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Her Secret Pregnancy
Sharon Kendrick


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 100th book! Many of these books are available as e books for the first time.From rivals…to parents!Being fired after a one-night stand with her boss wasn’t exactly a highlight for chambermaid Donna King, but that was ten years ago. Now Donna is back and she’s determined to prove that she’s efficient, capable and completely over Marcus Foreman.Only Donna’s elusiveness seems to spur Marcus on, but not as much as her dismissal of their night together as less than satisfactory! Now Marcus seems determined to prove that what they had – what they have – is nothing short of incredible.Their night together is mind-blowing, but not as shocking as the consequences!









“I want to make love to you.”


Her mouth fell open. “Marcus!”

He shook his head. "You should never have come back if you didn’t want this to happen,” he told her softly. "Nine years ago we blew everything—and I want the chance to put it right.”

“Oh. I see. Was I the one lover who didn’t give you full marks for performance? Is that what this is all about?”

“No. It’s about getting rid of a desire that isn’t going to go away. Look me in the eye, Donna, and tell me truthfully that you don’t want me just as badly. Do that and I’ll go away and leave you alone.”

She couldn’t.

He whispered, “Give in to what you really want to do. Kiss me.”








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

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

Our next arrival will be

The Mistress Deal

by

Sandra Field


Dear Reader (#u1f6d23b2-7e7a-57a7-a7c5-9125799bd923),

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100


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…


Her Secret Pregnancy

Sharon Kendrick






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To Judy and Rob Hutson

with thanks for their vision and imagination.




CONTENTS


Cover (#ub9beca07-b3ac-5d4a-a0f9-623ace02d64f)

Extract (#u6bd78ba2-f5a7-5a0c-9dfd-9f4c5a35f0b6)

Dear Reader (#ue8e3dccf-be73-58f3-a38b-26aa048f333a)

About the Author (#u00ff78e4-43ed-5311-b82b-f679f60739cf)

Title Page (#u6c6eb9c1-62e3-50f2-a333-b4899d3d494c)

Dedication (#u0bdce945-26c2-50c4-bce6-ff8854173288)

CHAPTER ONE (#uacbce56a-0e1b-57d3-8093-b90cc330e122)

CHAPTER TWO (#u0a686c10-4dea-5cc8-a411-db7599b5f341)

CHAPTER THREE (#u319d8614-4b47-5a36-8cf1-30d8344156f6)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE (#u1f6d23b2-7e7a-57a7-a7c5-9125799bd923)


THE lawyer was slick and smooth and handsome—with the most immaculately manicured hands that Donna had ever seen.

‘Okay, Donna, if you’d like to sign just there.’ He jabbed a near-perfect fingernail onto the contract. ‘See? Right there.’

Donna was tempted to giggle. ‘You mean where your secretary has helpfully drawn a little cross?’

‘Ah, yes. Sorry,’ he amended quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to patronise you.’

The tension of the last few weeks dissolved. ‘Don’t worry. You weren’t.’ She signed her name with a flourish. ‘I’m just glad it’s all over.’

Tony Paxman did not look as though he echoed her sentiments. ‘I shall miss seeing you!’ he sighed. ‘Still, the premises are yours and you’ve got your liquour licence. Now it’s over to you. Congratulations, Donna!’ He held his hand out. ‘And I wish you every success for the future!’

‘Thank you,’ said Donna, hoping she didn’t sound smug. Or triumphant. Because she knew she should be neither. She was just lucky—though some people said there was no such thing, that you made your own luck in life.

She picked up her cream silk jacket and gave Tony Paxman a grateful smile. He had guided her through all the paperwork concerning the purchase with the care of a soldier negotiating a treacherous minefield. Most importantly of all, he’d kept the whole deal quiet. She owed him. ‘Would you like to have lunch with me, to celebrate?’

Tony blinked with the kind of surprise which suggested that a lunch invitation from Donna King had been the very last thing in the world he had been expecting. ‘Lunch?’ he said weakly.

Donna raised her eyebrows at him. She wasn’t proposing an illicit weekend in Paris! ‘Or have I broken some kind of unwritten law by inviting you?’

He shook his head hastily. ‘Oh, no, no, no! I often have lunch with my clients—’

‘That’s what I thought.’ She glanced down at her watch. ‘Shall we say one o’clock? In The New Hampshire?’

‘The New Hampshire?’ Tony Paxman gave a regretful smile. ‘Marcus Foreman’s place? I’d absolutely love to—but we won’t get a table today. Not at such short notice, I’m afraid. Not a chance in hell.’

‘I know that.’ Donna smiled. ‘Which is why I took the precaution of making a reservation weeks ago.’

He frowned. ‘You were so sure we’d wrap up the deal?’

‘Pretty much. I knew that the court hearing to get my licence was today. And I didn’t foresee any problems.’

‘You know, you’re a very confident woman, Donna King,’ he told her softly. ‘As well as being an extremely beautiful one.’

Time to gently destroy his embryo fantasies. It was just a pity that some men saw a simple gesture of friendship as an invitation to form some deep and meaningful relationship.

‘Please don’t get the wrong idea, Tony,’ she told him softly. ‘This is purely a business lunch—a way of me thanking you for all your hard work. That’s all. Nothing more.’

‘Right.’ He began to move papers around on his desk with a sudden urgency. ‘Then I’ll see you in The New Hampshire at one o’clock, shall I?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Donna. She reached for her bag and rose to her feet, the high heels of her brown suede shoes making her look much taller than usual. ‘I shall look forward to it.’

‘Me, too,’ he said wistfully.

Outside the lawyer’s office, Donna sucked in the crisp April air, scarcely able to believe she was back in the city she loved. Her visits over the last few weeks had been secretive, but there was no need for secrecy any longer. She was here—and here to stay.

It was a perfect day. Blue sky. Golden sun. The white waxy petals of a magnolia shining out like stars. A grey stone church whose spire looked like the sharpened tip of a pencil. Perfect. And the cherry on top of the cake was that she had swung the deal.

People had said that she was crazy to open up a tea-room in a city like Winchester, which was already bursting to the seams with places to eat. And they’d had a point. But most of those places were indifferent, and most were owned by large, faceless chains. Only one stood out from the crowd. And it belonged to Marcus Foreman.

Donna swallowed down excitement and nerves and something else, too. Something she hadn’t felt in so long she had thought she’d never feel it again. A lost, forgotten feeling. But it was there, potent and tugging and insistent just at the thought that very soon she would see Marcus again. Excitement.

And not the kind of excitement you got the night before you went on holiday, either. This was the kind that made the tips of your breasts prickle and your limbs grow weak.

‘Oh, damn!’ she said aloud. ‘Damn and damn and damn!’ And, turning her collar up against the sudden, sharp reminder that the breeze which blew in springtime had an icy bite to it, Donna set off down the street to window-shop until lunchtime.

