Their marriage was lost...

But then he walked back into her life!

Juliette is determined to forget her short-lived marriage to Italian tycoon Joe Allegranza. It began with an intense passion she’d only ever dreamed of, and ended in heartbreak. Now it’s time to go their separate ways...or is it?

Because reunited at a lavish wedding, Juliette is unable to hide from their desire, or the realization of how little she knew her husband. Drawn together by their connection, she’s torn: rekindling their spark could spell disaster, or it could make them stronger than before...

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.

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

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Return of Her Billionaire Husband

Melanie Milburne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09800-7

THE RETURN OF HER BILLIONAIRE HUSBAND

© 2020 Melanie Milburne

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.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To all the parents who have lost a baby at birth. Your journey through grief is unimaginably painful and long-lasting. My thoughts are with you. xx

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

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

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

THERE WAS A weird kind of irony in arriving as maid of honour for your best friend’s destination wedding with divorce papers in your hand luggage. But the one thing Juliette was determined not to do was spoil Lucy and Damon’s wedding day. Well, not just a wedding day but a wedding weekend. On Corfu.

And her estranged husband was the best man.

Juliette sucked in a prickly breath and tried not to think of the last time she’d stood at an altar next to Joe Allegranza. Tried not to think of the blink-and-you’d-miss-it ceremony in the English village church in front of a handful of witnesses with her pregnancy not quite hidden by her mother’s vintage wedding dress. The dress that scratched and itched the whole time she was wearing it. She tried not to think of the expression of disappointment on her parents’ faces that their only daughter was marrying a virtual stranger after she got pregnant on a one-night stand.

Tried not to think of her baby—the baby girl who didn’t even get to take a single breath...

Juliette stepped down out of the shuttle bus and walked into the foyer of the luxury private villa at Barbati Beach. The scarily efficient wedding planner, Celeste Petrakis, had organised for the wedding party to stay at the villa so the rehearsal and other activities planned would run as smoothly and seamlessly as possible. Juliette had thought about asking to stay at another hotel close by, as she didn’t fancy running into Joe more than was strictly necessary. Socialising politely with her soon-to-be ex-husband over breakfast, lunch and dinner wasn’t exactly in her skill set. But the thought of upsetting the drill sergeant wedding planner’s meticulous arrangements was as intimidating as a cadet saying they weren’t going to march in line on parade. Juliette had even at one point thought of declining the honour of being Lucy’s maid of honour, but that would have made everyone think she wasn’t over Joe.

She most definitely was over him—hence the divorce papers.

‘Welcome.’ The smartly dressed female attendant greeted her with a smile bright enough for an orthodontist’s website homepage. ‘May I have your name, please?’

‘Bancroft...erm... I mean Allegranza.’ Juliette wished now she had got around to officially changing back to her maiden name. Why hadn’t she? She still didn’t understand why she’d taken Joe’s name in the first place. Their marriage hadn’t come about the normal way. No dating, no courtship, no professions of love. No romantic proposal. Just one night of bed-wrecking sex and then goodbye and thanks for the memories. They hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers. By the time she’d worked up the courage to track Joe down and tell him she was pregnant, he had insisted—not proposed, insisted—on marrying her soon after. They’d only lived together as man and wife for a total of three months. Three months of marriage and then it was over—just like her pregnancy.

But once Joe signed the papers and the divorce was finalised she would be free of his name. Free to move on with her life, because being stuck in limbo sucked. How would she ever be able to get through the grieving process without drawing a thick black line through her time with Joe?

She. Had. To. Move. On.

The receptionist click-clacked on the computer keyboard. ‘Here it is. J Allegranza. And the J is for...?’

‘Juliette.’ She wondered if it would be pedantic to insist on being addressed by her maiden name while she was here but decided against saying anything. But why hadn’t Lucy told the wedding planner she and Joe were separated? Or were Lucy and Damon still hoping she and Joe would somehow miraculously get back together?

Not flipping likely. They shouldn’t have been together in the first place.

If her childhood sweetheart, Harvey, hadn’t taken it upon himself to dump her instead of proposing to her, like she’d been expecting, none of this would have happened. Rebound sex with a handsome stranger. Who would have thought she had it in her? She wasn’t the type of girl to talk to staggeringly gorgeous men in swanky London bars. She wasn’t a one-night stand girl. But that night she had turned into someone else. Joe’s touch had turned her into someone else.

Note to self. Do not think about Joe’s touch. Do. Not. Go. There.

There was not going to be a fairy tale ending to their short-lived relationship. How could there be when the only reason for their marriage was now gone?

Dead. Buried. Lying, sleeping for ever, in a tiny white coffin in a graveyard in England.

‘Your suite is ready for you now,’ the receptionist said. ‘Spiros will bring your luggage in from the shuttle.’

‘Thank you.’

The receptionist handed her a swipe key and directed her to the lifts across the hectare of marble floor. ‘Your suite is on the third floor. Celeste, the wedding planner, will meet with the bridal party for drinks on the terrace, to go through the rehearsal and wedding timetable, promptly at six this evening.’

‘Got it.’ Juliette gave a polite movement of her lips, which was about as close to a smile as she got to these days. She took the key, hitched her tote bag over her shoulder and made her way over to the lifts. The divorce papers were poking out of the top of her bag, a reminder of her two-birds-one-stone mission. In seven days, this chapter of her life would finally be over.

And she would never have to think about Joe Allegranza again.

There was only one thing Joe Allegranza hated more than weddings and that was funerals. Oh, and birthdays—his, in particular. But he could hardly turn down being his mate’s best man, even if it meant coming face to face with his estranged wife, Juliette.

His wife...

