west.com or via PO Box 1041, Warners Bay, NSW 2282, Australia.
Also by Sharon Kendrick
A Royal Vow of Convenience
Secrets of a Billionaire’s Mistress
The Sheikh’s Bought Wife
The Pregnant Kavakos Bride
The Italian’s Christmas Secret
Bound to the Sicilian’s Bed
Crowned for the Sheikh’s Baby
The Greek’s Bought Bride
The Italian’s Christmas Housekeeper
The Sheikh’s Secret Baby
His Contract Christmas Bride
The Legendary Argentinian Billionaires miniseries
Bought Bride for the Argentinian
The Argentinian’s Baby of Scandal
Also by Chantelle Shaw
Acquired by Her Greek Boss
Hired for Romano’s Pleasure
Wed for His Secret Heir
The Virgin’s Sicilian Protector
Reunited by a Shock Pregnancy
Wed for the Spaniard’s Redemption
The Howard Sisters miniseries
Sheikh’s Forbidden Conquest
A Bride Worth Millions
Bought by the Brazilian miniseries
Mistress of His Revenge
Master of Her Innocence
The Saunderson Legacy miniseries
The Secret He Must Claim
The Throne He Must Take
Also by Melanie Milburne
The Temporary Mrs Marchetti
Wedding Night with Her Enemy
A Ring for the Greek’s Baby
The Tycoon’s Marriage Deal
A Virgin for a Vow
Blackmailed into the Marriage Bed
Tycoon’s Forbidden Cinderella
Bound by a One-Night Vow
Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride
Cinderella’s Scandalous Secret
Billionaire’s Wife on Paper
The Scandal Before the Wedding miniseries
Claimed for the Billionaire’s Convenience
The Venetian One-Night Baby
Also by Annie West
Seducing His Enemy’s Daughter
A Vow to Secure His Legacy
The Flaw in Raffaele’s Revenge
The Desert King’s Secret Heir
The Desert King’s Captive Bride
Contracted for the Petrakis Heir
Inherited for the Royal Bed
Her Forgotten Lover’s Heir
The Greek’s Forbidden Innocent
Passion in Paradise collection
Wedding Night Reunion in Greece
Royal Brides for Desert Brothers miniseries
Sheikh’s Royal Baby Revelation
Demanding His Desert Queen
The Princess Seductions miniseries
His Majesty’s Temporary Bride
The Greek’s Forbidden Princess
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
Modern Romance Collection Books 1-4
Cinderella in the Sicilian’s World
Sharon Kendrick
Proof of Their Forbidden Night
Chantelle Shaw
The Return of Her Billionaire Husband
Melanie Milburne
Revelations of a Secret Princess
Annie West
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-0-008-90686-3
MODERN ROMANCE COLLECTION BOOKS 1-4
Cinderella in the Sicilian’s World © 2020 Sharon Kendrick Proof of Their Forbidden Night © 2020 Chantelle Shaw The Return of Her Billionaire Husband © 2020 Melanie Milburne Revelations of a Secret Princess © 2020 Annie West
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Cover
About the Authors
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Cinderella in the Sicilian’s World
Back Cover Text
Dedication
PROLOGUE
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
Proof of Their Forbidden Night
Back Cover Text
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
EPILOGUE
The Return of Her Billionaire Husband
Back Cover Text
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
Revelations of a Secret Princess
Back Cover Text
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
EPILOGUE
About the Publisher
Cinderella in the Sicilian’s World
Sharon Kendrick
Transformed by his tantalizing touch...
A single look from Salvatore Di Luca. That’s all it took for virgin Lina’s life to change—forever. For one night, she escaped from her ordinary, suffocating life...and found freedom in the Sicilian’s arms!
It defies every rule Salvatore has set himself, but he just can’t resist enchanting Lina. Still, he refuses to let her into his fiercely guarded world. Until he finds their impulsive encounter cost Lina everything... He may never trust her, but if Lina is staying in his luxurious mansion, it will be in his bed!
For my father, Donald Llewelyn Wirdnam, one of life’s truly contented people, whose favourite toast will never be forgotten (and neither will he).
‘Here’s to my wife’s husband!’
PROLOGUE
SALVATORE DI LUCA stared out at the bright blue Sicilian sea and felt his heart twist with something he had spent years trying to avoid. With pain. With regret. And with a bitter awareness that he had never really loved this beautiful island as much as he should have done. But how could he love it when it was bound up with so many bitter memories of the past? A past he had tried many times to escape, sometimes with more success than others.