She walked slowly around the shops, only half seeing the clothes in the expensive boutiques which studded the city like diamonds in an eternity band. Exquisite clothes in natural fibres of silk and cotton and cashmere. Clothes which would normally tempt her into looking, even if she couldn’t always afford to buy.

But today was not a normal day. And not just because it wasn’t every day that you ploughed your savings into buying a business which several people had predicted would fail from the start.

No, today was different, because as well as going forward—Donna would be going back. Back to the place where she’d met Marcus and learned about love and loss—and a whole lot more besides.

It was just past one when she sauntered her way into the reception area of The New Hampshire, hoping that she looked more confident than she felt. Behind the smooth, pale mask of her carefully made-up face, she could feel the unfamiliar thumping of nerves as she looked around her.

The place had changed out of all recognition. When Donna had worked there it had been during the chintz era, when everything had been tucked and swagged and covered with tiny sprigs of flowers.

But Marcus had clearly moved with the times. The carpet had disappeared and so had the chintz. Now there were bare, beautifully polished wood floorboards and simple curtains at the vast windows. The furniture had been kept to a minimum, and it looked simple and comfortable rather than in-your-face opulent. Definitely no overstuffed sofas!

Donna remembered how overwhelmed she’d felt the very first time she’d walked in through those doors. It had been like entering another world. But she’d been just eighteen then—nine years and a lifetime ago.

She walked up to the reception desk on which sat a giant glass bowl containing scented flowers. The fleshy white lips of the lilies were gaping open, surrounded by spiky green foliage which looked like swords. It was an exquisite and sexy arrangement, but then Marcus had always had exquisite taste.

The receptionist looked up. ‘Can I help you, madam?’

‘Yes, hello—I have a table booked for lunch,’ smiled Donna.

‘Your name, please?’

‘It’s King. Donna King.’ Her voice sounded unnaturally loud, and she half expected Marcus to jump out of the shadows to bar her way. ‘And I’m meeting a Mr Tony Paxman.’

The receptionist was running her eyes down a list, and ticked off Donna’s name before she looked up again.

‘Ah, yes. Mr Paxman has already arrived.’ She gave Donna a look of polite enquiry. ‘Have you ever eaten at The New Hampshire before?’

Donna shook her head. ‘No.’

She’d made beds and cleaned out baths and sinks in the rooms upstairs, and had worked her way through some of the more delicious leftovers which had found their way back to the kitchen. And just once she’d eaten with the rest of the staff in the private function room upstairs, when Marcus had been jubilantly celebrating a glowing newspaper review.

Donna swallowed down that particular memory. But she’d certainly never eaten a full meal in the fabulous restaurant.

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Then I’ll get someone to show you to your table.’

Donna followed one of the waiters, determined not to feel intimidated, telling herself that she’d worked and eaten in places just like this all over the world.

Yet her heart was still racing with anticipation that she might see him, and she wondered why.

Because she was over Marcus.

She had been for years.

The restaurant was already almost full and Tony Paxman rose to his feet as she approached. ‘I was beginning to think you’d stood me up!’

‘Oh, ye of little faith!’ she joked, smiling up at the waiter, who was hovering attentively. ‘Some house champagne, please. We’re celebrating!’

‘Certainly, madam.’

Tony Paxman waited until he was on his second glass before remarking obscurely, ‘Let’s hope you’ll still have something to celebrate six months down the line.’

The bubbles inside her mouth burst. ‘Meaning?’

He shrugged. ‘Just that Marcus Foreman won’t exactly be overjoyed when he finds out that you’re opening up a new restaurant in the same town.’

‘Oh?’ Donna slid a green olive into her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. ‘Everyone knows he has an awesome reputation in the catering industry—surely he’s man enough to take a little honest competition?’

‘I should imagine he’s man enough for most things,’remarked Tony Paxman drily. ‘Just maybe not in the very same street.’

Donna placed the olive stone in a small dish in front of her. ‘Anyway, I’m hardly going to be a serious rival, am I? Think about it—his hotel only serves afternoon tea to its residents.’

‘True. But what if they start coming to you instead?’

Donna shrugged. ‘It’s a free country, and there is always room for excellence.’ She gave a huge smile as she lifted her glass in a toast. ‘So may the best man win!’

‘Or woman?’ Tony murmured.

Donna looked down the menu, spoilt for choice. ‘Let’s order, shall we? I’m starving!’

‘Sounds good. Then you can tell me your life story.’ He frowned. ‘You know, your hair is the most amazing golden-red colour. I bet you used to dress up as a princess when you were a little girl!’

‘No, I was the one with the long face, wearing rags!’ Donna joked, though it wasn’t really a joke at all.

She’d experienced just about every emotion it was possible to feel about her itinerant childhood with a loving but ultimately foolish mother. At her knee she had learnt the arts of exaggeration and evasion, and had then learnt that they were just different words for lying. And lies could grow bigger and bigger, until they swamped you like a wave and dragged you under with them.

She smiled at Tony Paxman. ‘Let’s talk about you instead. And then you can tell me all about Winchester.’

He began to talk, and Donna tried very hard to enjoy the meal and his company. To make witty small-talk as adults always did. Pleasant chatter that didn’t mean a thing.

But she was too distracted by her surroundings to be able to concentrate very much. Even on the food. Weird. She hadn’t banked on Marcus still being able to affect her desire to eat.

He’d always employed the most talented chefs—even in the early days, when he hadn’t been able to afford to pay them very much. And it seemed that his standards hadn’t slipped. Not by a fraction. Donna gazed at a perfect pyramid of chocolate mousse which sat in a puddle of banana sauce.

Maybe she was completely mad to set herself up in some sort of competition with a man who had always been regarded within the industry as having both flair and foresight.

‘Donna,’ said Tony suddenly.

She pushed the pudding plate away from her and looked up. ‘Mmm?’

‘Why did you ask me to have lunch with you today?’ He swallowed a mouthful of wine and refilled his glass, then began answering his own question without appearing to notice he was doing it. ‘Because it sure as hell wasn’t because you wanted to take our relationship any further.’

She stared at him in confusion. ‘But I told you that back in the office.’

‘I guess you did.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe I hoped I could change your mind.’

‘Sorry,’ she said softly, and sat back in her chair to look at him. ‘The lunch is to say thank you.’

‘For?’

‘For tying up the deal without complications and for keeping it secret.’

‘Ah, yes.’ He sipped his drink and watched her. ‘I meant to ask you about that. Why the big secret? Why wasn’t anyone allowed to know?’

‘It’s no secret any more.’ She smiled. ‘You can tell who you like.’

He leaned across the table. ‘You told me that you’d never eaten here before.’

‘Well, I haven’t.’

‘But this isn’t the first time you’ve been here, is it?’

Donna’s eyes narrowed with interest. She hadn’t been expecting perception. Not from him. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Your body language. I spend my life observing it—goes with the job. I’m an expert!’ he boasted.