Hard to believe how those two words still had the power to gouge a hole in his chest—a raw gaping hole that nothing could fill. He couldn’t think of her without feeling he had failed in every way possible. How had he let his life spin out of control so badly? He, who had written the handbook on control.

Mostly, he could block her from his mind. Mostly. He binged on work like some people did on alcohol or food. He had built his global engineering career on his ability to fix structural failures. To forensically analyse broken bridges and buildings, and yet he was unable to do anything to repair his broken marriage. Fifteen months of separation and he hadn’t moved forward with his life. Couldn’t move on with his life. It was as if an invisible wall had sprung up in front of him, keeping him cordoned off, blocked, imprisoned.

He glanced at the wedding ring still on his finger. He could easily have taken it off and locked it in the safe, along with Juliette’s rings that she had left behind.

But he hadn’t.

He wasn’t entirely sure why. Divorce was something he rigorously avoided thinking about. Reconciliation was equally as daunting. He was stuck in no man’s land.

Joe walked into the reception area of the luxury villa where the wedding party were staying and was greeted by a smiling attendant. ‘Welcome. May I have your name, please?’

‘Joe Allegranza.’ He removed his sunglasses and slipped them into his breast pocket. ‘The wedding planner made the booking.’

The reception attendant peered a little closer at the screen, scrolling through the bookings with her computer mouse. ‘Ah, yes, I see it now. I missed it because I thought the booking was only for one person.’ She flashed him a smile so bright he wished he hadn’t taken his sunglasses off. ‘Your wife has already checked in. She arrived an hour ago.’

His wife. A weight pressed down on Joe’s chest and his next breath was razor-edged. His failure could just as easily be substituted for those words. Hadn’t the wedding planner got the memo about his and Juliette’s separation?

The thought slipped through a crack in his mind like a fissure in bedrock, threatening to destabilise his determination to keep his distance.

A weekend sharing a suite with his estranged wife.

For a second or two he considered pointing out the booking error but he let his mind wander first... He could see Juliette again. In private. In person. He would be able to talk to her face to face instead of having her refuse to answer his calls or delete or block his texts or emails. She hadn’t responded to a single missive. Not one. The last time he’d called her to tell her about the fundraising he’d organised for a stillbirth foundation on their behalf, the service provider informed him the number was no longer connected. Meaning Juliette was no longer connected to him.

His conscience woke up and prodded him with a jabbing finger.

What the hell are you thinking? Haven’t you done enough damage?

It was crazy enough coming here for the wedding, much less spend time with Juliette—especially alone. He had ruined her life, just like he had done to his mother. Was there a curse on him when it came to his relationships? A curse that had been placed on him the day he was born. The same day his mother had died. His birthday: his mother’s death day.

If that wasn’t a curse, then what the freaking hell was?

Joe cleared his throat. ‘There must be some mistake. My...er...wife and I are no longer together. We’re...separated.’ He hated saying the ugly word. Hated admitting his failure. Hated knowing it was largely his fault his wife had walked out on their marriage.

The receptionist’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. ‘Oh, no—I mean, that’s terrible about your separation. Also, about the booking, because we don’t have any other rooms and—’

‘It’s fine,’ Joe said, pulling out his phone. ‘I’ll book in somewhere else.’ He began to scroll through the options on his server. There had to be plenty of hotels available. He would sleep on a park bench or on the beach if he had to. No way was he sharing a room with his estranged wife. Too dangerous. Too tempting. Too everything.

‘I don’t think you’ll find too much available,’ the receptionist said. ‘There’s several weddings on this part of Corfu this weekend and, besides, Celeste really wanted everyone to stay close by to give the wedding a family feel. She’ll be gutted to find out she’s made a mistake with your booking. She’s worked so hard to make her cousin’s wedding truly special.’

Joe’s memory snagged on something Damon had told him about his young cousin, Celeste. How this wedding planning gig for her older cousin was her first foray into the workforce after a long battle with some type of blood cancer. Leukaemia? Non-Hodgkin’s? He couldn’t remember which, but he didn’t want to be the one to rain on Celeste’s first parade.

‘Okay, so don’t tell Celeste until I make sure I can’t find accommodation. I’ll do a ring around and see what I find.’

He fixed problems, right? That was his speciality—fixing things that no one else could fix.

And he would fix this or die trying.

Joe stepped back out into the sunshine and spent close to an hour getting more and more frustrated when there was no vacancy anywhere. Beads of sweat poured down the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades. He even for a moment considered making an offer to buy a property rather than face the alternative of sharing a room with his estranged wife. He certainly had enough money to buy whatever he wanted.

Except happiness.

Except peace of mind.

Except life for his baby girl...

His phone was almost out of charge when he finally conceded defeat. There was nothing available close by or within a reasonable radius. Fate or destiny or a seriously manipulative deity had decided Joe was sharing a room with Juliette.

But maybe it was time to do something about his marriage. Keeping his distance hadn’t solved anything. Maybe this was a chance to see if there was anything he could say or do to bring a resolution to their situation. Closure.

Joe walked back into Reception and the young receptionist gave him an I-told-you-so smile. ‘No luck?’ she said.

‘Nope.’ Luck and Joe were not close friends. Never had been. Enemies, more like.

‘Here’s your key.’ The receptionist handed it over the counter. ‘I hope you enjoy your stay.’

‘Thank you.’ Joe took the key and made his way to the lift. Enjoy his stay? Like that was going to happen. He’d been dreading seeing Juliette again, knowing he was largely responsible for her pain, her sorrow, her devastation. But at least this way, in the privacy of ‘their’ suite, he would be able to speak to her without an audience. He would say what needed to be said, work out the way forward—if there was a way forward—and then they could both move on with their lives.

