Modern Romance November 2016 Books 5-8

Modern Romance November 2016 Books 5-8

Claiming His Christmas Consequence

Michelle Smart

One Night with Gael

Maya Blake

Married for the Italian’s Heir

Rachael Thomas

Unwrapping His Convenient Fiancée

Melanie Milburne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Claiming His Christmas Consequence

Back Cover Text

Introduction

One Night With Consequences

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

One Night with Gael

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Rival Brothers

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Married for the Italian’s Heir

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Brides for Billionaires

About the Author

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Unwrapping His Convenient Fiancée

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

Claiming His Christmas Consequence

“You have one new message...”

“Know this, Catalina. You might be a princess, you might be wearing my ring, you might have taken 200,000 euros of my money...but you are carrying my child, and I will find you.”

Catalina had never stepped out of line, until one stolen Christmas night of irresistible passion with French billionaire Nathanial Giroud changed her life forever.

Now, hidden in the Pyrenees, Catalina is determined to protect the small life growing within her from the anguish of her own royal upbringing. Even if she has to defy the husband she so desperately craves!

‘I am staying in the palace tonight, in the same wing as you,’ Nathaniel said quietly, his breath blowing against the sensitive lobe of Catalina’s ear.

‘How…?’ It was a fight to breathe, let alone talk. ‘How do you know which wing I’m in?’

‘Because I made it my business to know.’ He inhaled deeply and she knew it was her scent he breathed in so greedily.

He kept his hold on her hand as he stepped back and gazed down at her.

He had a magnetism she had felt from their first introduction all those years ago.

He was the only man she had ever wondered about…

‘At one o’clock I will come to your door.’ He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. ‘I know your companion has the adjoining room, so I will not knock. I will be there, but I will leave our fate in your hands. If you don’t open it I will go back to my room and you can pretend I was never there. But before you make that decision of whether or not to open the door ask yourself this—when was the last time you did something solely for yourself that wasn’t bound up in duty? You’re a princess, Catalina, but tonight I can teach you how to be a woman too.’

One Night With Consequences

When one night...leads to pregnancy!

When succumbing to a night of unbridled desire it’s impossible to think past the morning after!

But, with the sheets barely settled, that little blue line appears on the pregnancy test and it doesn’t take long to realise that one night of white-hot passion has turned into a lifetime of consequences!

Only one question remains:

How do you tell a man you’ve just met that you’re about to share more than just his bed?

Find out in:

Her Nine Month Confession by Kim Lawrence An Heir Fit for a King by Abby Green Larenzo’s Christmas Baby by Kate Hewitt An Illicit Night with the Greek by Susanna Carr A Vow to Secure His Legacy by Annie West Bound to the Tuscan Billionaire by Susan Stephens The Shock Cassano Baby by Andie Brock The Greek’s Nine-Month Redemption by Maisey Yates An Heir to Make a Marriage by Abby Green Crowned for the Prince’s Heir by Sharon Kendrick The Sheikh’s Baby Scandal by Carol Marinelli A Ring for Vincenzo’s Heir by Jennie Lucas

Look for more One Night With Consequences coming soon!

MICHELLE SMART’s love affair with books started when she was a baby, when she would cuddle them in her cot. A voracious reader of all genres, she found her love of romance established when she stumbled across her first Mills & Boon book at the age of twelve. She’s been reading—and writing them—ever since. Michelle lives in Northamptonshire, with her husband and two young smarties.

Books by Michelle Smart

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

The Russian’s Ultimatum

The Rings That Bind

The Perfect Cazorla Wife

Wedlocked!

Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed

The Kalliakis Crown

Talos Claims His Virgin

Theseus Discovers His Heir

Helios Crowns His Mistress

Society Weddings

The Greek’s Pregnant Bride

The Irresistible Sicilians

What a Sicilian Husband Wants

The Sicilian’s Unexpected Duty

Taming the Notorious Sicilian

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

To Geoff & Jan, with thanks and love for all the support and encouragement. xxx

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU WERE RIGHT to end your engagement,’ Nathaniel Giroud murmured, nodding lazily at the dance floor where Prince Helios and his bride were dancing together, clearly enjoying themselves. ‘Helios would have made you unhappy.’

Princess Catalina Fernandez took a long drink of her champagne. There was the faintest tremor in her hand. ‘How can you be so sure?’

‘No chemistry.’ He paused before adding, ‘Not like the chemistry between you and I.’

Her heart-shaped chin pointed forward and she pushed her chair back from the table they were sitting alone at, the motion sending a small waft of her sultry scent into his path.

He longed to smell every part of her.

‘We cannot have this conversation,’ she said quietly. ‘What you are implying is impossible.’

He rested a hand on hers before she could get to her feet. ‘Why is it impossible?’

‘You know why.’ She slid her hand away and met his gaze. ‘I must save myself for my husband. My purity is my gift for him.’

‘A gift?’ The concept was so ludicrous he almost laughed but this was no laughing matter. He thought of Catalina’s brother, heir to the throne of Monte Cleure, sleeping his way around Europe without an ounce of penitence, allowing himself—and being allowed by their father—all the hedonistic delights he would deny his own sister on account of nothing more than the fact she had been born a woman.

Now she’d been dumped by Helios, whatever the sanitised whitewash of the official press release might have said, the rumours suggested she was promised to an aging Swedish duke. Nathaniel had no qualms about seducing her. Catalina wanted him. He knew it. And she knew it too.

‘So you are nothing but a possession?’

Confusion flittered in her dark eyes.