Not such an expert, Donna thought, that he had been able to recognise that she was sending out don’t-come-close messages. Still, there was no point trying to exist with misunderstanding and deceit flying around the place. She knew that more than anyone. ‘I used to work here,’ she told him. ‘Years ago. When I was young.’

‘You’re hardly ancient now.’

‘I’m twenty-seven!’

‘Old enough to know better?’ he teased.

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ came a silky drawl from behind Donna’s right shoulder. ‘Not if past experience is anything to go on. Don’t you agree, Donna?’

She didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to. She would have recognised that voice if it had come distorted at her in the dark from a hundred miles away. A split-second of dazed recognition stretched out in front of her like a tightrope. She moved her head back by a fraction—and she could almost feel his presence, though she still couldn’t see him.

‘Hello, Marcus,’ she said carefully, wondering how her voice sounded to him. Older and wiser? Or still full of youthful awe?

He moved into eyeshot—though heaven only knew how long he’d been in earshot for. But he didn’t look at Donna straight away. He was staring down at Tony Paxman, so that Donna was able to observe him without him noticing.

And, oh. Oh, oh, oh! Her heart thumped out of control before she could stop it.

She had known that she would see him again, and she had practised in her head for just this moment. Some devil deep in her heart had wondered if his hair might be thinning. If he had allowed his wealth and success to go to his stomach and piled on weight. Or if he might have developed some kind of stoop. Or started wearing hideous clothes which didn’t suit him.

But he hadn’t. Of course he hadn’t.

Marcus Foreman was still the kind of man who most women would leave home for.

‘Tony,’ said Marcus easily.

The lawyer inclined his head. ‘Marcus.’

‘Do you two know each other?’ Donna asked Tony in surprise.

‘Oh, everybody knows Marcus,’ he responded, with a shrug which didn’t quite come off.

But Donna had detected a subtle change in her lunch companion. Suddenly Tony Paxman did not look or sound like the smooth, slick lawyer of earlier. He sounded like a very ordinary man. A man, moreover, who had just recognised the leader of the pack.

Marcus turned to her at last, and Donna realised that she now had the opportunity to react to him as she had always vowed she would react if she ever saw him again. Coolly and calmly and indifferently.

Her polite smile didn’t slip, but she wondered if there was any way of telling from the outside that her heart-rate had just doubled. And that the palms of her hands were moist and sticky with sweat.

‘So. Donna,’ Marcus said slowly, and she met his dark-lashed eyes with reluctant fascination, their ice-blue light washing over her as pure and as clear as an early-morning swimming pool.

‘So. Marcus,’ she echoed faintly, eyes flickering over him. Okay, so he hadn’t become bald or fat or ugly, but he’d certainly changed. Changed a lot. But hadn’t they all?

‘Do you want to say it, or shall I?’ His voice was heavy with mockery, and something else. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but it told her to beware.

‘Say what?’

‘Long time no see,’ he drawled lazily. ‘Isn’t that the kind of cliché that people usually come out with after this long?’

‘I guess they do,’ she said slowly, thinking that nine whole years had passed since she had seen him. How could that be? ‘You could have said, “Hi, Donna—great to see you!” But that would have been a whacking great lie, wouldn’t it, Marcus?’

‘You said it.’ He smiled. ‘And you’re the world’s expert where lying is concerned, aren’t you, Donna?’

Their gazes clashed and she found herself observing every tiny detail of his face; a face she’d once loved—but now she told herself that it was just a face.

She’d known him at the beginning of his rapid rise, before success had become as familiar to him as breathing. Before he’d had a chance to fashion himself in his own image, rather than one which had been passed down to him.

Gone was the buttoned down, clean-cut and preppie look which had been his heritage. The polished brogues and the perfectly knotted tie. The soft Italian leather shoes and the shirts made in Jermyn Street. The suit had gone, too. Now he wore pale trousers and a shirt. But a silk shirt, naturally. With—wonder of wonders—the two top buttons casually left undone. He looked sexy and sensational.

He had let his hair grow, too. A neatly clipped style had once defined the proud tilt of his head. Now strands of it licked at his eyebrows and kissed the high-boned structure of his cheeks. Stroked the back of his neck with loving, dark tendrils. He looked as rugged and as ruffled as if he’d just tumbled out of some beautiful girl’s bed after an afternoon of wild sex.

Maybe he had.

Her smile froze as she found she could picture the scene all too clearly. Marcus with one of those long-legged thoroughbred type of girls wrapped around him. The kind who’d used to hang around waiting for him like groupies.

She searched in desperation for something cool and neutral to say, her gaze fixing with a pathetic kind of relief on his shoes. ‘You’re obviously not working.’

Only his eyes hadn’t changed, and now they chased away faint surprise. As if her reaction had not been what he had expected. He glanced down at the navy deck shoes which covered his bare feet. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ he demanded.

‘Well, nothing really, I suppose. Just not the most conventional of footwear, is it?’ she observed wryly. ‘You look like you’re about to go sailing, rather than running a business.’

‘But I don’t run a conventional business,’ he growled impatiently. ‘And I don’t feel the need to hide behind a suit and tie any more.’

‘My! What a little rebel you’ve become, Marcus!’ commented Donna mildly, noticing the watchful spark which darkened his eyes from aquamarine to sapphire.

There was a small, apologetic cough from the table, and Donna and Marcus both started as Tony Paxman looked up at them. Donna bit her lip in vexation.

She’d forgotten all about her lunch partner! How rude of her! And how unimaginative, too. Just because Marcus Foreman had walked in, that didn’t mean that the rest of the world had stopped turning.

It just seemed that way….

‘Er, shall we order coffee, Tony?’ she asked him quickly.

But Tony Paxman looked as if he’d taken about as much rejection as he could handle in one day. He shook his head as he rose to his feet—master of his own destiny once more as he made a big pantomime out of gazing at his watch.

‘Heck! Is that the time? Time I wasn’t here! Client meeting at three.’ He held his hand out towards Donna and she took it guiltily. ‘Thanks very much for lunch, Donna. I enjoyed it.’

Suddenly Donna felt bad. She hadn’t meant for this to happen—for Marcus to disrupt her whole lunch, her whole day. Which left her wondering just what she had expected. She’d known that there was a strong possibility she would see him today. Had she naively supposed that he would pass by her table without a flicker of recognition? Or that they would exchange, at most, a hurried nod?

‘Thanks for everything you’ve done, Tony! Maybe we’ll do this another time.’

‘Er, yes. Quite. Goodbye, Marcus.’ Tony gave a grimace as Marcus clasped his fingers in what was obviously an enthusiastic handshake. ‘Fantastic lunch! Wonderful food! As always.’

‘Thanks very much,’ murmured Marcus.

The two of them watched in silence while Tony Paxman threaded his way between the tables, and suddenly Donna felt almost light-headed as Marcus turned his head to study her. As though she’d just plunged into the swimming-pool-blue of his eyes without having a clue how to swim.

‘Congratulations, Donna,’ he offered drily. ‘You’ve latched onto one of the town’s wealthiest and brightest young lawyers.’