Because wherever he went, he always took the past with him.
On this island he had possessed nothing and had known hunger. Real hunger. His clothes had been ragged and—when he hadn’t been running through the streets barefoot—his shoes second-hand. It had been a long time since he’d known hunger like that. A long time since he’d wanted for anything. These days he had everything which had once been his heart’s desire. There were properties around the world in addition to his San Franciscan home—a vineyard in Tuscany, a castle in Spain, and, up until very recently, a pied-à-terre in Paris. He had planes and cars and an Icelandic river in which to fish, whenever the whim took him. His property business had long been in the ascendancy and these days he channelled his profits into his charitable foundation, which reached out to children the world over. Dispossessed children. Children who had never been loved. Children just like him.
And there were women. Plenty of those. Beautiful, sophisticated, elegant women. He dated lawyers and bankers. Heiresses and scientists. He was highly sought after as a partner—his skill as a lover, his quick mind and vast personal wealth made sure of that. The only thing he couldn’t provide was love, because that had been removed from his heart a long time ago and that was what inevitably proved to be the death-knell on any relationship, for women craved love even when they had been warned it was never going to be on the cards.
In theory, he should have been perfectly content. Didn’t his friends—and his enemies—think he’d forged for himself the perfect life? And didn’t he allow them to carry on believing that? But occasionally he became aware of an aching emptiness deep at the very core of him, rumbling away in the background, like an incipient thunderstorm on the dark horizon. Sometimes he didn’t think that ache would ever leave him and sometimes he told himself it was better that way.
Because the memories which provoked that pain made him certain of what he did want, but equally important—what he didn’t. And if that knowledge had turned him into someone who was perceived as cold and unfeeling, then so be it. Let people think what they wanted.
It was time to embrace his freedom and drink a toast to it.
Turning away from the blinding glare of the ocean, Salvatore lifted his hand, and summoned over the waiter who had been hovering within his eyeline for the last half-hour.
The funeral was over and the inevitable introspection which followed such an event was also over. It was time to move on.
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHAT THE HELL do you think you’re doing, Nicolina?’
The words sounded sharp. Sharp as the tip of a needle or the sting of a bee. Lina’s throat tightened as she pulled the thin cotton blouse over her head and turned to meet the accusing gaze of the woman who had just entered her bedroom. Not for the first time, she wished her mother would knock before she came barging in, but she guessed that would be like wishing for the stars.
‘I thought I’d go for a drive,’ she said, winding a scrunchie around her thick hair, even though trying to get her black curls to obey her was a daily battle.
‘Dressed like that?’
The word was delivered viciously and Lina wondered what had caused this reaction, because no way could her outfit have offended her mother’s overdeveloped sense of decency. ‘Like what?’ she questioned, genuinely confused.
Her mother’s look of contempt was moving from the modest shirt, down to the perfectly decent pair of handmade denim culottes, which Lina had run up on her old sewing machine only last week, from some leftover fabric she’d managed to find lying around the workshop. According to the pages of one of the online fashion journals, which she devoured whenever she got the chance, they could have done with being at least five inches shorter, but what would have been the point in showing too much flesh? Why make unnecessary waves and have to listen to a constant background noise of criticism, when she spent most of her time trying to block it out?
‘You are supposed to be in mourning!’
Lina felt the urge to protest that the elderly man who had recently died was someone she’d never even met and whose funeral she had only attended because that was what people did in this tiny Sicilian village where she’d lived all her life. But she resisted the desire to say so because she didn’t want a row. Not when she was feeling so flat and so vulnerable, for reasons she didn’t dare analyse.
‘The funeral is over, Mama,’ she said quietly. ‘And even the chief mourner has left.’ For hadn’t Salvatore di Luca—the billionaire godson of the recently deceased—purred away in his car that very morning, leaving Lina staring glumly as the shiny limousine retreated down the mountainside, knowing she would never see him again? And wondering why that should bother her so much.
You know why. Because whenever he looked at you he made you feel alive. Because that was his skill. His special ability. To make women melt whenever he flicked that hooded blue gaze over them.
His occasional visits to her village had been something to look forward to. Like Christmas, or birthdays. Something shining bright in the future, which she would never see again. And somehow that left her feeling like a balloon which had just been popped.
‘Salvatore di Luca!’ Her mother’s voice broke into her thoughts as she spat out his name, with even more contempt than she had displayed towards Lina’s outfit. ‘In the old days he would have stayed for at least a week to pay his respects to the community. But I suppose his fame and fortune are more important than the Sicilian roots he has turned his back on in favour of his new and fancy American life!’
