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Claiming My Untouched Mistress
Heidi Rice
I’ve drawn her into my world… And she’s mine to awaken! And she’s mine to awaken! Walking into my casino, Edie Spencer seemed like a spoilt heiress—until she agreed to clear her family’s debts by posing as my temporary mistress. My plan? To use her to expose my business rivals. Yet discovering Edie’s innocence has led to greater temptation than I could have imagined. Our chemistry is spectacular—now I’ll claim Edie for so much more than pleasure!
I’ve drawn her into my world...
And she’s mine to awaken!
Walking into my casino, Edie Spencer seemed like a spoiled heiress—until she agreed to clear her family’s debts by posing as my temporary mistress. My plan? To use her to expose my business rivals. Yet discovering Edie’s innocence has led to greater temptation than I could have imagined. Our chemistry is spectacular—now I’ll claim Edie for so much more than pleasure!
Step into this tale of innocence and desire...
USA TODAY bestselling author HEIDI RICE lives in London, England. She is married with two teenage sons—which gives her rather too much of an insight into the male psyche—and also works as a film journalist. She adores her job, which involves getting swept up in a world of high emotion, sensual excitement, funny and feisty women, sexy and tortured men and glamorous locations where laundry doesn’t exist. Once she turns off her computer she often does chores—usually involving laundry!
Also by Heidi Rice (#u84c86fd4-a7fe-5ee5-8d89-053c48de2407)
Vows They Can’t Escape
The Virgin’s Shock Baby
Captive at Her Enemy’s Command
Bound by Their Scandalous Baby
Carrying the Sheikh’s Baby
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Claiming My Untouched Mistress
Heidi Rice
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08761-2
CLAIMING MY UNTOUCHED MISTRESS
© 2019 Heidi Rice
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.
® 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 gorgeous husband, Rob,
whose love of Texas Hold ’Em
finally became useful in my writing career!
Contents
Cover (#u9dc624ca-c7e8-5716-8cb3-34794c88d6aa)
Back Cover Text (#u4a28ff95-53cc-53b8-9ce7-a62a6503de5a)
About the Author (#u5ace5394-9ff6-5a8c-9d10-628f89e6e4e5)
Booklist (#u528915da-4519-5292-bd69-696066fc32dd)
Title Page (#uc881e190-1784-5991-8115-035e674c81f0)
Copyright (#u2f5c94dc-b994-5fef-95f3-d55fc5696091)
Dedication (#u45a67044-7f4b-59a7-9846-6cd51d55d62f)
CHAPTER ONE (#ub4a803bf-1d1b-52ee-80aa-314845cb23f5)
CHAPTER TWO (#ud0af6191-aac4-57a7-a294-f58ffc556503)
CHAPTER THREE (#u80f977c7-cb85-5c8b-9a22-a44ffe8d2398)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u43d4d4d8-9991-5834-baf0-7b5468ca9280)
CHAPTER FIVE (#udd6535b7-dce8-51dd-8761-9ccf903ee88f)
CHAPTER SIX (#ubb75af2f-b34f-5ae1-b846-c872b163d6e7)
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)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u84c86fd4-a7fe-5ee5-8d89-053c48de2407)
I STRUGGLED TO control the tidal wave of panic surging through me as I read the sign on Dante Allegri’s Monaco casino.
Welcome to The Inferno
The glitter of lights gave the building’s imposing eighteenth-century façade a fairy-tale glow in the Mediterranean night—making me feel like even more of a fraud in the second-hand designer gown and uncomfortable ice-pick heels my sister and I had sourced online. What I was about to do could make or break my family.
Please God, don’t let Dante Allegri be in the house tonight.
I’d seen photos of Allegri, and read myriad articles about him in the last month as I prepared for this night. He scared me as a competitor but terrified me as a woman.
Allegri was famous for his ruthlessness, having risen from the slums of Naples to create a billion-dollar empire of casinos in Europe and the US. If I had to play against him, and he figured out the system I had developed, he would show me no mercy.
A sea breeze from the marina below the casino lifted the tendrils of hair off my neck which had escaped the elaborate up-do my sister had spent hours constructing from my unruly curls. Shivers racked my body, but I knew it wasn’t the warm summer night that was making me feel so cold inside—it was fear.
Stop standing here like a dummy and move.
Lifting the hem of the gown, I walked up the marble stairs to the main entrance, making an effort to keep my back straight and my gaze forward. The million-dollar bank draft borrowed from my brother-in-law’s loan shark stashed in the jewelled clutch purse on my wrist felt as if it weighed several tons.
