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Bound By Their Christmas Baby
Clare Connelly
From under the mistletoe……to down the aisle!When brooding bachelor Gabe Arantini learns the innocent beauty he shared a steamy festive night with is the daughter of his business rival, he’s furious. The following Christmas Abby returns with shocking news—she’s had his child! Gabe knows he must marry Abby to legitimise his son. But can this be a marriage in name only, or will their red-hot chemistry take over?
From under the mistletoe...
...to down the aisle!
When brooding bachelor Gabe Arantini learns the innocent beauty he shared a steamy festive night with is the daughter of his business rival, he’s furious. The following Christmas, Abby returns with shocking news—she’s had his child! Gabe knows he must marry Abby to legitimize his son. But can this be a marriage in name only, or will their red-hot chemistry take over?
Feel the heat in this festive secret baby romance!
CLARE CONNELLY was raised in small-town Australia among a family of avid readers. She spent much of her childhood up a tree, Mills & Boon book in hand. Clare is married to her own real-life hero and they live in a bungalow near the sea with their two children. She is frequently found staring into space—a surefire sign she is in the world of her characters. She has a penchant for French food and ice-cold champagne, and Mills & Boon novels continue to be her favourite ever books. Writing for Modern Romance is a long-held dream. Clare can be contacted via clareconnelly.com (http://www.clareconnelly.com) or at her Facebook page.
Also by Clare Connelly (#ufc572562-aad7-5a6f-ab68-28188d11dc8b)
Bought for the Billionaire’s Revenge
Innocent in the Billionaire’s Bed
Her Wedding Night Surrender
Bound by the Billionaire’s Vows
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk. (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Bound by Their Christmas Baby
Clare Connelly
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07286-1
BOUND BY THEIR CHRISTMAS BABY
© 2018 Clare Connelly
Published in Great Britain 2018
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.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my fabulous
South Australian Romance Association friends:
smart, supportive and kind women
who sparkle like ornaments all year round.
Contents
Cover (#u171e688f-0c8c-559d-8a65-dd67733aa57f)
Back Cover Text (#ufac66049-5578-520e-9664-5e68d0582c40)
About the Author (#u5643b240-c341-5e6e-b48a-4181370d5a17)
Booklist (#udd7769d8-8551-552c-a8aa-b4ff4b5d4650)
Title Page (#ubad22939-6e84-50da-ba8c-fde17eaf7812)
Copyright (#u2d84f68e-e6fa-5ed7-b1a5-705ba447bbf1)
Dedication (#u9436358d-cbb2-59f8-9900-02237bfd7d48)
CHAPTER ONE (#u0814a41f-df3d-5d0f-84e7-aff31dc0f4bc)
CHAPTER TWO (#u6efaaf45-f3c8-5b08-8a9a-db3b84a23aaf)
CHAPTER THREE (#ud2b33802-740d-5920-9679-08a9e270657a)
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)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ufc572562-aad7-5a6f-ab68-28188d11dc8b)
GABE WAS BORED. He always was at these damned things, but they were part and parcel of his life. His job. His all. And he’d never been a man to walk away from a challenge.
God knew Noah—his business partner and best friend—wasn’t going to step forward to attend a damned investors’ dinner. A party in a club, sure. Noah would be there in an instant. But this kind of entertaining fell to Gabe, and Gabe alone. He looked around the table, smiling blandly, wondering how much more he had to endure before he could make his excuses and leave.
There were a thousand better ways than this to spend an evening.
He hadn’t been to New York in a year, and the last time? Well, it had been a spectacular disaster. No wonder he’d avoided it like the plague. Too much melancholy at Christmas, that was the problem. He’d actually allowed himself to feel lonely, to feel alone, to feel sorry for himself. That was why he’d been stupid enough to fall for her ploy.
‘Calypso’s going to be game-changing,’ Bertram Fines said with confidence. ‘You’ve done it again.’
Gabe ignored the flattery. People were all too quick with praise now that he and Noah had established the foremost technology company in the world. It was the early years when they’d been without friends, without funds, and still made it work through sheer perseverance and determination. He reached for his glass. It was empty. He lifted a hand in the air, summoning a waiter without lifting his gaze.
‘This is the culmination of a lot of innovation, and even more research. Calypso isn’t just a smartphone, it’s a way of life,’ he said with a lift of his shoulders. It was the culmination of an idea he and Noah had years earlier, and they’d worked tirelessly to get it to this point—almost to the market. Calypso went beyond the average smartphone. It was smarter. More secure, guaranteeing its users more privacy.
His spine straightened with a frisson of alarm when he recalled how close he’d come, a year ago, to compromising the project. How close he’d come to seeing Calypso’s secrets taken to one of his business rivals.
But that hadn’t eventuated. He’d made sure of that. His eyes glinted with the ferocity of his thoughts, the strength of his resentment, but his smile was all wolf-like charm.
‘How can I help you, sir?’ A woman appeared to his left. A brassy redhead with a pleasing figure and a smile that showed she knew it. Once upon a time, Gabe might have smiled back. Hell, he’d have done more than smile back—he’d have laid on the charm, asked what time she finished her shift, and then he’d have seduced her. Bought her a drink, taken her for a drive in his limousine before inviting her to his hotel room.