CHAPTER TWO

JULIETTE HAD A refreshing shower and was dressed in a luxurious bathrobe with her hair in a towel turban. The bespoke bathrobe—apparently all the wedding party had them—had her initials embroidered over her right breast—JA. Which was a pity because the bathrobe was absolutely divine and she hated the thought of tossing it in a charity bin. But maybe, once she got home, she could unpick the embroidery and embroider JB instead.

The wedding planner had certainly pulled all the stops out. There were handmade chocolates with the bride and groom’s names on them by the bedside, plus spring water bottles labelled with a photo of the happy couple. It was hard to look at her friend’s blissfully happy smile in that photo and not feel insanely jealous.

Why couldn’t she have found a man to love her like Damon loved Lucy?

Juliette had thought her ex, Harvey, had loved her. How could she have been so blind for so long? Harvey had said the three little words so often and yet they had meant nothing.

She had meant nothing.

And Joe hadn’t loved her either, but at least he hadn’t lied to her about it. Their relationship hadn’t been a love match but a convenient solution to the problem of her accidental pregnancy. A duty marriage. A loveless arrangement to provide a secure home and future for their child. She had known it from the start and still married him because she couldn’t bear to face the disappointment on her parents’ faces. The disappointment she had seen throughout her life—every school report, every exam result, every time she failed to gain their approval. Every time she failed to live up to the standards set by her exceptionally talented, high achieving older brothers. And her parents, with their multiple university degrees. Even her very existence had been a mistake. She was a mid-life baby born to older parents who thought their childrearing days were over. And they were over, so they’d outsourced the rearing of Juliette to a variety of nannies.

Juliette placed her hand on the flat plane of her abdomen, her heart squeezing as she thought of the precious life she had nurtured there for seven months. Her baby might have been an accident but no way would she ever think of Emilia as a mistake. Oh, God, she shouldn’t say her name, even in her head. It brought her so much pain, so much anguish to think of Emilia’s tiny little crinkled face, her tiny wrinkled legs and arms. Little arms that would never reach up to her to hold...

Juliette turned to the task at hand, determined to keep control of her emotions. She was moving on, processing the grief the best way she could. Part of that process was getting through this weekend and handing over the divorce papers to Joe.

She was still deciding which dress to wear to the drinks and rehearsal and had her choices laid out on the bed. The very big bed with cloud-soft pillows and gazillion thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. It was similar to the bed she and Joe had spent that one-night stand in, having off-the-Richter-scale sex.

A night she couldn’t erase from her brain or her body.

She swung away from the bed and snatched up her make-up bag from her open suitcase. She needed armour and not just the cosmetic sort. She needed anger armour. Anger was her friend now. Her constant companion. It simmered and smouldered deep in her chest like lava inside a grumbling volcano. Anger was her way of punching through the blanket of despair that had almost smothered her after losing the baby seven months into the pregnancy. A despair so deep and thick it had taken every particle of light out of her life. Happiness was something other people experienced. Not her. Not now. Not ever. A part of her was missing.

Broken. Shattered.

And all the King’s horses and all the King’s men were not going to be able to put her back together again.

Juliette was on her way to the bathroom off the bedroom to do her make-up when she heard a brisk knock on the door of the suite. Thinking it was a waiter bringing the pot of tea she had ordered a short time ago, she called out, ‘Come in. Just leave it on the table, thanks.’ And went into the bathroom and closed the door.

She heard the suite door open and the rattle of a tea cup and saucer as presumably the tea trolley was wheeled in. Then the door closed again with a firm click.

Should she have given the waiter a tip? Probably not while she was dressed in a bathrobe, even if it was the most deliciously soft fabric she had ever worn against her skin. Not that she had too much spare cash lying around for tips. She refused on principle to touch the obscenely excessive amount of money Joe put in her bank account every month. Guilt money? No. Those were relief funds. His relief. He hadn’t got there in time for the birth, but when he came in half an hour later she hadn’t seen a father grieving for his stillborn baby girl. She had seen relief washing over his features. She had seen a man who was relieved his sham of a marriage now had an excuse to end.

Their baby had died and so had any hope of them remaining together.

They were a mismatch from the start. Hadn’t she always known that on some level? He was suave and sophisticated and super intelligent. A self-made man who answered to no one but himself. His cool aloofness had drawn her like a moth to a dangerously hot flame.

And it had burned her in the end. Even after three months living together as man and wife, he had always kept an emotional distance, which had reinforced every fear she harboured about herself. It mirrored the emotional distance she’d experienced from her parents while she was growing up. The sense she wasn’t enough for them—not clever enough, not pretty enough. She always felt they were holding back, keeping her to one side, compartmentalising her.

Juliette picked up her foundation bottle, took off the lid and released a sigh. Joe had done the same. He had travelled abroad for most of the time they were married, leaving her stranded at his villa in Positano. As far as she could see, he hadn’t made any adjustments to his life by marrying her. He had expected her to do all the adjusting. She had moved countries, left friends and family behind and lived in a large villa with no one for company other than a rotating agency-recruited team of household staff. None of whom stayed long enough for her to learn their names, much less their language.

Juliette picked up her foundation brush and ran her fingers over the soft bristles. Of course, she was always there waiting for Joe when he returned, and she couldn’t fault their physical relationship. It was as exciting and pleasurable as ever but it niggled at her that he seemed to spend more time away than he did at home. What did that say about her? Hadn’t her parents done the same? So many trips abroad, lecture tours, sabbaticals, leaving her languishing and lonely in boarding school.

Juliette applied some foundation to cover the dark shadows that seemed to be permanently under her eyes. There was nothing she could do about the shadows in her eyes—they were also permanent. She put on some eye shadow and then a coat of mascara but she left the lip-gloss for after she had her cup of tea. She unwound the towel from around her head and shook her shoulder-length hair loose. Looking at herself in the mirror, there was no sign she had ever carried a baby to seven months’ gestation. Her weight was back to normal...well, the new normal, because her appetite was hardly what anyone could call enthusiastic these days. Her hair had grown and thickened up again after a lot of it falling out due to hormones and deep emotional stress.

