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Cinderella's Scandalous Secret
MELANIE MILBURNE
The maid has a secret And it’s getting harder to hide! Isla McBain is carrying famous hotelier Rafe Angeleri’s baby! No-one can know—the last thing she needs is for her poverty-stricken past to make the headlines. But when Rafe learns about her pregnancy, he’s intent on sweeping her away to Sicily, and marrying her! Isla is drawn by the exquisite temptation of Rafe’s bed, but dare she step into the spotlight as Mrs Angeleri?
The maid has a secret
And it’s getting harder to hide!
Isla McBain’s affair with Rafe Angeliri was meant to be temporary, a chance to explore their passionate connection—but now she’s carrying the famous hotelier’s baby! This pregnancy will make headlines, but no one can know. Isla can’t risk anyone digging into her heartbreaking past and ruining Rafe’s impeccable reputation.
After learning about her pregnancy, Rafe is intent on sweeping her away to Sicily and marrying her! Isla is tempted beyond desire, but dare she step into the spotlight as Mrs. Angeliri?
MELANIE MILBURNE read her first Mills & Boon novel at the age of seventeen, in between studying for her final exams. After completing a master’s degree in education, she decided to write a novel, and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and a keen dog-lover and trainer. She enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the HOLT Medallion, a prestigious award honouring outstanding literary talent.
Also by Melanie Milburne (#u091f068f-1610-5288-ab9e-bd1d81d7d473)
The Temporary Mrs Marchetti
Wedding Night with Her Enemy
A Ring for the Greek’s Baby
The Tycoon’s Marriage Deal
A Virgin for a Vow
Blackmailed into the Marriage Bed
The Tycoon’s Forbidden Cinderella
Bound by a One-Night Vow
Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride
The Scandal Before the Wedding miniseries
Claimed for the Billionaire’s Convenience
The Venetian One-Night Baby
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Cinderella’s Scandalous Secret
Melanie Milburne
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08825-1
CINDERELLA’S SCANDALOUS SECRET
© 2019 Melanie Milburne
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)
Note to Readers (#u091f068f-1610-5288-ab9e-bd1d81d7d473)
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
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To Liza Fick,
I hope you enjoy this book, dedicated specially to you.
Best wishes,
Melanie Milburne.
Contents
Cover (#u5d4e16e1-e202-51f0-a6b3-74e1d4134436)
Back Cover Text (#u7f43d731-8188-5a90-9a4e-37e308fe5811)
About the Author (#ua74d1acb-61a2-50ac-be13-d0372de00415)
Booklist (#u2f125f4f-8c3b-57f7-a647-e56e84b8c705)
Title Page (#uf36e26a2-f5a4-52c3-940c-c2f9558dc8f0)
Copyright (#u590ad5bd-ec59-50c2-8629-73ce19dd8690)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#u382f964a-4a73-5d60-9bc1-f36233a9961c)
CHAPTER ONE (#uba49cd40-6bc3-5306-9e2a-855dad9935a0)
CHAPTER TWO (#uecd23016-43a6-598c-acba-4431ea28129a)
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)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u091f068f-1610-5288-ab9e-bd1d81d7d473)
THE PENTHOUSE IN the grand old Edinburgh hotel was the last room on Isla’s shift. The irony didn’t escape her that she was now cleaning penthouses rather than occupying them.
She knocked on the door and called out, ‘Housekeeping.’ When there was no answer she swiped her pass key, opened the door and brought her cleaning trolley inside.
It was like stepping into another world—a world she had once briefly visited and fooled herself she could belong to... Had it only been five months ago?
Isla placed a protective hand over the slight swell of her abdomen, where the soft flutter of tiny developing limbs moving in their sac of amniotic fluid reminded her that in another four months her life would change yet again.
For ever.
Isla closed the door of the suite, tried too to close the door on her thoughts, but they lingered, floating around her head like black crows circling above a carcass. The carcass of her short but passionate relationship with her baby’s father.
Rafe Angeliri, who didn’t even know he was going to be a father.
‘Relationship’ was probably too generous a word to describe what she had experienced with Rafe. A fling. An affair. Two months of madness. Magical, mind-altering, body-fizzing madness. Two months where she had forgotten who she was, where she came from, what she represented. They had met in a bar and in under an hour she had ended up in bed with him. Her first ever one-night stand—except it hadn’t been a one-night stand because Rafe had asked to see her again. And again. And again. And within a few days they were enmeshed in a passionate relationship she hadn’t wanted to end.
But it had.
She had made it end.
Isla swept her gaze over the plush furnishings of the suite. During her fling with Rafe, spending a night in a luxury room such as this had become the norm. Sleeping between one thousand thread Egyptian cotton sheets, sipping French champagne from sparkling crystal flutes, eating at Michelin starred restaurants, wearing designer clothes and shoes and glittering jewellery that cost more than a car. Going to charity balls and opera and theatre shows and premiere red carpet events dressed like a supermodel instead of a foster kid from the wrong side of the tracks.
Trailer trash, tarted up to look like royalty.
The penthouse had been slept in the night before—the bed was rumpled on one side, the covers thrown back over the mattress in a way that snagged on her memory like a rose thorn on silk. Even the air smelled faintly familiar—a subtle blend of bergamot and citrus that made the skin on Isla’s arms lift in a tide of goosebumps, the hairs on her scalp tightening, tingling, tensing at the roots. The room seemed to have a strange energy, as if the presence of a strong personality had recently disturbed the air particles and they hadn’t quite yet recovered.