But the last time he’d done that, he’d learned his lesson. He would never again invite a wolf in sheep’s clothing to his bed, nor a woman dressed like a temptress who’d come to betray him. Before he had met Abigail Howard, Gabe couldn’t have imagined going a month without the company of a beautiful woman between his sheets, but now it had been a year. A year since Abigail, a year without women, and he barely cared.
He named a bottle of wine, one of the most expensive on the menu, without smiling, and turned his attention back to his table of guests. Conversation had moved onto the cost of midtown realty. He sat back, pretending to listen, fingers in a temple beneath his chin.
The restaurant was quietening down. Despite the fact it was one of Manhattan’s oldest and most prestigious spots, it was late—nearing midnight—and the conservative crowd that favoured this sort of establishment were wrapping up their evenings.
Gabe let his eyes run idly around the room. It was everything he’d come to expect in this kind of place, from the glistening chandeliers that sparkled overhead to the sumptuous burgundy velvet curtains adorning the windows, to the menu and wine list that were both six-star.
The waitress approached with the wine and he gestured that she should fill up his companions’ glasses. For Gabe’s part, he wasn’t a big drinker, and certainly not with men he hardly knew. Discretion was the better part of valour—another lesson he’d learned a year ago. No, that wasn’t true. He’d known it all his life. She’d just made him forget.
His eyes wandered once more, this time towards the kitchens, concealed behind large white doors that flapped silently as staff moved quickly through them. Inside, he knew, would be a hive of activity, despite the calm serenity of the restaurant dining room. The doors flicked open and for the briefest moment Gabe was certain he saw her.
A flick of white-blonde hair, a petite figure, pale skin.
He gripped the stem of his empty wine glass, his whole body stilled, like a predator on alert.
It wasn’t her. Of course it wasn’t.
In the kitchen? Had that been a dishcloth in her hand?
Not possible.
He homed back in on the conversation at the table, laughing at a joke, nodding at something someone said, but every few moments his eyes shifted towards the doors, trying to get a better look at the ghost of Christmas last.
Gabe wasn’t a man to leave things to chance. He’d experienced enough random acts, enough of fate’s whimsy, to know that he would never again let life surprise him.
She had surprised him though, that night. What was it about the woman that had got under his skin? She was beautiful, but so were many women, and Gabe wasn’t a man who let a woman’s appearance overpower him. In fact, he prided himself on being more interested in a woman’s mind. Her intellect. The decency of her soul and conscience.
And yet she’d walked into the bar of his Manhattan hotel and their eyes had sparked. Then he’d held his breath for the longest time, waiting for her to say something, needing to hear her voice and to know all about her instantly.
What madness had overtaken him that night?
It hadn’t been a random spark though. Their meeting had been planned meticulously. He forced himself to return his attention to his guests, but his mind was on that long-ago night, a night he usually tried not to remember. A night he would never forget. Not because it had been so wonderful—though at the time he thought it had been—but because of the lessons it had taught him.
Don’t trust anyone. Ever. Except for Noah, Gabe was alone in this world, and that was the way he wanted it.
Still, the mystery of the vision of Abby remained, so that, as the night wore on and cars were called for the investors, he gestured towards the maître d’.
‘How has your evening been, Mr Arantini?’ the man asked with an obsequious bow. Gabe might have grown up dirt-poor, but he’d been phenomenally wealthy for a long time now; such marked deference was not new to him. He’d even come to find it amusing.
Gabe didn’t answer the question. There was no need. If he hadn’t found the evening a success, the maître d’ would have heard about it well before then. ‘I’d like to speak to Rémy,’ he said silkily.
‘The chef?’
Gabe lifted a brow. ‘Unless you have two Remys working this evening.’
The maître d’ laughed a little self-consciously. ‘Not at all, sir. Just the one.’
‘Then I’ll let myself into the kitchen.’ He stood and spun on his heel, stalking towards the doors without allowing the maître d’ a reply.
At the doors, though, he hesitated for the briefest moment, bracing himself for the likelihood that he might come face to face with her once more. And the greater likelihood that he would not.
So?
Why did that bother him?
If he’d wanted to see Abigail Howard again, he’d had ample opportunities. She’d called him relentlessly, desperate to ‘apologise’ for her part in the scam. Desperate to see him, to make amends. Didn’t she realise how futile those efforts were? As if Gabe could ever forgive such a betrayal! He’d left her in little doubt as to how he felt when she’d turned up at his office in Rome—for heaven’s sake—demanding to see him.
That had been six months ago. Six months after she’d bargained her innocence for a glimpse at top secret Calypso files on behalf of her father. His blood still curdled at what that night had been about—at what she’d been willing to give up for commercial success.
He’d known a lot of manipulative characters in his time, but none so abhorrent as she’d been.
The satisfaction of having his security remove her from his office had been immense. She’d come to Rome to see him and he’d made it painstakingly obvious that he’d never see her again.
So? What was he doing now? Hovering outside a restaurant kitchen because he thought he’d caught a glimpse of her? And how could he possibly have recognised her in the brief moment the blonde had walked past the doors? It wasn’t physically possible, he told himself, all the while knowing he had recognised something about the woman. The lithe grace of her walk. The elegance of her neck as she turned her head, hair that was like clouds at sunset, glowing with the evening’s rays.
Great.