She looked like the same person...but she was not.

Juliette came out of the bathroom and walked into the lounge area and immediately saw the tea trolley next to the table by the window. She heaved a sigh of relief. A proper pot of tea with a silver tea strainer. No musty little tea bags and lukewarm water for this wedding party guest.

Big tick for you, Celeste.

Juliette could smell the bergamot notes of the high-quality Earl Grey in the air...and something else. Something that struck a chord in her memory and made a faint prickling sensation tiptoe across her scalp.

She swung around from the tea tray to see her estranged husband, Joe Allegranza, seated on the sofa behind her. A gasp rose but died in her blocked throat, her hand coming up to her chest to hold her leaping heart in place.

‘What the hell are you doing in my room?’ Her voice was a fishwife screech, her pulse a thud-stop-thud-stop hammering in her temples.

Joe rose from the sofa, his expression as unreadable as one of her father’s astrophysicist research papers. ‘It’s apparently our room.’ His deep baritone with its rich Italian accent made something in her stomach swoop.

Juliette frowned so hard a year’s supply of Botox would have given up in defeat. Two years’ supply. ‘Our room? What do you mean “our” room?’

‘There’s been a mistake with the booking.’

She narrowed her eyes to hairpin slits. ‘A mistake?’ She knew all about mistakes. Wasn’t he her biggest one? She wrapped her arms around her middle, wishing she wasn’t naked under the bathrobe. Wishing she had more armour against the tall, unknowable man in front of her. She needed heels the size of stilts to get anywhere near his six-foot-four height. She needed her head read for even noticing how gorgeous he looked, dressed in dark denim and a sky-blue open-necked shirt that highlighted his olive complexion.

She drank in his features, hating herself for being so weak. The determined jaw, the slash of aristocratic cheekbones, the ink-black eyebrows over hooded eyes the colour of centuries-old coal. The sensual mouth that had wreaked such havoc on her senses from the first time he had smiled at her, let alone kissed her.

But she was not going to think about his kisses. No. No. No.

Nor his earth-shattering, planet-dislodging love-making. No. No. No.

What she had to concentrate on was her anger. Yes. Yes. Yes.

‘Juliette...’ His voice had a note of authority that made her spine stiffen. ‘The way I see it, we have two options here. We either go downstairs and make a fuss and thereby draw a lot of attention to ourselves, or we suck it up and leave things as they are.’

Juliette unwound her arms from around her middle and widened her eyes to the size of the saucer under her bone china teacup. ‘Are you out of your mind? Why can’t we go downstairs and tell Reception they’ve made a monumental error? But wait—isn’t this the wedding planner’s mistake? Celeste Petrakis was the one who organised the accommodation. She’s being paid a ridiculous amount of money to make sure everything runs smoothly. This—’ she pointed her finger between him and herself ‘—is not what I’d call running smoothly.’

A frown drew his eyebrows closer together and he looked down at one of his rolled-up sleeves and flicked off an imaginary piece of lint. The gold glint of his wedding ring on his finger stopped her heart for a moment. He was still wearing his wedding ring? Why? She had left hers at his villa in Positano, but hardly a day went past when her thumb didn’t go in search of them on her finger like a child’s tongue checking the vacant space left by a missing tooth.

His gaze came back to hers—dark, deep, mysterious. ‘Celeste is Damon’s cousin. This is her first job after being sick with blood cancer. It would upset God knows how many relatives of his if we make a big deal about this. Greeks are all about family. Besides, this is Lucy and Damon’s wedding and I don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to our situation.’

Juliette chewed at her lip, knowing there was a lot of truth in what he said. Wedding party guests were meant to be the supportive team, not the main event. And it made sense not to make a fuss, given Celeste’s health issues. She admired the girl for getting back out there, and with such focus and dedication. Juliette hadn’t been able to illustrate another children’s book since she’d lost the baby. Her publisher and editors, and Lucy who co-wrote the books with her, had been incredibly patient but how long would that continue?

‘But what if one of us stayed in another room? Another hotel? There are plenty of hotels further down the—’

‘No.’ There was an intractable tone in his voice. ‘I’ve already spent the best part of an hour trying to find somewhere and drawn a blank. Lucy and Damon wanted the wedding party staying in one place. And there are no other rooms vacant here. So we will have to share.’

Juliette swung away and began pacing the floor, her arms wrapping around her body again. ‘This is ridiculous. I can’t believe this is happening. A weekend of sharing a suite with you? It’s...it’s unthinkable.’

‘You’ve shared much more than a suite with me in the past. Our first night together was spent in a room very much like this one, was it not?’ His coolly delivered statement triggered a firestorm in her body, sending waves of heat coursing through her flesh.

She didn’t want to think about that night and how her body so wantonly, greedily responded to him. How her senses had reeled under the ministrations of his touch. How many women since their breakup had enjoyed the pressure of his mouth, the smooth, hard thrust of his body, the sensual glide of his hands? A hot spear of jealousy drove through her belly, sending pain so deep into her body she only just managed to suppress a gasp.

Juliette sent him a glare hot enough to blister the paint off the walls. ‘How many women have you shared a hotel room with since we separated?’

Something moved across his features like a zephyr across a deep dark body of water. ‘None. We are still technically married, cara.’ His voice had a low and husky quality, his eyes holding hers in a lock that felt faintly disturbing. Disturbing because she found it almost impossible to look away.

She frowned, opening and closing her mouth in an effort to find something to say. None? No lovers since her? What did that mean?