‘Is that what you’re saying?’ he pressed. ‘That you don’t have autonomy over your own body? Are you nothing but a vessel for the next generation?’

‘It isn’t like that. I am a princess. This is my life. It’s what I was born to be.’

‘You are also a woman.’

Her delicate throat moved.

He leaned a little closer, brushing his arm against hers, moving in for the kill.

Princess Catalina was a breed apart from all women. That she had class and poise went without saying but she was also incredibly beautiful too. And she carried herself with such stillness. Looking at her was like gazing at a portrait come to life. Tall and raven-haired with sultry eyes like melted chocolate, she had skin that seemed never to have sat in the sun, like clear, flawless alabaster. Today she was dressed beautifully in a knee-length peach dress that emphasised her full breasts and tiny waist without showing an inch of unnecessary flesh. Her hair had been piled into a wide, round bun on the top of her head, the effect of it all bringing to mind sixties glamour. It was a look only she could pull off.

She was a woman without flaws.

But, of course, every person in the world had flaws, and he itched to discover what hers could be.

The rumours that her father, the King of Monte Cleure, was planning to snub Helios’s wedding had proven true. With Catalina’s brother now having disappeared with his latest pneumatically enhanced girlfriend, Nathaniel knew this would be his one and only shot with her.

‘Your first time should be special. It should be with a man who will worship you and take care of you, not some cold-blooded aristocrat doing his duty.’

‘I’m an aristocrat,’ she said, the same quiver he could feel in her delectable body so close to his own echoing in her voice.

‘Ah, but you’re different—beneath your icy exterior runs blood of lava.’

Spotting the Swedish duke making his way to their table, Nathaniel stood up.

Catalina stared at him, obviously confused by his abruptness.

‘Your rumoured fiancé is heading our way. I suspect he’s going to ask you to dance.’

Her gaze flitted to the aging duke.

‘He’s not my fiancé.’ She gave a long exhale. ‘Not yet.’

‘Then there is nothing to stop you dancing with me.’ He extended his hand to her, palm up.

Now her throat moved in an obvious swallow. ‘My brother told me to stay away from you.’

He’d just bet he had. ‘Do you always do what your brother tells you?’

‘Yes.’

He raised a brow and murmured, ‘And do you always want to do as you’re told?’

There was the slightest shake of her head.

The duke was only paces away from their table.

Suddenly, her hand shot out to take Nathaniel’s and in one graceful movement, she rose to her feet.

Her eyes darted to the dance floor as if she were searching for someone, before she looked at him and said, ‘One dance.’

He bowed his head. ‘If you insist.’

Her lips twitched. ‘It has to be just one dance. I have to think of my reputation. There are spies everywhere.’

One dance was good enough for him. Not giving her time to change her mind, Nathaniel led her to the dance floor, leaving the duke staring at their retreating backs with a scratch of his balding head.

When he found a spot for them, he kept her hand entwined in his, pulled her close and snaked his free arm around her waist, resting his hand above the lining of her dress so it lay against her bare back. Her skin had the texture of creamy silk.

She fitted into his arms perfectly.

The added height from her heels meant her head rested perfectly in the crook of his neck. He could smell the expensive scent of her shampoo, mingling so deliciously with the sultry perfume that drove his senses wild.

He pressed himself a little closer, close enough that she would be able to feel his racing heart.

‘Relax,’ he murmured, stroking her rigid back. ‘I don’t bite.’

But I think I want you to...

During Catalina’s short courtship to Helios and their even shorter engagement, they had danced together many times. She had never felt anything like this. Her heart had never beaten so fast that she could feel it clamouring against her ribs.

The heat that had steadily built in her most intimate area that day under Nathaniel’s relentless attention spread through her pores, a tingling desire that thrilled and terrified her in equal measure.

She’d seen desire for herself when she’d been an impressionable fifteen-year-old. The beauty of the moment had eventually counteracted the horror of who she had found in desire’s throes, awakening something inside her; a yearning...a wish...

Oh, how she had hoped she would feel it with Helios but the chemistry between them had been non-existent. The chemistry between herself and the duke was even less.

The skin on her back whirred under Nathaniel’s touch. She could feel every bump of his hand, the pads of his fingers. That yearning...that wish...heavens, she was feeling it.

But all too soon their one dance was over.

Catalina took a deep breath and made to step away but his hold tightened.

‘I am staying in the palace tonight in the same wing as you,’ he said quietly, the words whispering against the sensitive lobe of her ear.

‘How...?’ It was a fight to breathe, let alone talk. ‘How do you know which wing I’m in?’

‘Because I made it my business to know.’ He inhaled deeply and she knew it was her scent he breathed in so greedily.

He kept his hold on her hand as he stepped back and gazed down at her.

At thirty-five Nathaniel’s face was a craggy cast of crinkles and lines, his impossibly tall body hard and rangy, testament to a man who enjoyed a varied outdoor life. His nose was strong and bumpy, his eyes that always seemed to spark with amusement were a pale green and he had a generous mouth that smiled often to create a dimple in his left cheek. Topping it all off was short brown hair that seemed to fight any attempt to be neat.

He had a magnetism which she had felt from their first introduction all those years ago.

He was the only man she had ever wondered about...

‘At one o’clock I will come to your door.’ He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. ‘I know your companion has the adjoining room so I will not knock. I will be there but I will leave our fate in your hands. If you don’t open the door I will go back to my room and you can pretend I was never there. But before you make the decision of whether or not to open it, ask yourself this—when was the last time you did something solely for yourself that wasn’t bound up in duty? You’re a princess, Catalina, but tonight I can teach you how to be a woman too.’