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His Most Exquisite Conquest
A Delicious Deception
Elizabeth Power
The Girl He’d Overlooked
Cathy Williams
Stepping Out of the Shadows
Robyn Donald
Contents
ELIZABETH POWER wanted to be a writer from a very early age, but it wasn’t until she was nearly thirty that she took to writing seriously. Writing is now her life. Travelling ranks very highly among her pleasures, and so many places she has visited have been recreated in her books. Living in England’s West Country, Elizabeth likes nothing better than taking walks with her husband along the coast or in the adjoining woods and enjoying all the wonders that nature has to offer.
For Alan—
with love and fond memories of Monaco.
THE tread of confident footsteps echoed across the sun-warmed tiles of the terrace—the tread of a man whose presence spelled danger.
Even without turning around, Rayne guessed who he was and could sense a desire in him to unnerve her.
No, it was more of a determination, she decided, with every cell alert, tensing from the fear of being recognised—an assurance that whatever this man wanted, this man got.
‘So you’re the little waif my father plucked off the street, who’s showing her gratitude by deigning to drive him around.’
She had been looking, from her vantage point through the balconied archway, out over coral-coloured blocks of high-rise apartments, some with roof gardens, others with pools that seemed to throw back fire from the setting sun. But now she ignored the glittering sea, the palace on The Rock and the sun-streaked cliffs that were a feature of this coast—but particularly of this rich man’s playground that was Monte Carlo—swinging round instead with her blazing hair falling heavily over one shoulder and her body stiffening from the derisory undertones of the deep English voice.
His clothes were tailored to perfection. And expensive, Rayne decided grudgingly. From his pristine white shirt and dark designer suit, to the very tip of his shiny black shoes. A man whose cool, sophisticated image masked a deceptively ruthless nature and a tongue that could cut with the deftness of a scythe.
For a moment she couldn’t speak, stunned by how the years had given him such a powerful presence. Recent newspaper photographs, she realised, had failed to capture the striking quality about him that owed less to his stunning classic features and thick black hair that had a tendency to fall across his forehead than to that breath-catching aura that seemed to surround his tall, muscular frame.
‘For your information, I’m twenty-five.’
Why had she told him that? Because of the condescending way in which he had referred to her? Or to assure him that she was a woman now and not the shrieking eighteen-year-old he had had to deal with that last time they had met.
The cock of a deprecating eyebrow told her he had taken her response in the way that his calculating brain evidently wanted to. That she was more than eligible to bed his father, and that she was probably planning to do so—if she hadn’t already—with purely mercenary motives in mind. But there wasn’t a glimmer of recognition in those steel-blue eyes …
‘And he didn’t pluck me off the street,’ she corrected him, allowing herself to relax a little. ‘We were both victims of a spiteful ploy to relieve me of my possessions. I came to France—and then Monaco—for a break, and I was left with no credit cards, no money and nowhere to stay.’ Why did she feel she had to justify herself to him? she thought with her jaw clenching. Because she hadn’t been sitting in that pavement café just by coincidence? Because as an experienced journalist who had researched her subject thoroughly beforehand, she knew exactly where Mitchell Clayborne would be? ‘Your father very kindly offered me a roof over my head until I could get things sorted out.’
That wide masculine mouth she had always thought of as passionate compressed in a rather judgemental fashion. ‘A bit remiss of you not to have booked ahead.’
Why did every word he uttered sound like an accusation? Or was it just guilt making her imagine things? The dread of being found out?