She swallowed and finally found her voice. ‘You’ve been celibate the whole time? For fifteen months?’

His crooked smile made something kick against her heart like a tiny invisible hoof. ‘You find that surprising?’

‘Well, yes, because you’re...’ Her words trailed off and her cheeks grew warm and she shifted her gaze.

‘I’m what?’

Juliette rolled her lips together and glanced at him again. ‘You’re very good at sex and I thought you’d miss it and want to find someone else, many someone elses, after we broke up.’

‘Have you found someone else?’ A line of tension ran from the hinge of his jaw to his mouth.

Juliette gave a choked-off laugh. Her, sleep with someone else? The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. Which was kind of weird, come to think of it. Why hadn’t it? She was supposed to be over him. Wouldn’t being over him mean she would be interested in replacing him? But somehow the thought of it sickened her. ‘No, of course not.’

Joe’s eyes were unwavering on hers. ‘But why not? You’re very good at sex too. Don’t you miss it?’ His deep and husky tone was like dark rich treacle poured over gravel.

It wasn’t just her cheeks that were hot—her whole body was on fire. Flickering flames of reawakened lust smouldering in each of her erogenous zones. Erogenous zones that reacted to his presence as if finely tuned to his body’s radar. Her body recognised him in a thousand and one ways. Even his voice had the power to melt her bones. Her flesh remembered his touch as if it were imprinted in every pore of her skin. Hunger for his touch was a background beat in her blood but every time his gaze met hers it sent her pulse rate soaring.

And she had a feeling he damn well knew it.

Juliette smoothed her suddenly damp palms down the front of her bathrobe, turning away so her back was to him. ‘This is exactly why I don’t want to share a room with you this weekend.’

‘Because you still want me.’ He didn’t say it as a question but as a statement written in stone.

Juliette turned and faced him, anger rising in her like a pressure cooker about to explode. Her body trembled, her blood threatening to burst out of her veins. Should she mention the divorce papers burning a hole in her tote bag? The thought crossed her mind but then she dismissed it. She planned to hand them to him once Lucy and Damon left on Sunday morning for their yachting honeymoon. It would spoil the happy couple’s celebrations if the hideous D word was mentioned.

But Joe had mentioned the other dangerous D word. Desire.

‘You think I can’t resist you?’ Her voice shook with the effort of containing her temper.

His eyes went to her mouth as if he were recalling how she had shamelessly, brazenly pleasured him in the past. His gaze came back to hers and something deep and low in her belly rolled over. ‘I don’t want to fight with you, cara.’

‘What do you want to do then?’ Juliette should never have asked such a loaded question, for she saw the answer in the dark gleam of his chocolate-brown eyes.

Joe closed the distance between them in a number of slowly measured strides but she didn’t move away. She couldn’t seem to get her legs to work, couldn’t get her willpower back on duty, couldn’t think of a single reason why she shouldn’t just stand there and enjoy the exquisite anticipation of him being close enough for her to touch.

He lifted his hand to her face and skated his index finger down the curve of her cheek from just below her ear to the bottom of her chin. It was the lightest touch, barely there, but every cell in her body jolted awake like a dead heart under defibrillator paddles. Every drop of blood in her veins put on their running shoes. Every atom of her willpower dissolved like an aspirin in water. She could smell the lime notes of his aftershave cologne. She could see the sexy shadow of his regrowth peppered along his chiselled jaw and she had to curl her hands into fists to stop from touching it. She could see the lines and contours of his sculptured mouth, could remember how it felt crushed to her own.

Oh, dear God, his mouth was her kryptonite.

‘Take a wild guess what I want to do.’ His voice was rough, his eyes hooded, the air suddenly charged with erotic possibilities.

Juliette could feel her body swaying towards him as if someone was gently but inexorably pushing her from behind. Her hands were no longer balled into fists by her sides but planted on the hard wall of his chest, her lower body pulsing with lust-heated blood.

His hands settled on her hips, the warmth of his broad fingers seeping into her flesh with the potency of a powerful drug. His black-as-night gaze went to her mouth and she couldn’t stop from moistening her lips with the darting tip of her tongue.

He drew in a sharp breath as if her action had triggered something in him, something feral, something primal. He brought her even closer, flush against his pelvis, and her traitorously needy body met the hard jut of his.

His mouth came down to within millimetres of hers, his eyes sexily hooded. ‘This was never the problem between us, was it, cara?’ His warm hint of mint breath caressed her lips and her willpower threw its hands up in defeat and walked off the job.

Juliette’s heart was beating so fast she thought she was having some sort of medical event. ‘Don’t do this, Joe...’ Her voice didn’t come out with anywhere near the stridency she’d intended.

He nudged her nose with his—a gentle bump of flesh meeting flesh that sent a wave of longing through her body. ‘What am I doing, hmm?’ His lips touched the side of her mouth, not a kiss but so close to it her lips tingled all over. He brushed her cheek with his mouth and the graze of his stubble made something hot and liquid spill deep and low in her core.

Juliette’s lips parted, her lashes lowered, her mouth moved closer to his but then a stop sign came up in her head. What was she doing? Practically begging him to kiss her as if she was some love-struck teenager experiencing her first crush? She drew in a sharp breath and stepped back, glaring at him.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Nothing like a bit of projection to take the focus off her own weakness.

His cool composure was an added insult to the tumultuous emotions coursing through her body. ‘I would only have kissed you if you’d wanted it. And you did, didn’t you, tesoro?’

Juliette wanted to slap his face. She wanted to claw her fingernails down his cheeks. She wanted to kick him in the shins until his bones shattered. But instead her eyes filled with stinging tears, her chest feeling as if it were being squeezed in a studded vice. ‘I h-hate you.’ Her voice cracked over a lump clogging her throat. ‘Do you have any idea how much?’

