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More Than A Vow: Vows of Revenge / After Their Vows / Vows Made in Secret
Michelle Reid
Louise Fuller
Dani Collins
Vows Made in Secret by Louise Fuller A new job brings Prudence Elliot face-to-face with the irresistible and enigmatic Laszlo de Zsadany. Will their fiery reconciliation burn or blaze out of control?Vows of Revenge by Dani CollinsMelodie Parnell has always wanted to experience insatiable passion and Roman Killian more than satisfies her needs in bed. But soon it becomes clear that Roman has other plans in mind…After Their Vows by Michelle ReidAngie de Calvhos has endured a mortifying public separation. Now, divorce papers in hand, Angie has forgotten the magnetic pull that her husband Roque possesses. Broken vows don’t necessarily mean a broken marriage…
About the Authors
Canadian DANI COLLINS knew in high school that she wanted to write romance for a living. Twenty-five years later, after marrying her high school sweetheart, having two kids with him, working several generic office jobs and submitting countless manuscripts, she got ‘The Call’. Her first Mills & Boon Modern Romance won the Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First In Series from RT Book Reviews. She now works in her own office, writing romance.
MICHELLE REID grew up on the southern edges of Manchester, the youngest in a family of five lively children. Now she lives in the beautiful county of Cheshire, with her busy executive husband and two grown-up daughters. She loves reading, the ballet, and playing tennis when she gets the chance. She hates cooking, cleaning, and despises ironing! Sleep she can do without, and she produces some of her best written work during the early hours of the morning.
LOUISE FULLER was a tomboy who hated pink and always wanted to be the prince—not the princess! Now she enjoys creating heroines who aren’t pretty pushovers but are strong, believable women. Before writing for Mills & Boon she studied literature and philosophy at university and then worked as a reporter on her local newspaper. She lives in Tunbridge Wells with her impossibly handsome husband, Patrick, and their six children.
More Than a Vow
Vows of Revenge
Dani Collins
After Their Vows
Michelle Reid
Vows Made in Secret
Louise Fuller
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08139-9
MORE THAN A VOW
Vows of Revenge © 2015 Dani Collins After Their Vows © 2011 Michelle Reid Vows Made in Secret © 2015 Louise Fuller
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.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u7498d6ff-d901-522b-b259-51c2a25b11ca)
About the Authors (#ub0f6bd78-5fc8-5484-acce-eb38679c27a2)
Title Page (#u602766be-3f49-5c01-b1d9-4de0847341a7)
Copyright (#uda5898b0-3c93-5124-907e-92e6f41d0da2)
Vows of Revenge (#ufc4ec8c4-502d-5a4d-bdc6-b6af784c82cc)
Dedication (#u6d5e43c4-d19c-55e1-a2fe-0df17777e727)
CHAPTER ONE (#u13b8a91c-cd5b-5e10-835b-b9699192d2d4)
CHAPTER TWO (#ue98af611-92ed-5228-909b-1a0b9684a5ab)
CHAPTER THREE (#ucd1e96dd-0035-5a24-89cb-3e20f17b937c)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ue02473a1-7cb1-5417-a288-b870a1b5f09f)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u77bc7a0a-307c-5997-a256-3684d4312f08)
CHAPTER SIX (#uf0d5ff3e-8b19-5f06-9842-c241e4058049)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u2ce6ca0b-2983-57c4-9e54-708539c5be5c)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u2434ccc4-d878-55b7-b7ea-2a759e39e310)
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)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
After Their Vows (#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)
Vows Made in Secret (#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)
Vows of Revenge (#u2868e7b7-5d68-5e1c-bf5c-de0ebcfd8b2d)
Dani Collins
In my heart, my books are always dedicated to my husband and kids, my sisters and my parents. They’ve always been incredibly supportive, both emotionally and physically, by doing dishes and making meals so I could write.
When it comes to writing dedications, however, I often look to my editors. Writing is a lonely business. I’m a big enough control freak that I don’t ask other writers to look at my work and weigh in. It’s all on me until I hit “Send.” Then I rely on my editor to ensure I’m not embarrassing myself.
Kathryn Cheshire is my latest wing-woman in the Harlequin Mills & Boon offices. This is our first book together and she’s everything an author wants and needs: warm, insightful and encouraging.
I couldn’t do this without my family or you, Dear Reader, but a great editor is the linchpin in the whole operation. Thanks for being awesome, Kathryn.
