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The Guardian's Virgin Ward
CAITLIN CREWS
He was her formidable guardian…and she craved his touch!When domineering Spaniard Izar Augustin was made guardian to innocent Liliana Girard Brooks, he couldn’t have known that the passing years would turn this young girl into an alluring woman begging to be shown the unconscious desires of her body.For as long as she can remember, Liliana’s coolly elusive keeper has haunted her fevered imaginations. Hoping to sever the ties that bind them, she recklessly gives into one night of sensual abandon, shattering her naïve fantasies irrevocably. But the consequences of that night will bind them together… for ever!When one night…leads to pregnancy!
He was her formidable guardian...and she craved his touch!
When domineering Spaniard Izar Agustin was made guardian to innocent Liliana Girard Brooks, he couldn’t have known that the passing years would turn this young girl into an alluring woman begging to be shown the unconscious desires of her body.
For as long as she can remember, Liliana’s coolly elusive keeper has haunted her fevered imagination. Hoping to sever the ties that bind them, she recklessly gives in to one night of sensual abandon, shattering her naive fantasies irrevocably. But the consequences of that night will bind them together...forever!
Izar shouldn’t have engaged with her. He shouldn’t have listened to a word she said—because how could it matter? And who cared if the woman who was still his duty had gone and transformed herself into the physical manifestation of his deepest desires?
That he had noticed at all was appalling. But in that moment, Izar did more than notice. He let his eyes drift down to Liliana’s lips and linger there.
“Oh…” she said softly, and the sound was ripe with too many meanings.
Revelation and understanding. Something like wonder. A touch of daring besides. And it poured through him, molten-hot and impossible to resist.
“Honey, not vinegar. I should have realized. The great and terrible Izar Agustin only acts tough.”
She threw herself forward and into him, catching herself with her palms flat against his chest even as his hands came up to grip her upper arms. Automatically, he told himself. To push her away, he told himself but he didn’t.
Her skin was every bit as smooth to the touch as he’d tried not to imagine. The contact was like fire, surging through him, making him insane enough to understand that he was hot and hard and unwilling to do a damn thing to change it.
And then Liliana surged up on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
One Night With Consequences (#ue380795b-0cae-59b8-bc82-3df960f4705f)
When one night...leads to pregnancy!
When succumbing to a night of unbridled desire it’s impossible to think past the morning after!
But, with the sheets barely settled, that little blue line appears on the pregnancy test and it doesn’t take long to realise that one night of white-hot passion has turned into a lifetime of consequences!
Only one question remains:
How do you tell a man you’ve just met that you’re about to share more than just his bed?
Find out in:
Her Nine Month Confession by Kim Lawrence
An Heir Fit for a King by Abby Green
Larenzo’s Christmas Baby by Kate Hewitt
Illicit Night with the Greek by Susanna Carr
A Vow to Secure His Legacy by Annie West
Bound to the Tuscan Billionaire by Susan Stephens
The Shock Cassano Baby by Andie Brock
The Greek’s Nine-Month Redemption by Maisey Yates
An Heir to Make A Marriage by Abby Green
Crowned for the Prince’s Heir by Sharon Kendrick
The Sheikh’s Baby Scandal by Carol Marinelli
A Ring for Vincenzo’s Heir by Jennie Lucas
Claiming His Christmas Consequence by Michelle Smart
Look for more One Night With Consequences coming soon!
The Guardian’s Virgin Ward
Caitlin Crews
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–nominated author CAITLIN CREWS loves writing romance. She teaches her favourite romance novels in creative writing classes at places like UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Program, where she finally gets to utilize the MA and PhD in English Literature she received from the University of York in England. She currently lives in California, with her very own hero and too many pets. Visit her at caitlincrews.com (http://caitlincrews.com/).
Books by Caitlin Crews
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
Castelli’s Virgin Widow
At the Count’s Bidding
Undone by the Sultan’s Touch
Not Just the Boss’s Plaything
A Devil in Disguise
The Billionaire’s Legacy
The Return of the Di Sione Wife
Wedlocked!
Expecting a Royal Scandal
The Chatsfield
Greek’s Last Redemption
Scandalous Sheikh Brides
Protecting the Desert Heir
Traded to the Desert Sheikh
Vows of Convenience
His for a Price
His for Revenge
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://millsandboon.co.uk/) for more titles.