‘Maybe that’s a good thing.’ His expression went back to his signature masklike state. Unreadable. Unreachable. Invincible.

Why wasn’t she shrugging off his hold? Why wasn’t she putting distance between their bodies? Why was she feeling as if this was where she belonged—in the warm protective shelter of his arms? Juliette slowly eased back to look up at his face, her emotions so ambushed she couldn’t find her anger. Where was her anger? She needed her anger. She couldn’t survive without it pounding through her blood. She blinked back the tears, determined not to cry in front of him.

‘I don’t know how to handle this...situation...’ She swallowed and aimed her gaze at his shirt collar. ‘I don’t want to ruin Lucy and Damon’s wedding but sharing this suite with you is...’ She bit her lip, unable to put her fears into words. Unwilling to voice them out loud, even to herself.

Joe inched up her chin with his finger, meshing his gaze with hers. ‘What if I promise not to kiss you. That will reassure you, sì?’

No! I want you to kiss me.

Juliette was shocked at herself. Shocked and shamed by her unruly desires. She stepped out of his hold and wrapped her arms around her body before she was tempted to betray herself any further.

‘Okay. That’s sounds like a sensible plan. Let’s decide on some ground rules.’ She was proud of the evenness of her tone. Proud she had got her willpower back into line. ‘No kissing. No touching.’

Joe gave a slow nod. ‘I’m fine with that.’ He walked over to the sofa and sat down, hooking one ankle over his muscular thigh.

He was fine with that?

Everything that was female in Juliette was perversely offended by his easy acceptance of her rules. Surely he could have put up a little bit of resistance? But maybe he had someone else he wanted to kiss and touch and make love to now. Maybe he was tired of being celibate and was ready to move on with his life. It had been fifteen months after all. It was a long time for a man in his sexual prime to be without a lover. A tight pain gripped her in her chest and travelled down to tie tight knots in her stomach. Cruel twisting knots that made it hard for her to breathe. If she didn’t pull herself into line, her grey-blue eyes would turn green. She had no right to be jealous. She had left their marriage. She had divorce papers in her bag, for pity’s sake.

‘Good.’ Juliette’s tone was so clipped it could have snipped through tin. ‘But of course, that leaves the tricky problem of what to say to Lucy and Damon when they realise we’re sharing a suite.’ She walked over to the bar fridge and took out a bottle of water, unscrewing the cap and pouring it into a glass. She picked up the glass and turned to face him. ‘Any brilliant suggestions?’

Joe’s expression was still inscrutable but she could sense an inner guardedness. His posture was almost too casual, too relaxed, too calm and collected. ‘We could say we’re trying for a reconciliation.’

Juliette took a sip of water before she gave in to the temptation to throw it in his face. She put the glass down on the counter with a clunk. ‘A reconciliation? For a marriage that shouldn’t have come about in the first place?’

A knot of tension appeared beside his mouth, his eyes locked on hers in an unblinking hold. ‘I wasn’t the one who left our marriage.’

Juliette stalked over to the windows overlooking the white crescent of the sand and the turquoise water of the beach below. She took a shuddering breath. ‘No, because you weren’t fully in it in the first place.’

The silence was so long it was as if time had come to a standstill.

She heard the rustle of his clothes as he rose from the sofa. Counted his footsteps as he approached her but she didn’t turn around. He came to stand beside her, his gaze focused like hers on the beach below.

After a long moment, he turned his head to look at her, the line of his mouth bitter. ‘If you were to be truthful, Juliette, you weren’t fully in it either. You were still getting over your ex. That’s why we hooked up in the first place, because you couldn’t bear to spend the night he got married to one of your so-called friends, on your own.’

Juliette wished she could deny it but every word he said was true. She had been shattered by Harvey’s betrayal. They had been dating since their teens. His affair with Clara had been going on for months and Juliette hadn’t had a clue. The night she’d thought Harvey was going to propose to her, he’d told her he was leaving her. Harvey Atkinson-Lloyd, her parents’ choice of the perfect son-in-law for their only daughter. The daughter who, unlike their high-achieving sons Mark and Jonathon, had failed to do anything much else to win their approval.

Juliette ground down on her molars, torn between anger at Joe for pointing out her stupidity and anger at herself for making a bad situation worse by falling into bed with him that night.

She turned to face him, chin high, eyes blazing. ‘So, what’s your excuse for hooking up with me that night? Or do you regularly sleep with perfect strangers when you’re working in London?’

An emotion flickered across his face like an interruption in a transmission. A pause. A regroup. A reset. ‘It was the anniversary of my mother’s death.’ His tone was flat, almost toneless, but there was a stray note of sadness under the surface.

Juliette looked at him blankly. ‘But I don’t understand... I thought you told me your mother had emigrated to Australia. Wasn’t that the reason she wasn’t able to come to our wedding?’

‘She’s my stepmother. Both of my parents are dead.’

Had she misheard him back when they were together? She tried to think back to the conversation but couldn’t recall it in any detail. She knew his father had died a few years back but he had barely mentioned his mother. She’d got the sense it was a no-go area for him, so she hadn’t delved any further.

They hadn’t done much talking about each other’s family backgrounds, mostly because he was away such a lot. Their brief passionate reunions when he came home between trips were physical catch-ups, not emotional ones. She had wanted more than physical intimacy but hadn’t known how to reach him. Every attempt to get closer to him had failed, with him leaving for yet another work commitment. It was as if he sensed her need for emotional connection and found it deeply threatening. But, to be fair, she too had been pretty sketchy with her own issues to do with her background, not wanting him to know how out of place she felt in her academically brilliant family.

‘I’m sorry...’ she said, frowning. ‘I mustn’t have heard you correctly when you told me that when we were living together.’