‘His bank balance and his pretty face don’t interest me—I chose him because he was the best.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘At what?’

‘Not what you’re obviously thinking! He was recommended to me,’ she answered, with a sigh. But even as she said it she realised that she didn’t have to justify herself to Marcus. Not any more. He wasn’t her boss. He wasn’t anything except the man who’d given her such a disastrous introduction into the world of lovemaking.

And then dumped her.

‘And did the person who recommended him also tell you that he has just come through a mud-slinging divorce which was very nasty? That he’s ready and available—but only if you don’t mind half his salary going out on his ex-wife and two children? I know that financial embarrassment tends to put some women off.’

And then he gave a brief, unexpected smile which half blinded her. ‘Heavens,’ he murmured. ‘I sounded almost jealous for a moment back there.’

‘Yes, you did,’ she agreed sweetly. ‘But there’s really no need to be, Marcus—my relationship with Tony Paxman is strictly business.’

‘I couldn’t care less about your relationship with anyone!’ He stared insolently at her fingers, which were bare of rings. ‘But I presume that you are still in the marriage market?’

Donna stared at him. ‘I’m still single, if that’s what you mean by your charming question. How about you?’

‘Yeah,’ he said softly. ‘Still single.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘So what are you doing back here, Donna? Are you planning on staying around?’

Was she willing to be interrogated by him? To lay herself open to his opinion and probably his criticism. ‘I’d love to tell you about it, Marcus.’ She smiled as she realised that there were a million and one things she could be legitimately occupying herself with. ‘Pity I don’t have the time right now.’

Something in her manner told him it wasn’t true. But no surprises there. Hadn’t she lied to him before? Only then he’d been too young and too blind with lust to see it. ‘I bet it’s nothing urgent,’ he commented silkily. ‘Nothing that can’t wait.’

‘But I might be rushing off to an urgent appointment,’ she objected.

‘Might be. But you’re not,’ he breathed, his voice thickening as he recalled the wasted opportunity of the one night he’d spent with her. ‘You’ve got the pampered air of a woman who has taken the day off work.’

He pulled out the chair opposite her with a question in his eyes. ‘So, why don’t I join you for coffee now that your silver-tongued lawyer has flown?’ he suggested softly. ‘And then you can tell me exactly what you’re doing here.’




CHAPTER TWO (#u1f6d23b2-7e7a-57a7-a7c5-9125799bd923)


DONNA was torn. Wanting to stay—because when Marcus was in a room it was as though someone had just switched on the lights. Even now. Yet also wanting to run out of the restaurant as fast as her feet would carry her.

And wouldn’t that just convince him that she was still an emotional teenager where he was concerned?

Smoothing the cream silk dress down over her hips, she sat further back on her seat. ‘Okay, then,’ she answered coolly. ‘I will.’

Marcus expelled a soft breath of triumph. He’d seen her hesitate before sliding that irresistible bottom back. So she had overriden her better judgement and decided to stay, had she? A pulse began to throb with slow excitement at his temple. The die had been cast. A smile curved the corners of his lips almost cruelly as he lowered his powerful frame into the chair facing her.

He gave a barely perceptible nod across the room at a watching waitress, and that was the coffee taken care of, then found himself in the firing line of a pair of eyes which were as green as newly mown grass. Eyes which these days were darkened with mascara which had teased the lashes into sooty spikes. Not the bare, pale lashes he’d always used to tease her about.

‘You look completely different, Donna,’ he observed slowly.

She gave him a disbelieving stare. ‘Well, of course I do! I’m nine years older, for a start. People change. Especially women.’ And yet for a moment back there she had felt just like the unsophisticated teenager he obviously remembered. ‘And I can’t look that different,’ she declared, in surprise. ‘Seeing as you recognised me straight away.’

‘Yeah.’ Just from one, swift glance across a busy restaurant. He’d surprised himself. Maybe it had been the unforgettable fire of her hair. Or the curves of her body. Or that rope of amber beads at her throat—golden beads as big as pebbles. He swallowed as he remembered the only other time he had seen her wearing those. ‘Maybe you’re just printed indelibly on my mind,’ he drawled.

‘I do tend to have that effect on people,’ she agreed, mock-seriously, and she could tell that her new-found sophistication surprised him.

Marcus might not know it, but he’d been largely responsible for her transformation from chambermaid to business woman. How many times had she planned to knock him dead if ever she saw him again? Well, now he was sitting just a few feet away from her. Was he really as indifferent to her as he appeared to be?

‘So, how have I changed, Marcus?’ she asked him sweetly.

He leaned back in the chair and took the opportunity to study her, which gave him far more pleasure than he felt comfortable with. Donna King had turned into a real little head-turner, he recognised wryly—despite her unconventional looks and her even more unconventional background.

He’d worked long enough in the high-octane world of upmarket restaurants to recognise that the deceptive simplicity of her cream silk dress would cost what most people earned in a month. As would those sexy high-heeled shoes he’d glimpsed as she’d slid her ankles be-neath the table. Shoes like that cost money. He’d bet she had a handbag to match. He glanced at the floor to where, like most women, she had placed it, close to her feet. Yes, she did!

She was looking at him expectantly, and he remembered her question.

How had she changed?

‘You used to look cheap,’ he said honestly, not seeming to notice her frozen expression. ‘Now you look expensive. A high-maintenance woman. With expensive tastes,’ he added. ‘So who pays for it, Donna? Who’s the lucky man?’

Donna bristled. ‘Heavens—but you’re behind the times!’ she scoffed. ‘Women don’t need to rely on men to pay for their finery, not these days. Everything I’m wearing I paid for myself!’

Marcus swallowed. Then it was money well spent.

Someone had threaded a cream satin ribbon though the fiery strands of her hair, sending out a seductive and confusing signal of schoolgirl sophistication. And her breasts were partially concealed behind a cleverly cut jacket. So that one moment he could see their erotic swell, only to have the jacket shield them when she moved her body slightly forward. It was maddening! He felt the intrusive jerk of desire, and willed it to go away.

‘And you’re wearing make-up,’ he observed, almost accusingly. ‘Yet you never used to wear a scrap!’

Donna laughed. ‘Of course I didn’t! When you get up at six in the morning to start stripping the beds, slapping on make-up is the very last thing on your mind. Believe me—a chambermaid’s life doesn’t lend itself very well to glamour.’

‘Not unless you get lucky with the boss.’

She stared at him. ‘But I didn’t get lucky, did I, Marcus? In fact the best bit of luck I had was having the courage to walk away from this place without a backward glance.’

‘Yet you’re here today?’ he said bluntly. ‘Why?’

‘I’m celebrating.’

‘How very intriguing,’ he murmured. ‘Shall I guess why, or are you going to tell me?’

Well, he would find out soon enough, whatever she said—and then he might sit up and wipe that smug smile off his face and take notice of something other than her body—which she noticed he hadn’t stopped looking at.

