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His Forbidden Passion
Anne Mather
Mills & Boon are excited to present The Anne Mather Collection – the complete works by this classic author made available to download for the very first time! These books span six decades of a phenomenal writing career, and every story is available to read unedited and untouched from their original release.Handsome and oh, so dangerous to know!Dominic Montoya is strictly off-limits. And yet Cleo can’t seem to keep away! Not only has he got information that could change her whole life, but his enigmatic charm is impossible to resist…Before she knows it, Cleo is whisked away to his luxury resort on the sultry Caribbean island of San Clemente. She finds herself inextricably caught in the tangled web of her new family connections – and helplessly falling under Dominic’s spell. Their forbidden attraction may be too hot to handle, but it’s also too strong to deny…
Mills & Boon is proud to present a fabulous collection of fantastic novels by bestselling, much loved author
ANNE MATHER
Anne has a stellar record of achievement within the publishing industry, having written over one hundred and sixty books, with worldwide sales of more than forty-eight MILLION copies in multiple languages.
This amazing collection of classic stories offers a chance for readers to recapture the pleasure Anne’s powerful, passionate writing has given.
We are sure you will love them all!
I’ve always wanted to write—which is not to say I’ve always wanted to be a professional writer. On the contrary, for years I only wrote for my own pleasure and it wasn’t until my husband suggested sending one of my stories to a publisher that we put several publishers’ names into a hat and pulled one out. The rest, as they say, is history. And now, one hundred and sixty-two books later, I’m literally—excuse the pun—staggered by what’s happened.
I had written all through my infant and junior years and on into my teens, the stories changing from children’s adventures to torrid gypsy passions. My mother used to gather these manuscripts up from time to time, when my bedroom became too untidy, and dispose of them! In those days, I used not to finish any of the stories and Caroline, my first published novel, was the first I’d ever completed. I was newly married then and my daughter was just a baby, and it was quite a job juggling my household chores and scribbling away in exercise books every chance I got. Not very professional, as you can imagine, but that’s the way it was.
These days, I have a bit more time to devote to my work, but that first love of writing has never changed. I can’t imagine not having a current book on the typewriter—yes, it’s my husband who transcribes everything on to the computer. He’s my partner in both life and work and I depend on his good sense more than I care to admit.
We have two grown-up children, a son and a daughter, and two almost grown-up grandchildren, Abi and Ben. My e-mail address is mystic-am@msn.com (mailto:mystic-am@msn.com) and I’d be happy to hear from any of my wonderful readers.
His Forbidden Passion
Anne Mather
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
Cover (#u817a6852-d3ea-5277-88fc-dc2f49880069)
About the Author (#u20da2f6c-3279-51f3-9d7a-38b7afbe52ea)
Title Page (#u590e045b-d3d4-556d-af51-6bc0d1f74dec)
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
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EPILOGUE
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ubfb9e822-5946-575b-b357-7146344ace70)
CLEO was almost sure she’d seen the woman before.
She didn’t know when or where she might have seen her, or if the feeling was real or just imagined. But there was an odd sense of familiarity when she looked at her that refused to go away.
She shook her head rather impatiently. Sometimes she was far too sensitive for her own good. But there was no doubt that the woman had been staring at her ever since she’d joined the queue at the checkout, so perhaps that was why she looked familiar. Perhaps she resembled someone the woman used to know.
There was obviously a perfectly innocent explanation. Just because she didn’t like being stared at didn’t mean the woman meant her any harm. Paying for the milk that had sent her to the store in the first place, Cleo determinedly ignored the persistent scrutiny, and then nearly jumped out of her skin when the woman spoke to her.
‘It’s Ms Novak, isn’t it?’ she asked, blocking Cleo’s way as she would have moved past her. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you at last. Your friend said I might find you here.’
Cleo frowned. She could only mean Norah. Which meant the woman must have been to their apartment first. She sighed. What was Norah thinking of, offering her whereabouts to a complete stranger? With all the odd things that happened these days, Cleo would have expected her to have more sense.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, albeit against her better judgement. ‘Should I know you?’
The woman smiled and Cleo realised she was older than she’d appeared from a distance. Cleo had assumed she was in her forties, but now she saw she was at least fifty. The sleek bob of copper hair was deceiving, but the trim figure and slender legs were not.
She wasn’t very tall. She had to tilt her head to meet Cleo’s enquiring gaze. But her make-up was skilful, her clothes obviously expensive, and what she lacked in stature she more than made up for in presence.