His lips moved in a grimace-like smile that didn’t involve his eyes. ‘My father remarried when I was a child. But when he died ten years ago, my stepmother and two half-siblings emigrated to Melbourne, where she has relatives.’

‘Do you have much contact with them? Phone? Email? Birthdays—that sort of thing?’

‘I do what is required.’

Juliette was starting to realise she didn’t know very much about the man she had married in such haste. Why hadn’t she tried a little harder to get him to open up? Her shock pregnancy had thrown her into a tailspin. And when she’d finally worked up the courage to call him and tell him, he had flown straight to her flat in London with a wedding proposal. A proposal she had felt compelled to accept in order to mitigate some of the shame she had caused her parents in getting herself ‘knocked up’ after a one-night stand.

She looked at him again, wondering how she could have been so physically close to someone without knowing anything about him. ‘How old were you when your mother died?’

Joe glanced at his watch and muttered a soft curse. ‘Isn’t there a drinks thing soon?’

‘Shoot.’ Juliette gave a much milder version of his curse. ‘I’m not dressed and I haven’t done my hair.’

He picked up a tendril of her mid-brown hair, trailing it gently through his fingers. ‘It looks beautiful the way it is.’ The pitch of his voice lowered and his eyes were a bottomless black.

Juliette swallowed and tried hard not to look at his mouth. ‘Ahem. You’re touching me. Remember the rules?’

He released her hair and stepped back from her with a mercurial smile. ‘How could I forget?’

CHAPTER THREE

JOE DROVE A hand through his own hair once Juliette had retreated to the bathroom. No touching. No kissing. Sure, he could abide by the rules. But he hadn’t realised it would be as difficult as this. It had been hard enough trying to erase the memory of her touch when he was living thousands of kilometres away. But sharing a suite with her this weekend was going to test his resolve in ways he wasn’t prepared for.

He hadn’t expected the chemistry to still be there. He hadn’t expected the hot, tight ache of desire to grip him so brutally. He hadn’t expected to feel anything other than guilt about how things had panned out between them. The guilt was still there, spreading cruel tentacles around his intestines like a poisonous strangling vine. Tentacles that crawled up into his chest and wrapped around his heart and squeezed, squeezed, squeezed like a savage fist.

Truth was, he’d been almost relieved when she hadn’t answered his texts and emails. It meant he didn’t have to face the train wreck he’d caused. The further along her pregnancy went, the longer he’d stayed away on business. Business others under his employ could have easily seen to. But no, he had wanted—needed—to throw himself into the distraction of work, because watching Juliette growing with his child had secretly terrified him. What if she died during childbirth? What if, like his mother, she had a complication and no one could save her?

Had he caused the loss of their baby by not being there? Had his absence caused Juliette unnecessary stress? Hindsight was all very well, but he had thought he was doing the right thing at the time. They weren’t in a love relationship. They had married for the sake of the baby and Juliette had seemed okay with that arrangement. Providing stability and security had been his focus.

His focus since their separation had been channelling his efforts into fundraising for a stillbirth research foundation. It had been his way of dealing with his own grief. He considered it far more productive than falling into a heap like his father had done. Joe wanted the money raised to help others, to prevent others from experiencing the devastation of losing a child at birth. Research was expensive and counselling services were always seriously underfunded. But that was changing as a result of his efforts. His own regular large donations along with the fundraising programme he had orchestrated would hopefully reduce the number of stillbirths across the globe.

Joe changed into his fresh clothes and unpacked the rest from his small travel bag and hung them in the wardrobe next to hers. He touched the silk sleeve of one of her tops, lifting it to his nose to smell the lingering scent of her signature perfume. For months after she’d left, he couldn’t go into the bedroom they had shared. He’d got his housekeeper to move his things into another room. A room without memories and triggers.

He slid the door closed on the wardrobe, wishing he could lock away his desire as easily. He’d wanted to kiss her. No doubt about that. His lips still burned with the need to feel the soft press of hers. Joe knew he was wrong for Juliette. He was relationship poison. He couldn’t seem to help destroying those he cared about. But seeing her again made him realise there was unfinished business between them. Was that why he hadn’t made more of a fuss about the booking mix-up? Yes, he’d been concerned about upsetting Damon’s young cousin, Celeste, but he might have found some way to resolve the situation even if he had to stay on the other side of the island. And, truth be told, he could have refused the invitation to be Damon’s best man in the first place and no one would have blamed him.

But he hadn’t because on some level, be it conscious or subconscious, he wanted to be here for the weekend on Corfu with Juliette. On neutral ground. Somewhere where there were no triggers and tripwires to the heartbreak of their past. It suited him to be in close proximity to her, to reassure himself he hadn’t totally destroyed her as well as their relationship.

A relationship that might have had a better chance if their baby had lived.

A tight ache spread through his chest when he thought of that lifeless little body. His baby girl with her little wizened pixie face, her tiny feet and hands, her permanently closed eyes.

Was there some sort of curse surrounding him and birth? His own birth had brought about his mother’s death. His birthday—the day in the year he dreaded more than any other—was the anniversary of his mother’s death. The very same day he had met Juliette in that London bar that had changed both their lives for ever.

The bathroom door opened and Juliette came out with her hair fashioned in a stylish knot on top of her head. ‘Bathroom’s all yours,’ she said, avoiding his gaze.

Joe swept his gaze over her candy-pink calf-length dress with its waist cinched in with a patent leather belt and her matching high heels that showcased her slender ankles. He had never met anyone who could look so effortlessly elegant. Whether she was wearing track pants and a sweatshirt or designer wear, she always took his breath away. And when she was naked he forgot to breathe at all. ‘You look stunning.’