Donna had opened her mouth to reply, when a very beautiful woman wearing a sleek black dress carried a tray of coffee over to their table.

Donna watched the woman’s gleaming black head, with its perfectly symmetrical centre parting, as she set down the tiny cups and the cafetière in front of them, and the plate of thin almond biscuits. Then she heard her ask, ‘Anything else for you, Marcus?’ in a soft French accent, and noticed that she looked at him with politely concealed lust shining from her dark eyes.

‘No, thanks!’ He shook his head, his attention momentarily distracted as he watched the girl glide away.

‘She seems very efficient,’ observed Donna.

‘Yes, she is.’

‘And very good-looking.’ Now why had she said that?

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Very.’

‘But not one of the waitresses—judging by her dress,’ she probed.

He gave her a perplexed smile. ‘Do you want to talk about my staff, Donna?’

‘Of course not.’

He poured out the coffee, automatically offering Donna the sugar bowl, and she felt a little tug of nos-talgia as she wondered whether he’d actually remembered her excessively sweet tooth.

‘No, thanks. I’ve given up sugar in tea and coffee.’

‘What, even when you’re mysteriously celebrating?’

‘It’s no mystery.’ She sipped her coffee and smiled. ‘That’s the reason I was having lunch with Tony Paxman, if you really want to know. I’ve just tied up a deal.’

‘What kind of deal is that?’

She heard the condescension in his voice and her determination not to be smug or triumphant threatened to fly out of the window. But she hauled it back. ‘A business deal,’ she told him coolly. ‘Which I happen to have set up.’ She sat back in her chair and waited to hear what he would say.

He frowned at her, looking as puzzled as if she’d just announced she was running for mayor. ‘You mean you’re going to be working for someone else?’

‘What a predictable and irritating conclusion to jump to! Actually, I’m going to be working for myself.’ Donna even allowed herself a smile. ‘I’m the boss.’

His hand stilled only briefly on its path to the sugar bowl, and he picked a cube up between his fingers, dipped it into his coffee and bit into it. ‘Doing what?’

She savoured the moment like a hot bath at the end of a long, hard day. ‘Running a restaurant, actually,’ she answered serenely.

‘Where?’

‘Right here in Winchester.’

His interest was stirred, along with his imagination. It was far too close to home to be mere coincidence, surely? The same business, in the same town.

So why?

Was she seeking revenge for what had happened all those years ago? Or was her extraordinary decision to come back based on a far more basic urge? Had that last night left a dark, demon blot on her memory, as it had on his?

Did she want…? Marcus felt the sweet, slow throbbing of sexual excitement begin…Did she want to play out that scene once more—only this time with a far more mutually satisfactory ending?

‘Well, you really must have come along by leaps and bounds, Donna,’ he mused, ‘if you’re planning a capital venture on a chambermaid’s salary.’

If the remark had been made in order to inflame, then it served its purpose. ‘Do I look like a chambermaid?’ she demanded.

His groin ached. No. Right now she looked as he had never imagined she could look. Beautiful and proud and refined and, well…classy.

‘Do I?’ she persisted.

‘No,’ he growled. ‘But that’s what you were the last time I saw you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘It makes me wonder what you’ve been doing in the intervening years to put you in the position of being able to buy a restaurant.’

‘What do you think I’ve been doing? No—don’t bother answering that! I’ll tell you! I happen to have worked extremely hard since you kicked me out on the street!’

‘Spare me the Victorian imagery,’ he sighed. ‘I gave you a generous pay-off and a job in London to go to. You were the one who decided not to accept.’

‘I didn’t want anything more to do with you!’ she said bitterly.

He shrugged. ‘That was your prerogative—but I refuse to be cast in the role of unfeeling bastard just because it suits your story!’

Donna glared. ‘I managed very well on my own, thank you. I travelled to New Zealand and cooked on a sheep station. I worked in a bar in Manhattan—and on a cruise-liner! I know the hotel and restaurant industry inside out. I worked hard and saved hard—’

‘And played hard, too, I imagine?’ he cut in.

‘That’s something you’ll never know!’ She stared at him curiously across the table—expecting him to show some kind of reaction. But there was none. Just that barely interested, faintly bored expression.

‘Well, I shan’t be losing any sleep over it,’ he offered drily, as he stirred his coffee. ‘It’s a precarious profession. I see new restaurants going under all the time.’

‘Thanks for the few words of encouragement!’

‘That’s a fact, not a scare story. You know what they say—if you can’t stand the heat then get out of the kitchen!’ He gave a slow smile. ‘Want to tell me all about it, Donna—or are you worried about industrial espionage?’

‘No, my only worry is that I might lose my temper!’

He laughed, enjoying the hidden fires of conflict, and his smile sent her blood pressure soaring. ‘Feel free,’ he murmured.

Ignoring the sultry innuendo, Donna paused for effect. ‘I’ve bought The Buttress Guest House!’ she announced.

Marcus narrowed his eyes. So. Not just in the same town, but on the same street. Neighbours as well as rivals? He hid a smile. Not really. No one in their right mind would dream of comparing a run-down boarding house to a five-star hotel! ‘You’re opening up a guest house?’

‘That’s not what I said,’ she contradicted. ‘I’ve bought it and converted it.’

Of course she had, thought Marcus, as all the facts began to slot into place.

The Buttress Guest House had gone bankrupt a couple of years ago and no one had wanted to touch it. It was small and it was tired—with tiny, impractical rooms and, more importantly, no parking facilities.

But recently the house had seen a plumber’s van parked outside it for the best part of a month. Painters and decorators and French-polishers had been employed to work there. Hammers and drills had been heard as you walked past. Interesting pieces of furniture had been seen disappearing into the beautiful old house.

Marcus, along with most other people in the town, had assumed that the house was being converted back to a private residence before being put on the property market again. Now it seemed he’d been wrong.

‘You’ve converted it,’ he breathed, and stared at her assessingly. ‘Into what?’

‘A tea-room, actually.’

‘A tea-room?’

‘That’s what I said!’

He very nearly laughed, but something in the proud way she’d said it stopped him. ‘How quaint,’ he murmured.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘It wasn’t supposed to be a compliment.’ He frowned, and instead of feeling angry he felt a maddening rush of the protectiveness she’d always used to bring out in him. ‘Have you taken any business advice, Donna? Seriously?’

‘If only you knew just how insulting that question sounded! Or maybe you do! Of course I took advice! And I did accounting at night school!’ Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘Because there’s no parking for any cars, that’s why!’ he exploded. ‘Didn’t it occur to you to ask why the place had been on the market for so long? Or did you think it was a bargain, just waiting for you to breeze along and buy it?’

‘For your information, I don’t need any parking!’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes, really! The property happens to be on the route of at least two official Winchester Walks. The tourist office know all about me. They’re going to help get me started and I’m hoping that word of mouth will do the rest. People won’t need cars—and that’s the kind of customer I want! People who are interested in history and sightseeing, and can be bothered to walk down the road for a cup of tea and a piece of cake instead of polluting the atmosphere in some horrible gas-guzzling machine!’

