The Mediterranean Prince's Passion

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The Mediterranean Prince's Passion
Sharon Kendrick

DEAR READER LETTER

By Sharon Kendrick

Dear Reader (#ulink_644fc621-428f-5581-924c-e702a1097c91),

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

The Mediterranean Prince’s Passion

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

Contents

Cover (#uc24c5e52-6406-50fa-8fec-d007e6521a80)

Dear Reader (#ulink_6528daf7-44b9-5eec-aa3f-39d40840cdb7)

About the Author (#uace6b258-aa2f-5a06-b43b-9b5cba771903)

Title Page (#ue84ad097-ef1f-5f08-bed3-81dc5657f947)

Dedication (#u6e23774a-53ff-5b32-8dd7-020faf2d212c)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_dd3c10d9-d908-5dc1-a0a5-3b7636bfb443)

IT WAS just a dazzle of white set against the endless sapphire, but the sun was blinding her too much to see clearly. Ella’s eyes fluttered to a close in protest. Maybe she had imagined it. Like a person hallucinating an oasis in the desert, perhaps her mind had conjured up an image on the empty sea that surrounded them. Some sign of life other than the birds that circled and cawed in a sky as blue as the waters beneath.

‘Mark.’ She croaked the unfamiliar name through lips so parched they felt as if they had never tasted liquid before. ‘Mark, are you there?’ She racked her brains for one of the women’s names. ‘Helen!’

But there was no answer, and maybe that wasn’t so surprising, for the throb, throb, throb of loud music from the lower deck drowned the sound of her feeble words. She could hear the muffled sound of girlish, drunken giggling drifting upwards. She moaned.

How long? How long since she had drunk anything? She knew she ought to go and get some water, but her legs felt as though they had been filled with lead. She lifted a heavy hand to try to brush the weight of damp hair that flopped so annoyingly against her cheek, but it fell uselessly to her side.

She was going to die. She knew she was.

She could feel the strength slowly ebbing from her body. Her ears were roaring and the weak flutter of her heart beat rapidly against her breast. Her skin was on fire, it was burning…burning…burning…

Below, the cool, darkened interior of the cabin beckoned to her enticingly, but an instinct even stronger than her need to escape the sun stopped her from giving in to it. Down there lay chaos, and no chance for escape, but at least here on deck someone might see her.

Her eyes began to close.

Please, God, let someone see her…

His dark hair ruffled by the breeze and his strong body relaxed, Nico stared at the horizon, his eyes suddenly narrowing as the flash of something on the horizon caught his attention.

A boat? Where there should be no boat? Here in the protected waters on this side of Mardivino? His mouth tightened. Modern-day bandits? Seeking access to the tax haven guarded so jealously by the super-rich? The island had a long history of being beseiged by bounty-hunters and their modern-day counterparts—the paparazzi—and his face darkened. Where the hell were the Marine Patrol when you needed them?

But the devil-may-care facet of his character made his pulse begin to race with excitement. Ignoring—almost relishing—the potential danger to himself, he reached for the throttle and his jet-ski sped forward, roaring in a spray of foam towards the stricken craft, which bobbed like a child’s toy on the waves.

As his craft approached he could see a figure lying on the deck, and as he drew alongside he could see that it was a woman and that she appeared to be sunbathing. Tawny limbs and tawny hair. Slim and supple, with the tight lushness of youth. It took him precisely two seconds to assess whether or not this was a ploy and she the decoy. It was an age-old method he had encountered before; it came with the territory he inhabited.

But she was not sunbathing. Something was very wrong—Nico could see that from her slumped and unmoving pose.

Moving swiftly, he secured his jet-ski and jumped on board, his stance alert and watchful as he scanned the deck for a brief moment and listened intently. From a distance he could hear the loud beat of dance music, but the woman appeared to be alone on deck.

In a few strides he had reached her. Bending over, he turned her onto her side, blotting out his instinctive first reaction to the way her magnificent breasts rose and fell beneath the skimpy jade-green bikini top she wore.

She was sick.

Assessingly, he ran his eyes over her. Her breathing was shallow, her eyes tight-closed and her skin very pink. He laid a brief exploratory hand on her forehead and felt the heat sizzling from it. Fever. Probably sunstroke, by the look of her.

Urgently, he shook her. ‘Svegli!’ he ordered, but there was no response. He tried in French. ‘Reveillezvous!’ And then, louder, in Spanish. ‘Despierte!’

Through the mists of the dream that was sucking her down towards a black numbness Ella heard a deep voice urging her back to the surface, back towards the light. But the light was hurting her eyes and she didn’t want to go there. She shook her head from side to side.

‘Wake up!’

Her eyes flickered open. A face was looming over her—its hard, handsome features set in a look of grim concern. A dark angel. She must be dreaming. Or dying.

‘Oh, no!’ he exclaimed, and levered her up into his arms, supporting her head with an unmoving hand as it threatened to flop back. ‘You will not sleep again! Do you hear me? Wake up! Wake up now, this instant. I demand it!’

The richly accented voice was too commanding to ignore, but Ella was lost in the grip of a fever too powerful to resist.