Isla gave herself a concussion-inducing mental slap, strode to the bed and stripped the linen off like a magician ripping a tablecloth from under a full setting of crockery. She had work to do and she couldn’t allow her imagination to get the better of her. She had made her own metaphorical bed and she was happy to lie on it.
Alone.
Telling Rafe about her pregnancy had never been an option. How could it be? She couldn’t risk him pressuring her into a termination. Couldn’t risk him rejecting her and the baby. She had experienced repeated rejections throughout her childhood. Even her own father had sent her back to foster care for others to raise. How could she risk Rafe sending her away? She couldn’t risk him offering to marry her out of a sense of duty. She knew first-hand how duty-motivated marriages worked out—with unwanted, unloved, unnurtured kids ending up in long-term foster care.
Isla remade the bed with the fresh linen from the trolley, stretching it over the mattress and straightening it to perfection, plumping up the pillows and neatly arranging them, along with the navy-blue scatter cushions and throw rug for the end of the bed. She stepped back to admire her handiwork when the door of the suite opened behind her.
Isla turned to face the guest with her best apologetic housemaid smile in place. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not quite fin...’
Her smile faded along with her apology and her heart leapt like a ping-pong ball and lodged high and tight in her throat. She couldn’t find her voice, couldn’t stop her heart from thudding against her chest wall like it was trying to punch its way out. Bumph. Bumph. Bumph. Her skin tightened all over her body, pulling away from her skeleton in panic. She ran her eyes over her baby’s father before she could stop herself, her gaze drawn to him by a force the passage of time hadn’t changed. There should be a law against looking so good, so fit and healthy and virile. So very irresistible.
Unlike her, Rafe Angeliri hadn’t changed in the three months since she had seen him last. His dark blue designer business suit and crisp white shirt paid homage to the superior athletic build it covered. Long muscled legs, broad chest and toned arms and an abdomen so hard and flat you could have cracked open a coconut. The open neck of his shirt revealed the tanned column of his throat and a tiny glimpse of masculine black chest hair. Aftershave-model-handsome, tall and lean with a clean-shaven, take-no-prisoners jaw, he commanded a room just by entering it. His slightly wavy black hair was neither long nor short but somewhere stylishly in between, brushed back from his intelligent forehead and curling against the edges of his shirt collar. The loosely casual hairstyle belied the relentless drive and meticulous focus of his personality.
However, his hazel eyes were even more cynical and there were vertical lines running down each side of his mouth that hadn’t been there before.
But there was one other difference Isla detected before he quickly masked it—shock. It rippled across his features, sharpened his gaze, froze his movements until he was as still as a marble statue. But only for a microsecond. He had always had far better self-control than anyone she knew, certainly better than her, and yet she had always prided herself on her ability to mask her feelings. How else had she survived all those childhood foster home placements with perfect strangers?
‘Isla.’ Rafe gave a nod that somehow managed to be both formal and insulting. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of finding you waiting beside my bed?’
Isla stepped away from the bed as if it had suddenly burst into flames. Being anywhere near a bed when Rafe was within touching distance was a bad idea. A very tempting but bad, bad, bad idea. They had spent more time in bed than out of it during their short and volatile fling. Sex had brought them together in a thunderclap of attraction at their first meeting in a bar—an explosion of lust that had sent shockwaves through her entire body. She hadn’t really enjoyed sex until she experienced it with Rafe. It had been out of this world sex and even now she could feel the memories of it coursing through her body. Little pulses and tingles in her flesh—the flesh he had awakened with his lips and tongue, as if being in the same room as him triggered her body into remembering, longing, wanting.
Isla snatched up some fresh towels from her trolley, desperate to hide the slight bulge of her belly. No one was going to be cracking coconuts on her abdomen any time soon. She had never had a particularly flat stomach, which made her hope Rafe wouldn’t notice the slight change in it now. It had always surprised her that he had found her so attractive. She was nothing like the super-slim and glamorous women he normally dated. She was desperate to occupy her hands in case they were tempted to slap that imperious look off his too-handsome face. Or worse—pull his head down to crash his mouth against hers to make her forget everything but the heat and fire of his masterful, mesmerising, bone-melting kiss.
‘I work at this hotel. Now, if you’ll let me finish your room, I’ll get out of your way and—’
‘I thought you were going back to London to resume your Fine Arts degree?’ A frown tugged at his brow, his green and brown flecked gaze holding hers with the force of a searchlight. ‘Wasn’t that the plan?’
‘I...I changed my mind.’ Isla swung away and strode into the bathroom with the towels. She placed the new ones on the towel racks and then gathered up the damp ones, bundling them against her body like a barrier. Her plans had changed as soon as she found out she was pregnant.
Everything had changed.
Rafe followed her into the palatial bathroom, his presence shrinking it to the size of a tissue box. Isla caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the twin basins and inwardly groaned. She had never been more conscious of her lack of make-up, the dark circles under her eyes, the lankness of her red-gold hair under her housemaid’s cap. Or the secret swell of her belly beneath her housemaid’s white frilly apron. Was he comparing her to his latest lover? She had seen photos of him with numerous women in the time since she had brought their relationship to an end. She wondered if it had been deliberate on his part—to be seen out and about with as many women as possible as an I’ll show you how quickly I can move on from you slap to her ego. After all, Isla had been the one to end their fling, which clearly wasn’t something he was used to. Women were queuing up to be with him, not rushing to leave.