‘I apologise,’ she said, her accent vaguely transatlantic, drawing Cleo out of the store by the simple method of continuing to talk to her. The cool air of an autumn evening swirled about them and the woman shivered as if it wasn’t to her liking. ‘Of course,’ she went on, pausing on the forecourt. ‘I should have introduced myself at once. We haven’t met, my dear, but I’m Serena Montoya. Your father’s sister.’
Of all the things she might have said, that had to be the least expected, thought Cleo incredulously. For a moment she could only stare at her in disbelief.
Then, recovering a little, she said with a mixture of shaky amusement and relief, ‘My father didn’t have a sister, Ms Montoya. I’m sorry.’ She started to move away. ‘I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Serena Montoya—if that really was her name—put out scarlet-tipped fingers and caught the sleeve of Cleo’s woollen jacket. ‘Please,’ she pleaded. ‘Listen to me for a moment.’ She sighed and removed her fingers again when Cleo gave her a pointed look. ‘Your father’s name was Robert Montoya—’
‘No.’
‘—and he was born on the island of San Clemente in the Caribbean in 1956.’
‘That’s not true.’ Cleo stared at her impatiently. Then, with a sound of resignation, ‘Well, yes, my father was born on San Clemente, but I’m not absolutely sure of the date, and his name was Henry Novak.’
‘I’m afraid not.’ Grasping Cleo’s wrist, this time with a firmness that wouldn’t be denied, Serena Montoya regarded her with determined eyes. ‘I am not lying to you, Ms Novak. I know you’ve always thought that Lucille and Henry Novak were your parents, but they weren’t.’
Cleo couldn’t believe this was happening. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she demanded. ‘Why are you insisting that this man, Robert Montoya—your brother—is my father?’
‘Was,’ Serena corrected her regretfully. ‘Robert was your father. He died some years ago.’
Cleo’s voice broke on a sob. ‘It’s a ridiculous assertion and you know it.’
‘It’s true.’ Serena was inflexible. Resisting Cleo’s efforts to pull away, she continued flatly, ‘Believe me, Ms Novak, when my father—your grandfather—told me what had happened, I didn’t want to believe it either.’
‘Now, that I can believe,’ said Cleo a little grimly. ‘Well, don’t worry, Ms Montoya. Obviously your father is suffering from delusions. Unfortunately my real parents were killed in a rail accident six months ago or they would have told you that themselves.’
‘Yes, we know about the accident.’ Serena was full of surprises. ‘That’s when my father first learned where you were living.’ She paused. ‘And he is not delusional. Please, Cleo, come and have a drink with me and let me explain—’
Cleo fell back a step and this time the woman let her go. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘How do you think?’ Serena sounded as if she was getting bored now. ‘It’s Cleopatra, isn’t it?’ And, seeing the unwilling confirmation on Cleo’s face, she added, ‘It was your maternal grandmother’s name, too. She was called Cleopatra Dubois and her daughter, Celeste, was your mother. Celeste Dubois was one of the most beautiful women on the island.’ She gave Cleo a considering look. ‘I hesitate to say it, but you look a lot like her.’
Cleo’s lips tightened. ‘Was she black?’
Serena frowned. ‘Does that matter?’
Cleo shook her head. ‘Only a white person would ask such a question.’ Her lips curled. ‘Yes, it matters.’
‘OK.’ Serena considered. ‘Well, yes, I suppose she was—black. Her skin was—um—coffee coloured. Not black, exactly, but not white either.’
That was enough. Cleo refused to listen to any more. If the description of her so-called ‘mother’ had been meant to disarm her, it had failed abysmally. She was used to vapid flattery. Usually from men, it was true. But she’d had to deal with it all her life.
‘Look, I have to go,’ she said, assuring herself that if there had been any truth in what the woman was saying, she’d have heard about it by now. Her parents had not been liars, whatever Serena Montoya said. And Cleo had loved them far too much to even countenance such a suggestion.
Besides which, she’d been the sole executor of her parents’ estate. And she’d found nothing among their papers to arouse any kind of suspicion in her mind.
Except that photograph, she remembered now, half unwillingly. At the time, she’d thought little of it. It was a picture of her mother with another woman, a woman who she’d realised looked a lot like her. But there’d been nothing on the back of the picture, nothing to say who the woman might be. And Cleo had put it down to her own imagination. There were probably hundreds of people in the world that she bore a resemblance to.
Like Serena Montoya…
But no, she banished that thought, and to her surprise the other woman didn’t try to detain her any longer.