Her creamy cheeks pooled with colour. ‘Thank you.’ Her gaze flicked away from his and she moved past him to get to the wardrobe. ‘I’ll just get my evening purse.’

Joe had to clench his hands into fists to stop himself touching her. The suite wasn’t large enough to keep a safe distance. It needed to be the size of a small nation for that. The suite was mostly open-plan with a king-sized bed dominating the bedroom area, with no door between that and the lounge area. No more than a metre or two from the bed was a sofa and single armchair and coffee table and there were minibar facilities near the windows to maximise the view over Barbati Beach. The en suite bathroom was luxuriously appointed but was hardly what anyone would call spacious. For a honeymoon, it would be ideal.

But they weren’t on a honeymoon.

Juliette opened the wardrobe and took her purse from one of the shelf compartments. He watched as her eyes went to his clothes hanging next to hers. Saw her teeth sink into her bottom lip and a small frown pull at her forehead.

‘Is that against the rules?’ Joe asked, leaning against the wall near her. ‘To have our clothes touching?’

She stiffened and then shut the wardrobe with a little more force than was necessary. Her cheeks were a fiery red, her grey-blue eyes reminding him of a storm-tossed sea. ‘We wouldn’t need rules if you would stop looking at me like that.’

‘How am I looking at you?’

She pursed her lips and put her chin up at a haughty height. ‘Like you want to touch me.’

‘I do want to touch you but the rules are the rules.’ Joe wanted to touch her so badly it was all he could do to keep his hands under control.

She swallowed and her blush deepened. She dropped her evening purse on the bed and adjusted the belt around her dress. ‘I should never have slept with you in the first place. It was totally out of character for me to do something like that.’

‘I know it was,’ Joe said, pushing himself away from the wall to approach her. ‘That’s why that night was so memorable.’

She frowned. ‘Are you saying...you found it special?’

He gave a crooked smile and, before he could stop himself, he stroked a lazy finger down the curve of her cheek. ‘I’d never met someone like you before.’

‘Because I wasn’t madly in love with you like most women are?’ Her eyes glittered with sparks of cynicism.

He traced the outline of her lush mouth, knowing he was breaking the rules but unable to resist the temptation. ‘You weren’t interested in my money or my status. You just wanted to be distracted from a bad day, just like I wanted to be.’

Her tongue swept over her lips and she gave another audible swallow. ‘Joe, we’re going to be late for the drinks thing.’

Right now, Joe didn’t care if they never made it to their friends’ wedding. Being with Juliette—breathing in her scent, feeling the softness of her lips under his fingertip—made his blood pound with longing. A slow drag began pulling at his groin—a primal need he had shut down, ignored, blocked out with work, pulsed to vibrant and undeniable life. He slid his hand to the nape of her neck, meshing his gaze with hers. ‘Why aren’t you telling me to stop touching you?’

She gave a shuddery breath and her gaze dipped to his mouth. ‘I—I don’t know...’ Her voice was whisper-soft.

He brought up her chin with his finger and locked her gaze with his. ‘I’ll tell you why, cara. Because deep down you want to be touched by me. You think a bunch of silly rules is going to damp down the explosive chemistry we still share?’ It certainly wasn’t damping down his. Not one little bit. He could feel the electric energy passing between them like a hot fizzing current. He could see it reflected in her eyes—the flicker of her eyelashes, the dart of her gaze to his mouth, the quick sweep of her tongue over her lips.

But then her gaze hardened and she placed her hand around his wrist and pulled it away from her face, shooting him a laser-like glare. ‘There is no chemistry. I don’t feel a thing where you’re concerned. Not a damn thing.’

He captured her hand and tugged her close against his body. ‘Want to put that to the test? One kiss. Let’s see what happens.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Her expression was scathing but her tone contained a trace of something else. Something that sounded very much like a dare.

Oh, he dared all right.

Joe breathed in the achingly familiar scent of her, brought his mouth as close to hers as he could without actually touching her lips. ‘Just one little kiss.’

‘You think I won’t be able to help myself, like the night we met? But I can and I will.’

‘Prove it.’

Her eyes went to his mouth. ‘I don’t need to prove anything to you.’

‘Prove it to yourself then.’

She wavered for a moment, her eyes going to his mouth and back to his eyes. Then her eyes glazed over with chilly determination. ‘Okay. I’ll show you how immune I am to you.’ She rose on tiptoe and planted a brief chaste kiss on his lips. She lowered her heels back to the floor and gave him an arch look. ‘See? No fireworks.’

Joe gave a soft chuckle and released her. ‘Probably just as well. I don’t think anyone, least of all Damon and Lucy, are going to believe we’ve reconciled.’

A frown pulled at her brow. ‘You’re not going to...?’ She clamped her mouth shut and turned away to reach for her purse on the bed. ‘So, what are we going to tell them?’ Her back was turned towards him, her hands fiddling with the clasp on her purse but he could see the tension in her slim back and shoulders as if she was bracing herself for his answer.

‘We’ll tell them the truth.’

She swung back round to face him, her expression wary. ‘The truth?’

‘That we’re mature adults who are in the process of an amicable separation. Sharing a room for a couple of nights will not be a problem for us.’

Her brows rose. ‘Amicable? Not a problem? Funny, but I don’t see it quite that way.’

‘Think about it, Juliette,’ Joe said. ‘We could go out there and pretend to be back together and then you’d have to allow me to touch you. Otherwise no one is going to buy it. I’d have to hold your hand, slip my arm around your waist, kiss you. You’d have to lie to your best friend. Is that what you want?’

Her small neat chin came up and her grey-blue eyes pulsated with anger. ‘I want this weekend to be over. That’s what I want.’

‘Yeah, well, I want that too.’

Then maybe he could move on with his life.

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