LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      JACQUELINE BAIRD began writing as a hobby, when her family objected to the smell of her oil painting, and immediately became hooked on the romantic genre. She loves travelling and worked her way around the world from Europe to the Americas and Australia, returning to marry her teenage sweetheart. She lives in Ponteland, Northumbria, the county of her birth, and has two teenage sons. She enjoys playing badminton, and spends most weekends with husband Jim, sailing their Gp.14 around Derwent Reservoir.

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      Chapter One

      JED SABBIDES shifted restlessly in his seat. The plane was beginning its descent, and not before time. A certain part of his anatomy was stirring at the thought of the delectable Phoebe waiting for him in London. He had planned to be in New York for three weeks, but had cut short his trip by a day and rearranged his schedule to work from the London office tomorrow to get back to her.

      He had to be in Greece by Saturday evening for his father’s birthday, and with the level of frustration he was feeling he had decided after a business lunch that only one night with Phoebe was not going to be enough…A couple of telephone calls and the Sabbides company jet had been waiting for him at Kennedy Airport—the five-hour time difference between the two continents was for once a blessing.

      A frown marred his broad brow. When had he ever changed his schedule for a woman? Never…The answer made him slightly uneasy, and his thoughts drifted back to the first time he had met Phoebe…

      Exiting the elevator on the ground floor of the hotel he was staying at while he assessed the place with a view to purchase, Jed glanced at the girl walking across the foyer and paused for a moment, his dark eyes lingering in appreciation on her feminine form.

      She was about five-eight, with pale blonde hair that fell in soft waves to her slender shoulders. Her profile was exquisite, and the sombre black skirt and white shirt she wore did nothing to distract from her shapely figure as she seemed to glide across the marble floor on a pair of legs that would make any red-blooded male’s imagination go into overdrive.

      His arrested gaze followed her as she stepped behind the reception desk and then turned with a smile for an approaching guest. Her smile took his breath away. His attraction was instant, and shockingly physical. He was without a woman at the time, and in that moment he decided the girl was going to be his, not for a second contemplating failure.

      He approached the reception desk and asked if she could recommend a good restaurant. She tilted back her head, the better to look at him, and he realised she was even more beautiful up close. His fascinated gaze took in the delicate lines of her oval-shaped face—the creamy skin, the full mouth, and the brilliant blue eyes that now met his. He smiled and held her gaze, and her eyes widened in instinctive female recognition of his masculine interest. She actually blushed. Later he would learn why she did that.

      Phoebe in the Greek language meant shining, brilliant, and she was all that and more—beautiful with a perfect body and a quick mind.

      He asked her to have dinner with him that night. Amazingly she refused, stating she was not allowed to date guests, but he charmed her into telling him she only worked there at weekends to supplement her income while studying Politics and History at University.

      He duly checked out, returning the next day to ask Phoebe again for a date and she agreed.

      He had never met a woman yet who had turned him down—usually they chased him—and it was a novel experience, having to wait over a month before he got her into bed.

      Mainly because Phoebe shared a house with three other students—two girls Kay and Liz, and the third a guy called John—she had virtually no privacy. But she flatly refused to dine with Jed in the suite he kept in one of the family-owned London hotels. Her excuse was that she would feel uncomfortable, having seen the kind of women who accompanied men to their rooms for only a few hours in the hotel where she worked.

      She was a few weeks short of twenty-one, and her youth worried him a little. He could not decide if her concern was genuine modesty or if, like most women, she was angling for more than he was prepared to offer.

      It was sheer coincidence, when entering the Empire Casino in the heart of London one night after Phoebe had left him frustrated yet again, that he met an old poker buddy of his and found the solution to his problem. The man had just been knocked out of the World Serious Poker Tournament, which was taking place in the casino at the time, and over a drink told him he was going to America and wanted someone to caretake his London apartment and his cat Marty while he was away.

      Casually Jed told Phoebe the story, and asked if she was interested in the job. He introduced her to his friend, and when the cat purred and wrapped itself around her ankles she agreed.

      It was a win-win situation all round, and finally Jed got further than a goodnight kiss. But even then she kept him waiting another few days!

      It was a coincidentally novel solution, and a bit devious, he knew—but Jed was a cynic where the female of the species was concerned, and knew it was well worth the wait.

      Pheobe surprised him—she was actually a virgin, a first for him—but amazingly she was the most eager and most incredibly responsive lover he had ever had…

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