‘All right,’ she said evenly. ‘I realise this has been as much of a shock to you as it was to me.’
You got that right, thought Cleo savagely, but she didn’t voice the thought. Nor was she foolish enough to believe that this was the end of the matter.
‘You need time to assimilate what I’ve told you,’ Serena went on, almost conversationally, drawing velvet-soft leather gloves over her ringed fingers as she spoke. ‘But don’t take too long, will you, my dear? Your grandfather is dying. Are you going to deny him a last chance to meet his only granddaughter?’
Cleo arrived back at the apartment she shared with Norah Jacobs some thirty minutes later.
Actually, it was normally only a five-minute walk from the supermarket to Minster Court, where the apartment was situated. But Cleo had taken a detour through the park to give herself time to think.
At any other time, nothing would have persuaded her to enter the park alone and after dark, but right now she wasn’t thinking very coherently. She’d just been told that her mother and father—the two people in the world she’d always thought she could depend on—had lied about her identity. That far from being alone now, as she’d believed, she had an aunt and a grandfather—and who knew what else?—who were—well, white.
She didn’t want to believe it. She wanted things to go back to the way they were before she’d decided she couldn’t do without milk on her cornflakes in the morning.
If she hadn’t gone to the supermarket…
But that was silly. Sooner or later, the Montoya woman would have caught up with her. And things weren’t going to change any time soon. Not unless Serena Montoya was playing the biggest hoax Cleo had ever heard of.
And why would she do that? What did she have to gain by it? She hadn’t struck Cleo as being the kind of woman who’d put herself out for a complete stranger. Not unless her own father was dying, of course. And he had another agenda she had yet to reveal.
Norah was waiting for her in the rather cramped living room of the apartment. The whole place was pushed for space, but rents in this part of London were prohibitive, and Cleo had jumped at the chance to share expenses with the other girl.
Norah was blonde and pretty and inclined to plumpness. The exact opposite of Cleo in so many ways. But the two girls had been friends since their schooldays and, despite the limitations of their surroundings, they generally got along very well.
Now, however, Norah looked positively anxious. ‘Here you are!’ she exclaimed in relief, as soon as Cleo opened the door. ‘I’ve been worried sick. Where have you been?’ Then, her brows drawing together as Cleo moved into the light of the living room, ‘What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
Cleo shook her head without saying anything. Walking past her friend, she rounded the breakfast bar that separated the tiny kitchen from the rest of the living space and stowed the milk in the fridge.
Then, straightening, she said, ‘Why on earth would you tell a complete stranger where I was?’
‘Oh…’ The colour in Norah’s cheeks deepened. ‘So she found you.’
‘If you mean Serena Montoya, then yes, she did.’
‘Serena Montoya? Is that her name?’ Norah tried to lighten the conversation, but she could tell Cleo wasn’t distracted by her efforts. ‘Well, she said she was your aunt,’ she offered lamely. ‘What was I supposed to say? She didn’t look like a con artist to me.’
‘Like you would know,’ said Cleo drily. Norah’s many unsuccessful attempts to find herself a decent man were legendary. Coming back into the living room, Cleo flung herself onto the sofa, regarding her friend moodily. ‘Honestly, Norah, I thought you had more sense.’
‘So she’s not your aunt?’
‘No, she’s not my aunt,’ stated Cleo with more force than conviction. ‘I mean, didn’t anything about her give you a clue? Be honest, Norah. Do I look like Serena Montoya’s niece?’
‘You could be.’ Norah wasn’t prepared to back down. ‘In fact, although you’re taller than she is, you do have similar features.’ She paused. ‘Montoya. That’s a Spanish name, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. I believe she lives in the Caribbean, so it could be.’ Cleo was impatient. ‘But my parents were black, Norah. Not Spanish. You know that.’
She hunched her shoulders, reluctant now to remember the rare occasions when she’d questioned her identity herself. She hadn’t looked a lot like her parents, and she had wondered if one or both of them might have Latin blood.
But those questions had aroused such animosity that she’d kept any further doubts to herself. And she refused to believe they’d been lying to her. She’d loved them too much for that.
‘Oh, well…’ Norah was philosophical. ‘So what else did she say? There must be some sort of connection to bring her here.’
‘There is no connection.’ Cleo was exasperated. Then, seeing Norah’s indignation, she went on, ‘All right. She said that Mom and Dad weren’t my real parents. That my biological father’s name was actually Robert Montoya.’ She paused. ‘Her brother.’
‘Oh, my God!’