Lina didn’t agree with her mother’s condemnation but there was little point in arguing. Because her mother was always right, wasn’t she? Early widowhood had given her the moral high ground, as well as an increasing bitterness towards the world in general as the years passed by. And with that bitterness had come a highly sophisticated ability to create a feeling of guilt in her only child. To make her feel as if she were somehow responsible for her mother’s woes. And wasn’t that state of affairs becoming increasingly intolerable? Picking up her helmet, Lina made a passable attempt at a smile though she met no answering smile in response. ‘There’s been a lot going on, Mama. I just...need a break.’
‘Oh, that I were twenty-eight years old again! When I was your age I never used to complain about tiredness. I was too busy running this business almost single-handed. You are too young to be taking a break. When I was your age I never stopped,’ her mother mocked. ‘And there’s work for you here.’
Of course there was. There was always work for her here. Lina toiled from dawn to dusk in the family’s small dressmaking business, running up cheap skirts and dresses which would later be sold on one of the island’s many markets, with barely a word of thanks from the woman who had birthed her. But she didn’t really expect any, if the truth be known. Obedience had been drummed into her for as long as she could remember—even before her father had died so young, leaving her to bear the full brunt of her mother’s ire. And Lina had accepted what fate had bequeathed her because that was what village girls like her had always done. They worked hard, they obeyed their parents and behaved respectably and one day they married and produced a family of their own—and so the whole cycle was repeated.
But Lina had never married. She’d not even come close—and not because there hadn’t been the opportunity. She’d caused outrage and consternation in the village by rejecting the couple of suitors who had called for her, with their wilting bunches of flowers and sly eyes, which had strayed lecherously to the over-abundant thrust of her breasts. She had decided she would prefer to be on her own than to sacrifice herself to the unimaginable prospect of sharing a bed with either of those two men. It was a black mark against her of course. For an only child, a failure to produce a clutch of grandchildren would not easily be forgiven. And although Lina didn’t regret either of those two decisions, it sometimes left her with the feeling that she had somehow burnt her boats. That she would remain here for the rest of her days and that this was to be her future.
As her mother slammed her way out of the bedroom, Lina was aware that nothing had really changed in her life since yesterday’s funeral, yet she was aware that something had changed inside her. It had been a busy time—especially for the womenfolk, who had been preparing all the food which had been consumed by the mourners. They had buried Paolo Cardinelli with all the honour and ceremony with which Sicily traditionally regarded the deceased. But now it was over and life went on and Lina had been struck by the realisation that time was stretching out in front of her like an uninspiring road. Suddenly she felt trapped by the towering walls of oppression and expectation and her mother’s endless demands.
And she needed to escape.
She didn’t really have a plan. Her best friend lived in a neighbouring mountain village and often they would meet for a coffee. But their friendship had taken a hit since Rosa’s recent marriage and travelling solo to one of the fancier seaside resorts at the foot of the mountain wouldn’t usually have been on Lina’s agenda. Yet today she felt like breaking a few of her own self-imposed rules. Scrabbling at the back of the wardrobe to locate some of the money she’d stashed away from her ridiculously small wages, she found herself itching for a different experience. For something new.
Pausing only to stuff her swimsuit in the back of her rucksack, she wheeled out her little scooter and accelerated away from the village, the dust from the dry streets billowing up in clouds around her. Past the last straggle of houses on the edge of the village she negotiated the winding bends, and a sudden unexpected sense of freedom lifted her spirits as she sped downwards towards the coast. She could smell the sea before she saw it—a wide ribbon of cobalt glittering brightly in the afternoon sunshine and it smelt delicious.
Breathing in the salty air, she drove towards a beach famous for its natural beauty. It was the kind of place where people spent vast amounts of money to lie beneath fringed umbrellas and have iced drinks brought to them on trays. The kind of place she would usually have dismissed as being too grand and too fancy for someone like her. But today? Her heart pumped as she parked her bike close to the seafront bar. Today she felt different. She felt almost fatalistic.
Lina walked towards the open-air bar, acutely aware of how much she stood out from the rich tourists with their glitzy beach outfits and gold jewellery, but since she would never see any of these people again—did it really matter? She would perch on one of those tall bar stools and enjoy an icy sharp granita and afterwards drive off to her favourite secluded cove and have a swim. Pulling off her helmet and tucking it beneath her arm, she was shaking out her long hair as she picked her way along the sand-covered decking towards the beach bar.