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       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      KATE HARDY lives in Norwich, in the east of England, with her husband, two children, one bouncy spaniel, and too many books to count! When she’s not busy writing romance or researching local history, she also loves cooking—see if you can spot the recipes sneaked into her books. (They’re also on her website, along with excerpts and the stories behind the books.)

      Writing for Mills & Boon has been a dream come true for Kate—something she’s wanted to do ever since she was twelve. She’s been writing Medical™ Romances since 2001, and also writes for Modern Heat™; her novel BREAKFAST AT GIOVANNI’S won the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Romance Prize in 2008. She says she loves what she does because she gets to learn lots of new things when she’s researching the background to a book: add warmth, heart and passion, plus a new gorgeous hero every time, and it’s the perfect job!

      Kate’s always delighted to hear from readers, so do drop in to her website at www.katehardy.com

       Recent titles by the same author:

       Modern Heat™

      RED WINE AND HER SEXY EX

      GOOD GIRL OR GOLD-DIGGER?

      TEMPORARY BOSS, PERMANENT MISTRESS

       Medical™ Romance

      NEUROSURGEON…AND MUM

      THE DOCTOR’S LOST-AND-FOUND BRIDE

      Chapter One

      WE’LL have to wait and see. The phrase that Guy had come to hate most in the entire world. How the hell could he be patient about this, when it could turn his entire world upside down?

      But this was the second specialist to say it. His third medical opinion in as many months. And while ‘we’ll have to wait and see if your sense of smell returns’ might be perfectly acceptable advice for most people, it absolutely wasn’t fine for a parfumier. Guy couldn’t do his job properly without his sense of smell.

      He’d been covering it up for three months now. It was only a matter of time before someone found out. And then things would get seriously difficult; as it was, his business partner wanted to accept a huge conglomerate’s offer to buy out the perfume house. Guy had resisted, so far—he wanted to keep them focused on what their customers wanted, and continue to support local suppliers—but this would give Philippe the ammunition he needed to force the sale. How could GL Parfums possibly continue as it was, when its head of research and development had lost his ‘nose’?

      Hell, hell, hell.

      He’d been banking on this last specialist being able to help him. On being able to offer him something more than just waiting to see if it cleared up by itself, because the only possible reason for it was damage caused by the virus. He’d sat perfectly still and gone through the truly nasty procedure of having a camera on a tube fed up his nose and into his sinuses. He’d taken vitamin supplements. He’d spent hours online, scouring every possibility, reading the forums of every support group. And still he was being told, ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’

      Worse, the specialist had added that it could take up to three years for his sense of smell to come back, and even then it might not come back fully.

      Three years?

      The last three months had been bad enough.

      The prospect of spending three years like this was torture.

      Besides, he couldn’t wait for three years. The perfume house couldn’t afford to stand still—if they didn’t develop new fragrances or extend their current lines, they’d have no chance of competing in the market. And then it would go under and everyone would lose their jobs. His staff had supported him and believed in his dreams so much that they’d even taken a pay cut, in the early days, to keep the perfume house going. How could he let them down?

      Unless he hired someone to be his ‘nose’ at the perfume house in his stead…and then his own role would have to change. He’d have to shoulder a lot more of the admin and the marketing—the things he’d always been relaxed about delegating, because he’d been happiest in his lab developing new fragrances. Hiring another parfumier would mean that he could keep the perfume house going; but it also meant that the perfume

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