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Italian Mavericks: In The Italian's Bed: Leonetti's Housekeeper Bride / Inherited by Ferranti / Best Man for the Bridesmaid
Jennifer Faye
Kate Hewitt
LYNNE GRAHAM
A smouldering seductionThe 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. Could housekeeper Poppy Arnold fit the bill?*It’s been seven years since Sierra Rocci left Marco Ferranti on the eve of their convenient wedding. Now she’s back in Sicily to collect her inheritance – only to find out everything that bears her name belongs to Marco!*Planning her sister's Italian wedding only reminds Jules Lane how far away she is from finding her own true love. And worse, she’s doing it alongside the brooding, mouth-wateringly handsome best man, Stefano DeFiore!
About the Authors (#u64add7af-088c-5c29-8c3d-b5c50158759f)
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.
After spending three years as a die-hard New Yorker, KATE HEWITT now lives in a small village in the English Lake District with her husband, their five children and a golden retriever. In addition to writing intensely emotional stories, she loves reading, baking and playing chess with her son—she has yet to win against him, but she continues to try.
Learn more about Kate at kate-hewitt.com (http://www.kate-hewitt.com).
Award-winning author JENNIFER FAYE pens fun, heartwarming romances. Jennifer has won the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award, is a TOP PICK author, and has been nominated for numerous awards. Now living her dream, she resides with her patient husband, one amazing daughter (the other remarkable daughter is off chasing her own dreams) and two spoiled cats. She’d love to hear from you via her website: JenniferFaye.com (http://www.JenniferFaye.com)
Italian Mavericks: In the Italian’s Bed
Leonetti’s Housekeeper Bride
Lynne Graham
Inherited by Ferranti
Kate Hewitt
Best Man for the Bridesmaid
Jennifer Faye
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-09295-1
ITALIAN MAVERICKS: IN THE ITALIAN’S BED
Leonetti’s Housekeeper Bride © 2016 Lynne Graham Inherited by Ferranti © 2016 Kate Hewitt Best Man for the Bridesmaid © 2015 Jennifer Faye
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#uc50b0c3f-ef48-5caa-a635-f9fe7af33335)
About the Authors (#uf2686a2c-4432-591c-9f50-14eae92e5f03)
Title Page (#u552098ff-fe96-5224-8d3e-eaf88ffac06a)
Copyright (#u835a46bb-bf96-565a-9230-a620047bb09b)
Leonetti’s Housekeeper Bride (#u7be8116b-baad-58f8-8dc0-20d369bde57a)
CHAPTER ONE (#u87e49cd0-4824-5c8d-aae8-86aff3128394)
CHAPTER TWO (#u7fd3bd68-8788-5905-a7eb-2bc2ceed0413)
CHAPTER THREE (#u3657a49f-3c4c-5a78-9d66-74fc45c99cf0)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ueb2d7dc2-e073-5c3a-aea4-f183a5cf7916)
CHAPTER FIVE (#uf46c763f-30a7-5d56-81e5-3d5b34c9923e)
CHAPTER SIX (#u5f94e420-1892-5193-8a56-8c758454fca5)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#uccbbe22e-c2e0-557d-8011-5c92ccaa1ef6)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u15ca9384-6b07-555b-ab5f-4a608057121a)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
Inherited by Ferranti (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Best Man for the Bridesmaid (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Leonetti’s Housekeeper Bride (#u64add7af-088c-5c29-8c3d-b5c50158759f)
Lynne Graham
CHAPTER ONE (#u64add7af-088c-5c29-8c3d-b5c50158759f)
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 New York. Everyone still had their clothes on at that stage,’ Gaetano said drily. ‘I really don’t need another scandal like this.’
‘Scandal does rather seem to follow you around. I suppose the old man and the board at the bank are up in arms as usual,’ Tom commented with sympathy.
Gaetano compressed his wide sensual mouth in silent agreement. In the name of family loyalty and respect, he was paying in the blood of his fierce pride and ambition for the latest scandal. Letting his seventy-four-year-old grandfather Rodolfo carpet him like a badly behaved schoolboy had proved to be a truly toxic experience for a billionaire whose investment advice was sought by governments both in the UK and abroad. And when Rodolfo had settled into his favourite preaching session about Gaetano’s womanising lifestyle, Gaetano had had to breathe in deeply several times and resist the urge to point out to the older man that expectations and values had changed since the nineteen forties for both men and women.
Rodolfo Leonetti had married a humble fisherman’s daughter at the age of twenty-one and during his fifty years of devoted marriage he had never looked at another woman. Ironically, his only child, Gaetano’s father, Rocco, had not taken his father’s advice on the benefits of making an early marriage either. Rocco had been a notorious playboy and an incorrigible gambler. He had married a woman young enough to be his daughter when he was in his fifties, had fathered one son and had expired ten years later after over-exerting himself in another woman’s bed. Gaetano reckoned he had been paying for his father’s sins almost from the hour of his birth. At the age of twenty-nine and one of the world’s leading bankers, he was tired of being continually forced to prove his worth and confine his projects to the narrow expectations of the board. He had made millions for the Leonetti Bank; he deserved to be CEO.