There was silence.

‘You’re crazy!’ he said at last. ‘Crazy and impetuous!’

‘What’s the matter?’ She gave him a steady, cool look. ‘Do you think that being my own boss is too good for someone of my pedigree?’

‘What your mother did for a living didn’t concern me,’ he said coldly. ‘But the fact that you deceived me did. But then our whole relationship was built on a tissue of lies, wasn’t it?’

‘Relationship?’ she scorned. ‘Oh, come on, Marcus! To describe what we shared as a “relationship” is not only inaccurate—it’s insulting to relationships!’

He sat back in his chair and studied her, the ice-blue eyes as cool as she had ever seen them. ‘So tell me—is this whole enterprise of yours some naive plan for revenge?’

Donna blinked at him in genuine astonishment. ‘Revenge?’

‘It’s a natural progression, if you stop to think about it,’ he mused. ‘You striking out, in a primitive kind of way, to make me pay for what happened between us.’

For a moment she was dumbfounded, and it took a few incredulous seconds before she could speak. ‘Marcus—please credit me with a little more intelligence than that. I’m not stupid enough to set myself up to be miserable—and pursuing some sort of vendetta against you would make anyone miserable.’

‘Maybe being miserable is a price worth paying.’ He shrugged. ‘Depends how badly you want to pay me back!’

She gave him a look of undiluted amazement, realising that maybe he didn’t know her at all. ‘What a disgustingly over-inflated ego you have, Marcus! Do you really think that I would stake everything I own on a venture like this unless I thought I could make some kind of success of it?’

‘I have no idea. Maybe I’ve misjudged you,’ he said, sounding as though he didn’t think he had at all. ‘But in that case—how did you manage to keep it so quiet for so long?’ he mused. ‘And why?’

‘How?’ She smiled. ‘I hired a good lawyer. You said yourself that Tony Paxman was expensive. Well, he’s good—and you always get what you pay for—that’s something else I’ve learnt. As for why…’ She met his gaze steadily. ‘I suspected that you might try and block the sale if you knew who was behind it.’

And she was right—damn her! Not because he feared competition—he’d always been able to deal with that. No, it was more to do with the effect she had on him…Marcus was silent as he dragged oxygen into his body and fought to swamp his instincts. He felt unwelcome heat invade him. She always made him want what he didn’t need…

Seconds ticked by as his heart thundered and the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stung like pin-pricks. He didn’t speak. Didn’t dare to. Not until he was sure that his feelings were under control once more. Only then did he speak, lacing his words with sarcasm. ‘So, it’s open warfare, is it, Donna?’ he drawled.

‘Of course not! I’m sure there’s room for both of us,’ she said mock-generously. ‘People will choose where they want to eat.’

‘As you did today,’ he remarked obscurely. ‘But maybe you had your own special reasons for wanting to eat here.’

Donna held her breath. ‘Like what?’

‘Like me.’

‘You?’

‘Mmm. Me. There are plenty of other places you could have taken your lawyer to. Maybe you just couldn’t wait to see me again.’

It was partly true—but not for the reasons he was implying, that she was still vulnerable where he was concerned. Seeing Marcus again had been intended to be the final proof that not only had she turned her life around, but she had succeeded in forgetting the man who had brought her nothing but heartache.

Donna opened her mouth without thinking, and the words came fizzing out before she could take them back. ‘And why would I want to see you again, Marcus? Why would I want to re-acquaint myself with a man who gave me nothing but grief? The man who strode in and took exactly what he wanted and found he couldn’t handle it afterwards! Was that the real reason you sacked me, Marcus—not because I’d lied to you, but because I re-minded you of what you’d done? Were you feeling guilty that you’d seduced a poor little virgin?’

‘You’re talking like a victim, Donna—and I can assure you that you were nothing of the kind. For an innocent you certainly knew how to be provocative.’ His mouth tightened as he lowered his voice. ‘As for seduction—that’s too fine a word to describe what was a very regrettable incident all round.’

‘A “very regrettable incident”?’ she repeated in disbelief. ‘My God—I’m going to enjoy becoming the most popular eaterie in town! I hope all your clients come flocking to me!’

He gave a sad shake of his head as he rose to his feet. ‘Oh, Donna,’ he sighed. ‘You may be older—but you don’t seem to have acquired a lot of wisdom along the way. Your hare-brained scheme won’t work. Believe me.’

‘Only time will tell!’

His smile was wry. ‘I’ll try very hard not to gloat when my prediction comes true.’

‘And I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank when it doesn’t!’

‘We’ll see.’ He tore his eyes away from that riveting glimpse of her breasts and walked out of the restaurant, leaving Donna and just about every other female in the room staring wide-eyed after him.




CHAPTER THREE (#u1f6d23b2-7e7a-57a7-a7c5-9125799bd923)


DONNA paid her bill and then made her way out of the restaurant, trying not to notice that people were staring and wondering if it was because she’d been sitting with Marcus.

It had not been the meeting she’d fantasised about. She had been naive. And stupid. Imagining that all those sparks of sexual attraction would have been extinguished over the years.

Outside, the afternoon sunshine was beginning to fade, and a tiny breeze had blown up which made her shiver, turning her flesh to goosebumps beneath the cream silk jacket.

She turned and walked up the street towards her newly purchased future, her high-heeled shoes clipping over the familiar pavements until she stopped outside The Buttress and looked up at it. At the worn, wooden door and the ancient brick—all warm and terracotta-coloured in the dying light of the sun. Hers.

The new sign would be erected tomorrow, and the notices would go out in all the trade press. The tea-room had been dominating her thoughts for so long now. She’d been bubbling over with excitement about all her plans and hopes for it—but seeing Marcus today had made her confront the fact that he still had the power to affect her in a way that no other man had ever come close to.

She felt the beat of her heart, heavy and strong, as she remembered the way he looked. Different. Older and rougher round the edges. All tousled and tough—and radiating an earthy sexuality she knew she was incompatible with.

The first time she had met him he’d been kind to her. Kind and caring, yes—but in the way that a Victorian benefactor might throw a bone to a starving dog…

As a teenager, Donna had arrived in Winchester on a rainy December day, dressed in jeans and a jumper and a worn tweed jacket she’d picked up at a car-boot sale and which had been too thin to withstand the constant drizzle. She’d been soaked. Her face had been bare of make-up, her lashes matted with raindrops and her hair a wild ginger mess frizzing all the way down down her back.

There had only been one week to go until Christmas, and there’d been fairy-lights threaded everywhere: outside all the shops and pubs, woven into the bare branches of the trees—their colours blurred like jewels through the grey of the relentless rain.

As she’d turned the corner into Westgate street Donna had seen the welcoming blaze of The New Hampshire hotel and had shivered. It was the sort of place you usually only saw in story books—a beautiful, elegant old building, with two bay trees standing in dark, shiny boxes outside. The windows were sparkly-clean and the paintwork gleamed. It was the kind of place which reeked of money. You could tell just by looking. And places like this were always looking for seasonal workers.