‘Go away,’ she mumbled, and she felt a cold terror when he lowered her back onto the deck and did just that—left her all alone again. She gave a little whimper.

Nico went below deck and the noise hit him like a wall. He stood for a moment, studying the scene of decadence that lay before him.

He could count five people—three men and two women—and all of them were in advanced stages of intoxication. One woman was topless and snoring quietly on the floor, while another gyrated in front of one of the men like a very poor lap-dancer.

Only one of the men seemed to notice his arrival, and he raised a half-empty bottle of Scotch.

‘Hey! Who’re you?’ he slurred.

Nico gave him a look of simmering fury. ‘Are you aware that you’re trespassing?’ he snapped.

‘No, matey—I think you’re the one doing that! This boat I paid through the nose for, and—’ The man pointed exaggeratedly upwards. ‘The sea is free!’ he added, in a sing-song voice.

‘Not here, it isn’t. You’re in forbidden waters.’ And, turning on his heel, Nico went back up onto the deck. He slid a mobile phone from his back pocket and punched in a number known to only a very few, which connected him straight to the Chief of Police.

‘Pronto? Si. Nicolo.’ He spoke rapidly in Italian.

There was a pause.

‘You want that we should arrest them, Principe?’ asked the Capo quietly.

Nico gave a hard glimmer of a smile. ‘Si. Why not? A night in jail sobering up might teach them never to put themselves nor others in danger again.’ But he stared down thoughtfully at the girl, for she was not drunk; she was sick.

He bent down and shook her gently by the shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open, dazed and green as spring grass.

Through the haze of her fever she saw his strength—a rock, a safe harbour and her only means of escape. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged.

The raw emotion in her voice made him still momentarily but it was an unnecessary appeal for he had already made up his mind. ‘I have no intention of leaving you,’ he said tersely, and scooped her up into his arms before she could protest.

Her arms clasped tightly around his neck, she slumped against his chest like a rag doll in an unconscious attitude of complete trust. He gripped her tightly as he manoeuvred her onto the jet-ski.

Most men would have struggled to cope with a woozy female, but Nico had been born to respond to challenge—it was one of the few things in life that invigorated him. A small smile touched the corners of his mouth as he set off for the shore.

He was always trying new thrills and spills, but this was the first time he’d ever rescued a damsel in distress.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_40150448-a0b4-51aa-a811-70eb7e0ea6d6)

COOL dampness rippled enchanting fingers across her cheeks and Ella let out a small sigh.

‘Mmm! S’nice!’

‘Drink this!’

It was the voice that wouldn’t go away. The voice that wouldn’t take no for an answer. The voice that had been popping in and out of her consciousness with annoying frequency. A bossy, foreign voice, but an irresistible one, too.

Obediently Ella opened her lips and sipped again from the cup she was being offered, only this time she drank more greedily than before, gulping it so that the water ran in riveluts down her face, trickling over her chin and startling her out of the hazy fog that engulfed her.

‘That is better,’ said the deep voice, with a touch of approval. ‘Take some more still, and then open your eyes properly.’

Befuddled, she did as she was told—only to find herself even more confused. For there was a man standing over her—a man she didn’t recognise.

Or did she?

She blinked up at his face and something peculiar happened to her already unsteady heart-rate, for he was utterly spectacular.

His chiselled features gave his face a hard, auto cratic appearance, but a sensual mouth softened it. Narrowed eyes were fringed by blocks of dark lashes and his hair was jet-dark and wavy, and slightly too long. He looked rugged and powerful—familiar and yet a stranger. His skin was golden and olive and glowing—as though it had been gently lit from within. His was the face that had drifted in and out of her fevered sleep, coaxing and cooling her. A dark angel. A guardian angel.

So she had not been dreaming at all. Nor, it seemed, had she died.

Still blinking in consternation, she glanced around her. She was in a room—a very plain and simple room, containing little more than a small wooden table and a couple of old chairs. On the floor were worn floorboards, the walls were wooden, too, and she could hear the roar of waves. It was cool and dim and she was lying on a low kind of bed, beneath a tickly-feeling thing that was too thick to be a sheet and too thin to be a blanket. Her hand slithered inside.

She was wearing nothing but a man’s T-shirt!

The last of her lethargy fled in an instant and fear galloped in to take its place. Clutching the coverlet, she sat up and stared at the man who stood over her, his dark face shuttered and watchful. Was she certain that she wasn’t dreaming? Who was he, and what was she doing here?

‘Would you mind telling me what the hell’s going on?’ she demanded breathlessly.

‘I think…’ There was a pause. He watched her very carefully, like a hunter with his prey held firmly in his sights. ‘That I should be asking you that very same question.’

Her heart was pounding like a piston. His voice was soft and rich and accented. And accusing. When surely, if there was any accusing to be done…Beneath the coverlet she ran an exploratory hand down over her body, as if checking that all her limbs were intact. And not just her limbs…

Nico watched her. ‘Oh, do not worry,’ he drawled. ‘Your virtue is intact. Or at least as intact as it was when you arrived.’ Though God only knew what she had been up to with the band of drunks on board that boat.