CHAPTER ONE (#u2868e7b7-5d68-5e1c-bf5c-de0ebcfd8b2d)
SURROUNDED BY OLD money and cold-blooded cynicism for the first part of her life, Melodie Parnell wasn’t half as ingenuous as she looked. In fact, she actively tried to give off an air of sophistication by straightening her curly brown hair into a shiny curtain, adding a flick of liquid liner to downplay her round blue eyes and painting a bold red lipstick over her plump, pink lips. Her clothing choices were classic business style: a pencil skirt, a sweater set and her mother’s pearls.
At the same time, she privately offered people the benefit of the doubt. She believed the best whenever possible and always sought the brightest side of every situation.
That attitude had earned her nothing but contempt from her half brother and more than once resulted in a sting from social climbers and gold diggers trying to get closer to the men in her family. Being softhearted had definitely been her mother’s downfall. But, Melodie often assured herself, she wasn’t nearly as fragile or susceptible as that. The fact that she’d lost her mother very recently and kept slipping into a state of melancholy as she faced life without her didn’t make her vulnerable.
Yet, for some reason, Roman Killian took the rug right out from under her—by doing nothing except answering the door of his mansion.
“You must be the indispensable Melodie,” he greeted.
She was supposed to be immune to powerful men in bespoke outfits, but her mouth went dry and her knees went weak. He wasn’t even wearing a suit. He wore a casually tailored linen jacket over black pants and a collarless peasant-style shirt, three open buttons at his throat.
Not that she really took in his clothes. She saw the man.
He had black hair that might have curled if he let it grow long enough, tanned skin and gorgeous bone structure. Italian? Spanish? Greek? He certainly had the refined features of European aristocracy, but Melodie knew him to be a self-made American. His brows were straight and circumspect, his eyes decidedly green with a dark ring around the irises. He was clean shaven, urbane and acutely masculine in every way.
He met her gaze with an impactful directness that stole her breath.
“Roman Killian,” he said, offering his hand and snapping her out of her fixation. His voice was like dark chocolate and red wine, rich and sultry, but his tone held a hint of disparagement. No one was truly essential, he seemed to say.
“I am Melodie,” she managed to say. She watched his mouth as he clasped her hand in his strong grip. His upper lip was much narrower than his full bottom one. He smiled in the way men did when confronted with a woman they didn’t find particularly attractive, but were forced by circumstance to be polite toward. Cool and dismissive.
Melodie wasn’t offended. She was always braced for male rejection and surprised if she didn’t get it. It wasn’t that she was homely. She had just inherited her mother’s catwalk build and elfin features along with her pearls. The attributes were fine for modeling, but came off as skinny and exaggerated in real life. Spiderlike and awkward—or so she’d been told so many times she tended to believe it.
So his indifference wasn’t a surprise, but her skin still prickled and she warmed as though the sun had lodged in her belly and radiated outward through her limbs with a disarming feeling that she was glowing.
She shouldn’t be so nervous. She’d still had a pacifier in her mouth when she’d begun glad-handing, and rarely suffered shyness no matter how lofty the person she was meeting. Presidents. Royalty. Such things didn’t affect her.
Yet she found herself surreptitiously fighting to catch her breath, aware that she was letting her hand stay in his too long. When she tried to extract it, however, he tightened his grip.
“We’ve met,” he said with certainty. Almost accusingly. His eyes narrowed as he raked her face with his gaze, head cocked and arrested.
“No,” she assured him, but her pulse gave a leap while a romantic part of her brain invented a fanciful “in another life soul-mate” scenario. She was very good with faces and names, though, even when a person wasn’t nearly as memorable as he was. And he was too young to remember her mother, not that he looked the type to thumb through fashion magazines in the first place. There was an off chance he’d seen her in connection to her father, she supposed, but she was carving that particular man from her life one thought at a time so she didn’t bring him up, and only said, “I’m quite sure we haven’t.”
Roman didn’t believe her, she could see it.
“Ingrid and Huxley aren’t with you?” He flicked a look for her clients to where her taxi had dropped her next to the fountain in his paved courtyard.
“They’ll be along shortly,” she said.
He brought his sharp gaze back to her face, making her quiver inwardly again. Slowly he released her and waved toward the interior of his home. “Come in.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, disconcerted by everything about him.