Contents
Cover (#u2e857544-c795-5daa-93e4-2075a5773a0c)
Back Cover Text (#u3e5bfcad-0612-597b-b99e-26361c4e037d)
Introduction (#ud26c5393-ec85-522a-aef8-fbc5ac47d95e)
One Night With Consequences (#uff76c813-9241-521c-87b6-769f49fad0be)
Title Page (#u3ca2be1b-e734-5079-b040-ac5bfe04d331)
About the Author (#udde5cf54-e1bf-5bf5-bc27-6fadfbfdb525)
CHAPTER ONE (#u5018ce07-2547-5a6a-814d-ae2834768dfe)
CHAPTER TWO (#u9f816a6c-4eb3-5725-8e9e-82334ef31926)
CHAPTER THREE (#ucd3e44bf-01eb-578d-b64c-60b685d60b39)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ue380795b-0cae-59b8-bc82-3df960f4705f)
“THIS PARTY IS finally looking like the birthday gift to you it’s supposed to be, Lily!”
Liliana’s roommate Kay was practically shivering with glee as she bounded into the narrow kitchen, which was normal for her even in the middle of the loud, crowded party they were currently hosting in their Bronx, New York apartment.
“The most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my entire life just walked into our living room and asked for you. You promised you were going to change your life, remember?” Kay grinned and let her smile go a little bit salacious. “And believe me when I tell you that doing anything at all with this particular man will not be a hardship.”
Liliana Girard Brooks, who’d gone by Lily Bertrand since she’d started college, to put a little space between her brand-new life and her internationally recognizable name with all that history attached to it, had vowed earlier that chilly November evening that her twenty-third birthday party was going to change her boring, stiflingly barren existence as a latter-day nun once and for all.
She hadn’t really expected to have an opportunity to keep that vow. Especially this early in the night.
“You’re finally going to lose your virginity!” her second roommate Jules had cried over pizza, punching her fist in the air as punctuation. This was also normal. “Welcome to the twenty-first century at last!”
“You don’t have to lose anything,” Kay had countered, frowning at Jules when Liliana had frozen solid where she sat with a slice of pepperoni halfway to her mouth. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“The other side of that being you can do anything you do want to do, once and for all,” Jules had retorted, wholly unchastened.
“Don’t worry,” Liliana had replied, opting not to remind her roommates that she’d only ever been kissed once during their senior year in college, and it had been embarrassing for everyone concerned. They knew that. Sometimes it felt as if the entire population of New York City knew that, too. “My ugly-duckling years are over. I hereby declare that tonight is the night I’ll transform into a swan at last!”
They’d all cheered and hugged, then turned up the music, and Liliana had channeled her shaky certainty into her wineglass, where she’d helped herself to far more white wine than was usual for a girl who had believed it when the terrifying headmistress at her prison-like boarding school in Switzerland had told her wine made women into whores.
“Is that the legacy you wish to build as the last living heir to two mighty bloodlines?” Madame had asked with stern distaste, as if Liliana had already been discovered turning tricks on the shores of Lake Geneva. At that time Liliana had been fourteen and far more concerned with the solo careers of certain former boy band members than mighty bloodlines of any description. Particularly her own. “There are any number of rich, vacuous whores cluttering up the tabloids. It is up to you whether you wish to make a spectacle of yourself in this way or not.”
Here in the safety of their tiny kitchen, Liliana toasted her former prison warden and her roommate’s expectant expression with one lift of her glass, then took a deep pull from it.
Sweet white wine, she thought happily. Maybe too happily. Making ugly ducklings into swans since the first grape was crushed underfoot.
If only in her own head.
“This is the new and improved Lily Bertrand you’re looking at,” she told Kay grandly and with a great deal of confidence she didn’t actually feel. “Beautiful men are nothing but my due.”
“Damn right,” Kay replied. She nudged Liliana with her shoulder. “But you might have to leave the kitchen to collect what’s owed you, you know.”
Liliana did not want to leave the kitchen. The party was loud and silly and as vaguely unsettling as all parties always seemed to her. It was also packed full of the approximately seventeen million friends Kay and Jules had made during their years at Barnard.
Liliana, by contrast, had made exactly two friends at Barnard: Kay and Jules.
Wine, she reminded herself as she forced herself out of the narrow galley kitchen and edged her way into the crowded living room. Wine understands. Wine is here to help.
She took another sip. Okay, maybe it was a gulp. Either way, it made leaving the relative safety of the kitchen feel a whole lot more like a powerful choice she was opting to make instead of a terrifying dare she had no choice but to perform, thanks to her big mouth.
Luckily, the more she drank, the more mellow she felt and the less she cared about the consequences of ill-considered vow-making. Almost as if everything she’d said—and, yes, foolishly vowed—to her roommates tonight was true, instead of little more than wishful thinking. And maybe alcohol didn’t disagree with her after all, the way Liliana had always claimed it did because that minor lie was easier than admitting that a dour Frenchwoman she hadn’t seen since her high school graduation still took up so much real estate in her head.
It’s not just Madame who’s cluttering things up in here, a small voice reminded her then, but she shoved that aside. The last thing she wanted to think about was the impossible, overwhelming guardian who made his presence felt from afar with such ease. Not here. Certainly not now.
