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       ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

      ‘It’s quite simple,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and surveying her with hooded eyes. ‘I find you very attractive.’

      His bluntness shocked and stirred her in equal measure. Beneath the lowered lids she discerned a glitter of desire.

      An involuntary shiver—part fear, part keen anticipation that temporarily paralysed her thoughts—tightened her skin.

      Kain examined her face, his cold eyes piercing and far too astute.

      ‘I think the best way to deal with the situation is for you and me to become lovers.’

      ‘What?’

      He bent his head and kissed her startled mouth. It was a claim, open and demanding, and it smashed through her barriers with shaming ease. She had no chance to think, no time to do anything but surrender to a compelling hunger that battered down her instinctive resistance.

      ‘That’s not fake,’ he said, his voice rough. ‘Admit it, Sable—you want me every bit as much as I want you.’

      Robyn Donald can’t remember not being able to read, and will be eternally grateful to the local farmers who carefully avoided her on a dusty country road as she read her way to and from school, transported to places and times far away from her small village in Northland, New Zealand. Growing up fed her habit; as well as training as a teacher, marrying and raising two children, she discovered the delights of romances and read them voraciously, especially enjoying the ones written by New Zealand writers. So much so that one day she decided to write one herself. Writing soon grew to be as much of a delight as reading—although infinitely more challenging—and when eventually her first book was accepted by Mills & Boon she felt she’d arrived home. She still lives in a small town in Northland, with her family close by, using the landscape as a setting for much of her work. Her life is enriched by the friends she’s made among writers and readers, and complicated by a determined Corgi called Buster, who is convinced that blackbirds are evil entities. Her greatest hobby is still reading, with travelling a very close second.

       Recent titles by the same author:

      THE MEDITERRANEAN PRINCE’S CAPTIVE VIRGIN

      HIS MAJESTY’S MISTRESS VIRGIN BOUGHT AND PAID FOR INNOCENT MISTRESS, ROYAL WIFE

      THE RICH MAN’S BLACKMAILED MISTRESS

      BY

      ROBYN DONALD

      CHAPTER ONE

      KAIN GERARD looked at his aunt with affection and exasperation. ‘Not again!’

      She bridled. ‘It’s not Brent’s fault! He’s just—’

      ‘An idiot when it comes to women,’ Kain supplied more than a little tersely. ‘He falls violently in lust with the most unsuitable female in sight, showers her with gifts, promises her undying love, then wakes up one morning and realises he has nothing in common with her. Worse than that, she knows nothing about computers, which means he can’t even hold a conversation with her. So he dumps her and she goes off and wails tearfully—and lucratively—to the media.’

      ‘He just gets carried away,’ Brent’s mother protested weakly. ‘He doesn’t know what he really needs.’

      Kain’s brows rose. ‘He seems to know exactly what he needs,’ he said in his driest voice. Big breasts, long legs and a wet-lipped simper—those were Brent’s criteria. ‘Temporarily, anyway. Why are you concerned this time?’

      ‘Kain, you—of all people!—know perfectly well he’s just had a very well-publicised payout on his internet firm—more than twenty million dollars.’ Amanda Gerard hesitated, before saying in a rush, ‘And she’s not his usual type. To start off with she’s older than he is, and she’s not a model or a game show hostess or a beauty contest winner.’

      Kain’s black brows met in a frown. ‘So you think she’s after the money.’

      ‘Brent has a reputation for rather foolish generosity,’ his mother said unwillingly.

      ‘What evidence have you got that she’s a shark?’

      Not for the first time Amanda Gerard decided it was positively sinful that as well has being brilliant and inordinately successful, Kain should look like something out of a fantasy—six foot three, shoulders big enough for a couple of women to cry on, and the sort of lean, potent vitality that stopped any woman’s breath.

      Most men would have been more than content with that. But Kain also had perfect features, a mouth to send shivers down even her spine, and grey eyes that were a stunning contrast to olive skin and sable hair.

      Brent was good-looking, but not even a doting mother’s bias would allow her to put him in Kain’s class.

      She thrust a photograph at her nephew. ‘Look.’

      She watched that sexy, sculpted mouth compress and his eyes narrow into ice chips as he scanned the image. Finally he looked up. ‘She’s definitely a change from Brent’s usual inamoratas. Who is she?’

      ‘Sable Jane Martin.’

      ‘Sable?’

      ‘Well, that’s what she calls herself.’ His aunt dismissed the pretentious name with a curled lip. ‘She’s at least five years older than Brent, and you’ll notice she isn’t hanging onto him or gazing worshipfully—or seductively—into his eyes,’ Amanda pointed out, adding, ‘And he speaks differently about her.’

      ‘So what is the problem?’ Kain was fond of the aunt who’d brought him up after his parents died, but he deplored her fierce, overprotective love for her only child.

      He had no illusions about his cousin; Brent was spoilt. His open good looks—not to mention his assets—meant that most women succumbed to his laid-back approaches. Because he’d never had to work for a woman’s notice he’d probably been intrigued by the cool, touch-me-not air of the one in the photograph.

      A little impatiently he said, ‘Perhaps this time he’s found a normal woman—one he can actually have a conversation with.’

      ‘Do you consider someone whose father was the town drunk normal?’

      ‘That’s hardly her fault.’

      She grimaced. ‘I know that, but you have to admit she probably has serious issues.’

      ‘How do you know her father’s an alcoholic?’

      ‘He was—he’s dead now. She comes from Hawkes Bay, from a little town quite close to Blossom McFarlane, so I rang Bloss and asked her if she knew the girl.’

      Kain concealed a smile. His aunt’s network of old school friends were affectionately known in the family as Amanda’s mafia. ‘And what did Blossom McFarlane tell you about her?’

      His aunt gave him a suspicious glance. ‘Bloss not only knew her, she’d felt sorry for her when she was growing up, even admired her for her loyalty to her deadbeat father. After he died she worked for an elderly solicitor for a few months, but there was some scandal.’ His aunt hesitated, then said in a rush, ‘Bloss said it was all very hush-hush, but she thought it involved stealing.’

      Kain didn’t like the sound of that. ‘By Sable Martin?’

      ‘Yes. Anyway, if she did steal anything she got off lightly. Nothing was ever done about it, but she left town under a cloud.’

      Kain looked down at the woman standing beside Brent in the photograph, an enigmatic half-smile curling her lips. Unlike his cousin’s previous girlfriends

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