Clutching onto her holdall with frozen fingers, she’d pushed the glass doors open and walked into the foyer, where a man had been standing at the top of a ladder, positioning a huge silver star on top of a Christmas tree whose tip was brushing against the high ceiling.

Donna had quietly slid her holdall onto the thick carpet and watched him. He’d been wearing dark trousers, which had looked new and neatly pressed, and his shirt had been exquisitely made. Quality clothes on a quality body.

She had waited until the star was firmly in place. ‘Bravo!’ she cheered, and he looked over his shoulder, frowned, then came slowly down the ladder to face her.

His hair was thick and dark and tapered neatly into his neck, and his eyes were the most extraordinary colour she had ever seen. Icy and pale. Clear and blue. As if they had been washed clean. And Donna felt the first tiptoeing of an emotion she simply didn’t recognise.

He frowned again as he looked her up and down, and his voice matched his clothes. Rich. ‘Can I help you?’

The implication being that he couldn’t. That she was in the wrong place. The story of her life, really. She decided to brazen it out.

‘Do you have a room?’

The surprise in his eyes was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared, and he shrugged his shoulders apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid we’re fully booked. It’s our busiest time of year and—’

‘Actually, I don’t want a room,’ she interrupted quickly, thinking that it was nice of him to pretend that she could afford a room in a hotel when it was pretty obvious she couldn’t. ‘I’m looking for work.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of work?’

‘Anything. You name it—I can do it! I can wait tables—’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. We’re a silver-service restaurant,’ he said politely.

‘Or peel potatoes?’

He smiled. ‘We have our full complement of kitchen staff.’

‘Oh.’ She pursed her lips together to stop them wobbling and went to pick up her holdall. ‘Okay. Fair enough. Merry Christmas!’

The man sighed. ‘Now you’re making me feel like Scrooge.’

‘You don’t look like Scrooge.’ She grinned. Too cute by far.

He thought how thin her cheeks looked. And how pale. ‘Ever done any work as a chambermaid?’

‘No. But I learn fast.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Nearly twenty.’ The words were out before she could stop them, and she told herself that it wasn’t a lie, merely an exaggeration. Because she also told herself that this man was the kind of man who would try to send her home if he knew she was barely eighteen.

And then where would she go?

‘Been travelling?’ he asked, flicking a pale blue glance over at the holdall, then at the worn elbows of her jacket.

‘Kind of.’

She had been moving around for most of her young life. She liked it that way. It meant that she didn’t have to give away too much about herself. But she could see him looking at her curiously and knew she ought to say something.

‘Bit of a nomad, that’s me,’ she explained with a smile—wondering what had possessed her to add, ‘My mother was an actress. We moved around a lot when I was a child.’

‘Oh, I see.’ He nodded, wondering what he was letting himself in for. But through the glass doors he could see that the rain was now lashing down, to form lake-sized puddles on the pavement outside. It was the kind of night you wouldn’t throw a dog out into. ‘I’ll take you on until the New Year. But no longer—do you understand?’

‘Oh, thanks!’ Donna breathed, looking for a moment as though she was about to fling her arms around him.

Marcus took a hasty step back.

She wasn’t the kind of woman he would normally find attractive in a million years—with her curly ginger hair and pale eyelashes and freckles.

But there was something indomitable about her. Something that made her look small and tough and brave. Something feisty, which was oddly attractive and made him feel strange and warm and prickly inside.

‘Don’t mention it,’ he growled. ‘What’s your name?’

‘It’s Donna. Donna King. What’s yours?’

‘Marcus Foreman.’

She lifted her shoulders in a tiny questioning movement. ‘Should I call you Mr Foreman?’

It was such a sweetly old-fashioned proposition that he almost laughed, then checked himself in time. He didn’t want her thinking he was making fun of her. ‘You’re only a year younger than me.’ He smiled gently, not noticing her wince. ‘Marcus will do just fine.’

‘Marcus,’ she said shyly. ‘Are you the boss?’

It took a moment for him to answer. ‘Yes,’ he said abruptly. He still couldn’t quite get used to the fact that this place was now his. But then his father had only been dead a year. He looked down at her and his features softened.

Her face was so pale that her freckles stood out like tiny brown stars, and her cheekbones looked much too sharp. She could do with a little fleshing out. ‘Have you eaten?’

Donna’s eyes grew wary. Could he tell? That she hadn’t seen a square meal in getting on for a week? And what kind of conclusions would he draw from that?

He watched her reaction and was reminded of a stray cat his mother had once let him keep. The creature had been starving, yet stubborn—mistrusting any attempts at kindness—and Marcus had learnt that the only way to handle that cat was to seem not to care. He shrugged, sounding as if she could take it or leave it. ‘There’s plenty of food here if you want some.’

‘Okay.’ She shrugged too. ‘Might as well.’

He took her down to the kitchen and introduced her to the staff, and then found things to keep him occupied while she ate and he watched her out of the corner of his eye.

He had never seen anyone eat with so much greed, or so much hunger. Especially a woman. Yet she didn’t tear at the food like an animal. Hers was a graceful greed. She savoured every single mouthful with pleasure—and when she’d finally finished she wiped her mouth delicately with a napkin, like some sort of princess, and beamed him a smile.

And that smile pierced Marcus’s armour like a ray of sunshine hitting a sheet of ice.

As spring slid into early summer, Marcus showed no sign of asking her to leave. And Donna heaved a huge sigh of relief, because she loved the town and she loved the hotel and she wanted to stay.

She loved the grey flint walls of the ancient buildings and the sound of the choristers’ voices spilling their pure, sweet notes into the scented air around the cathedral square. She loved the lush green and crystal streams of the water meadows, where you could walk for miles and feel that you’d stepped back a century. And maybe more than a bit of her loved Marcus, too. Who wouldn’t?

It was the first place that had felt like home for a long time. Maybe ever.

She made herself indispensable by working as hard as possible. And Donna could work. If there was one thing her childhood had taught her it was that you didn’t get anything for nothing.

Her mother had been a stripper—spending her nights performing in run-down theatres along the coast and her days mostly sleeping. In a way, Donna had brought herself up—making herself as invisible as she knew how. Because a little girl had fitted uneasily into the kind of life her mother had chosen.

She knew that Marcus’s father had died the year before, and one day she plucked up enough courage to ask him what had happened to his mother.

Mistake!

The icy-blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘I j-just wondered.’

‘She’s been dead for a long time,’ he snapped.

She thought that it was an odd way to put it. As though a chapter of his own life had come to an end with his mother’s death. Maybe it had.

‘And how old were you?’ she asked.

He scowled at the intrusion. ‘I was nine, and, yes—before you make the obvious response—it was awful. Okay? And I don’t want to talk about it. Okay?’

