The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance 2016 - Кейт Хьюит Mills & Boon Series Collections

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words hitched in her throat and she tentatively stroked his knuckles with her finger, wishing now that she had abandoned her flight and gone somewhere else with him for this conversation—but how was she supposed to have known what he had come to say?

      ‘You have no idea how much I’ve longed to hear you say that,’ she whispered tremulously. ‘I didn’t think I would ever fall in love with you. You didn’t make sense. I’d always assumed that the guy I fell for would be...well, just the opposite of you, to be honest. And I hated it that I was being forced into marrying you...’

      ‘Tell me about it. I’ve never known a woman fight me as much as you did...’

      Alexa laughed. She believed him. She’d dug her heels in. But even when she’d thought that she was refusing to budge an inch more than necessary she had already been shifting in places she hadn’t begun to understand.

      ‘I was so desperate for you to be the horrible, arrogant person I wanted you to be, but it felt like with every day that passed you escaped the box I’d shoved you in just a little bit more—until I realised that I’d fallen in love with the three-dimensional guy I never thought you could ever be.’ She frowned as a sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Did you tell my mother why you were coming here?’

      ‘It was the only way I could find out what sort of reception I might expect,’ he confessed, with such humility that she wanted to kiss him and keep right on kissing him. ‘I swore her to secrecy,’ he further admitted. ‘She was to say nothing if it turned out that you wanted me out of your life for good.’

      ‘I love you so much, Theo,’ Alexa whispered, half giggling, because this was such an inappropriate place for such a wildly wonderful marriage proposal.

      ‘So you’ll marry me...?’

      ‘Try and stop me...’

      * * * * *

      Lynne Graham

      His Innocent Wife...

      The last thing Gaetano Leonetti wants is to be shackled in marriage, but to become CEO of his family’s bank, his grandfather has decreed Gaetano must find a nice, ordinary woman to wed.

      Convinced his grandfather is mad, Gaetano sets about proving him wrong with housekeeper Poppy Arnold. With her outspoken nature and unusual dress sense, she’s definitely not wife material!

      But it’s not long before hardworking, self-sacrificing Poppy charms his grandfather and Gaetano’s stuck with a union he didn’t want and a bride he sinfully craves! Having set her up to fail, can he really take the precious gift of her virginity?

      ‘Think about what I’m offering you. You can reclaim your life and return to being a carefree student,’ Gaetano pointed out, his persuasion insidious. ‘No more scrubbing floors or serving drinks.’

      ‘Stop!’ Poppy said, leaping to her feet to walk restively around the room while she battled the tempting possibilities he had placed in front of her.

      Gaetano studied her from below heavily lashed eyelids. She would surrender—of course she would. As a teenager she had been ambitious, and he could still see that spirited spark of wanting more than her servant ancestors had ever wanted glowing within her.

      ‘And of course your ultimate goal is becoming CEO of the Leonetti Bank—and marrying me will deliver that,’ Poppy filled in slowly, her luminous green eyes skimming to his lean darkly handsome features in wonderment. ‘I can’t believe how ambitious you are.’

      ‘The bank is my life. It always has been,’ Gaetano admitted without apology. ‘Nothing gives me as much of a buzz as a profitable deal.’

      ‘I’ll give you an answer in the morning.’

      Gaetano slid fluidly out of his seat and approached her. ‘But you already know the answer. You like what I do to you,’ he said huskily, with blazing confidence, running a teasing forefinger down over her cheek to stroke it along the soft curve of her full lower lip.

      LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen romance reader since her teens. She is very happily married to an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog who knocks everything over, a very small terrier who barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

      Books by Lynne Graham

      Mills & Boon Modern Romance

       The Secret His Mistress Carried The Dimitrakos Proposition A Ring to Secure His Heir Unlocking Her Innocence

       The Notorious Greeks

       The Greek Demands His Heir The Greek Commands His Mistress

       Bound by Gold

       The Sheikh’s Secret Babies The Billionaire’s Bridal Bargain

       The Legacies of Powerful Men

       Ravelli’s Defiant Bride Christakis’s Rebellious Wife Zarif’s Convenient Queen

       A Bride for a Billionaire

       A Rich Man’s Whim The Sheikh’s Prize The Billionaire’s Trophy Challenging Dante

      Visit the Author Profile page at

       millsandboon.co.uk for more titles

      GAETANO LEONETTI WAS having a very bad day. It had started at dawn, when his phone went off and proceeded to show him a series of photos that enraged him but which he knew would enrage his grandfather and the very conservative board of the Leonetti investment bank even more. Regrettably, sacking the woman responsible for the story in the downmarket tabloid was likely to be the sole satisfaction he could hope to receive.

      ‘It’s not your fault,’ Tom Sandyford, Gaetano’s middle-aged legal adviser and close friend, told him quietly.

      ‘Of course it’s my fault,’ Gaetano growled. ‘It was my house, my party and the woman in my bed at the time who organised the damned party—’

      ‘Celia was that soap star with the cocaine habit you didn’t know about,’ Tom reminisced. ‘Wasn’t she sacked from the show soon after you ditched her?’

      Gaetano nodded, his even white teeth gritting harder.

      ‘It’s a case of bad luck...that’s all,’ Tom opined. ‘You can’t ask your guests to post their credentials beforehand, so you had no way of knowing some of them weren’t tickety-boo.’

      ‘Tickety-boo?’ Gaetano repeated, his lean, darkly handsome features frowning. Although he was born and raised in England, Italian had been the language of his home and he still occasionally came across English words and phrases that were unfamiliar.

      ‘Decent upstanding citizens,’ Tom rephrased. ‘So, a handful of them were hookers? Well, in the rarefied and very privileged world you move in, how were you supposed to find that out?’

      ‘The press found it out,’ Gaetano countered flatly.

      ‘With the usual silly “Orgy at the Manor” big reveal. It’ll be forgotten in five minutes...although that blonde dancing naked in the fountain out front is rather memorable,’ Tom remarked, scanning the newspaper afresh with lascivious intent.

      ‘I don’t remember seeing her. I left the party early to fly to

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