End of subject. But Donna was relieved, in a funny kind of way. The kind of person who didn’t like to explain was also the kind of person who didn’t ask too many questions. Although it wasn’t as if a man like Marcus would be interested in one of his chambermaids, was it?

But sometimes she caught him watching her, when he thought she wasn’t looking. And sometimes he even let his guard down enough to laugh at something she said. And sometimes he would tease her about her pale eyelashes, and the way she used to nibble the tip of her thumb when she was nervous.

One day he found her in the staffroom, playing cards with one of the waiters, and he challenged her to play. Only to discover that she could beat him at every card game he’d ever learnt.

Marcus was a man who admired expertise in whatever field it was demonstrated, and he seemed to look at her in a completely different light after that. He told her that watching her shuffle the cards was like poetry in motion, and Donna beamed with pleasure at the praise.

‘Where ever did you learn to play like that?’ he questioned.

‘Oh, here and there,’ she told him airily. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘No, you’re right. I don’t!’ he laughed.

And it was at times like these that Donna had to remind herself that there were some men you should never start getting attracted to, on account of who they were.

And Marcus Foreman was one of them.

He had a younger brother called Lucas, who was nearly as good-looking as his brother, but foxy in a way that Marcus wasn’t foxy. And blond, not dark. He was a photographer, of sorts, and he was away travelling, somewhere in Thailand, He hadn’t even bothered coming back for Christmas. But Marcus didn’t seem to mind.

The first time Donna met Lucas she was on her hands and knees brushing up some crumbs from behind a large pot plant on the first-floor landing, when she heard a low wolf whistle from behind her.

She whirled round, bashing her elbow in the process, and saw a man with blue eyes who looked like a fallen angel. She recognised the likeness immediately. ‘You must be Lucas!’ she cried.

‘And you must be a hallucination,’ he murmured, licking his bottom lip like an old-fashioned villian. ‘Wow! Stand up. Go on!’

He was the boss’s brother. So Donna did as he asked and rose to her feet, not much liking the smile on his face as he looked her up and down as if he’d never seen a woman before.

‘Oh, my word!’ he breathed softly. ‘No wonder big brother wasn’t crazy about me coming home—he obviously wanted to keep a living, breathing Barbie doll all to himself!’

‘Stay away from her, Lucas—do you hear that?’ came a soft command, and Marcus walked up behind his brother as soundlessly as a wraith, silently cursing himself for the attractive enticement having Donna King around the place was proving to be. Those scruffy clothes she’d arrived in had done a remarkable job of concealing a body which regular meals and regular sleep had transformed into something resembling a centrefold.

She was as bright as a button, too. Hard-working. Friendly. And considerate—from what little he knew of her. And he deliberately kept it as little as he could. Knowledge equalled understanding, and understanding could lead on to all kinds of unwanted things.

And whilst Marcus was honest enough to admit that he fancied the pants off Donna King—he was also honest enough to realise that they were worlds apart. Worlds.

Lucas shot Donna a search-me kind of look. ‘Marcus likes playing the big macho bit!’ he grinned.

‘Leave that now, will you please, Donna?’ snapped Marcus, because she had bent over to flick up the last few crumbs of dust.

‘But—’

‘Just leave it!’

Donna straightened up and smoothed down the pale green uniform which strained so horribly over her bust, slotting the brush onto the dustpan before looking up at Marcus and smiling. ‘Are we still on for a game later?’

Lucas’s pupils dilated. ‘A game of what?’

‘Not tonight,’ said Marcus tightly. ‘Just go away, Donna, will you? I want to talk to Lucas in private!’

Afterwards, Marcus realised that the worst thing he could possibly have done was to warn Lucas off the luscious chambermaid. His wayward brother loved nothing more than a slice of forbidden fruit.

But what alternative did he have? He didn’t think for a moment that she was an unsullied young virgin—but for all Donna’s worldliness she had a curious and refreshing innocence about her.

It was a potent combination—and one which caused him to lie awake at night, aching and sweating and pressing his groin hard against the mattress, as if he was trying to punish himself.

Donna saw how different the two brothers were. Marcus was the serious one, with all the responsibilities of the hotel weighing heavily on his shoulders. Lucas was simply devil-may-care. While Marcus seemed reluctant to find out anything about her Lucas wanted to know everything. And a little bit more besides.

But his openness made up for his inquisitiveness. He was so forthcoming—not like his brother at all. Through Lucas she heard about their childhood. About their wild and beautiful mother—so different from their steady, unimaginative father.

Lucas was candid to the point of indiscretion, Donna realised. He seemed unfazed by telling her of his mother’s infidelities and the ensuing rows. He explained that his father had been too much in thrall to his spectacular wife to ever leave her.

He told her things which in her heart she knew should have remained secret—and maybe that was why she told Lucas the truth about her mother.

He didn’t look at all shocked, merely looked her up and down and said, ‘Yes. I can see exactly why she was a stripper, if her body was anything like yours.’

She could have bitten her tongue out and tossed it away. ‘But you won’t tell Marcus?’ she begged him.

His eyes were sly. ‘Why not?’

‘Please!’

‘Okay,’ he replied easily. ‘Don’t want to shock my uptight big brother, do we?’ The sly look returned. ‘He likes you, doesn’t he?’

Donna shook her head. ‘Only as a card partner,’ she said, fervently trying to convince herself.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Lucas. ‘He used to play bridge with the local vicar, and he never used to look at him like that!’

Lucas was pointing out nothing that Donna hadn’t noticed for herself. Marcus really did seem to like her. That look in his eyes sometimes…an intense kind of longing that made her wonder why on earth he didn’t just throw caution to the wind, take her in his arms and…

She knew exactly why. They weren’t equals. He was the boss and she was the chambermaid and she should never forget that. Because Marcus never did.

Donna saw the hotel grow more and more popular. Everyone wanted to eat there, and it became the place to see and be seen in. Actors and media-types often drove down from London for dinner and a luxurious bed for the night.

One night a famous restaurant critic from a national newspaper came to review the restaurant. Every member of staff worked their socks off, and they all held their breath until the first edition claimed that it was the ‘best-kept secret in the South of England’!

Not for long!

The reservations phone didn’t stop ringing, and Marcus announced that he would be providing a meal in the private function room upstairs—to thank all the staff for their hard work.

Donna wore the only thing she had which was suit-able—a black velvet dress she’d bought at a thrift shop. It was much too old and too severe for her, but it made her figure look absolutely show-stopping. She wore it with a necklace of huge amber beads which matched the colour of her hair exactly.

She drank champagne and let her hair down—literally and figuratively. In between courses she joined the chefs and waiters and shimmied around the room to the music which played in the background, knowing that Marcus was watching her.

And Donna was her mother’s daughter. Whether or not the dancing was learned or inherited—she could dance like a dream.

Marcus couldn’t take his eyes off her. He’d never wanted anyone or anything so badly, and once the coffee had been served he gave up trying to resist and slid into the seat next to her.




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