‘You want to throw good money after bad, that’s your choice, Ms Trouvé, but I’ll be here tomorrow to collect, whatever happens.’
The words of Brutus Severin, Carsoni’s muscle man, echoed in my head and the chill spread like a frost.
This was my last chance to free us from the threats and intimidation, the possibility of losing not just our family home, but also our dignity and self-respect. Something my sister Jude’s husband Jason had stolen from us twelve months ago—after losing a fortune at Allegri’s roulette tables.
Failure simply was not an option tonight.
I approached the security detail standing guard at the entrance and passed them my ID card. I prayed that Carsoni’s forger had done the job we had paid him for. The guard nodded and passed it back to me. But my panic refused to subside.
What if my system didn’t work? Or had more tells than I had anticipated. I wasn’t sure if I’d had enough time to test it properly—and I had never had the opportunity to test it against players of Allegri’s calibre. How did I know it would stand up to scrutiny? I was a maths prodigy, not a poker player, for goodness’ sake.
The buy-in for tonight’s game was a staggering one million euros. And it was one million euros I could not afford to lose.
If Allegri was here, and decided to play—as he occasionally did, according to my research—and he beat me, not only would Belle Rivière be lost for ever, but I would owe Carsoni an extra million euros I couldn’t repay. Because the sale of the property, now we’d already mortgaged it and sold all our other valuables and most of the furniture, would only cover the balance of Jason’s losses and the astronomical interest Carsoni had been charging us since the night Jason had disappeared.
Please, I’m begging you, God. Don’t let Allegri be here.
The door guard signalled to a tall, good-looking man standing at the entrance to the main floor. He joined us.
‘Welcome to The Inferno, Miss Spencer,’ the man said. ‘I’m Joseph Donnelly, the casino manager. We have you listed as one of tonight’s club buy-ins.’ He sent me a quizzical look, obviously not used to having someone of my age and gender join the casino’s exclusive weekly poker tournament. ‘Is that correct?’
I nodded, trying to channel my inner elite, entitled heiress—something I had never been, even though my mother had been the granddaughter of a French count.
‘I’ve heard The Inferno’s game is one of the most challenging,’ I said. ‘I was hoping Allegri would be here tonight,’ I lied smoothly—playing the pampered rich girl to the hilt. If life with my mother had taught me one thing, before she died, it was how to appear confident when I felt the opposite.
‘Appearances are everything, ma petite chou. If they think you are one of them, you cannot fail.’
The casino manager sent me an easy smile, and I waited for the words I hoped to hear—that my research had paid off and Dante was in Nice this evening, wining and dining the model he had been linked with for several weeks in the celebrity press.
‘Dante’s here tonight; I’m sure he’d relish the challenge.’ Donnelly’s words didn’t register at first, and then they slammed into me.
No. No. No.
I pasted a smile on my face, the same smile I had worn at my mother’s funeral to receive the condolences of journalists who had hounded her throughout her life, while coping with the body blow of fresh grief.
My movements were stiff though, as Donnelly led me to the teller’s booth to deposit the stake I had borrowed at two thousand per cent interest. The stake I couldn’t afford to lose.
I ran all the possibilities over in my mind. Could I back out now? Make up some fictitious excuse? Pretend I was sick? Because that wasn’t a lie—my stomach was churning like a storm at sea.
Allegri was one of the best poker players in the world. Not only could I lose all the money but if he figured out my system he could have me banned from every reputable casino. So I’d have no chance of ever recovering Jason’s losses.
Even as my frantic mind tried to grasp and dissect all the possibilities though, I knew I couldn’t back out. I’d taken a chance Allegri wouldn’t be here and I’d lost. But I had to go through with tonight’s game.
Before I had a chance to handle the visceral fear at the thought of facing Allegri with so much at stake, a deep voice reverberated down my spine.
‘Joe, Matteo tells me all the players have arrived.’
I swung round and came face to face with the man who had haunted my dreams—and most of my waking hours—for months, ever since I’d begun working on this scheme to free our family from debt. To my shock, Allegri was even taller, broader and more devastatingly handsome in the flesh than he had been in the numerous celebrity blogs and magazines I’d been monitoring.
I knew he was only thirty, but the harsh angles of his face, and the unyielding strength of muscle and sinew barely contained by the expensive tuxedo, made it clear that the softness and inexperience of youth—if he had ever been young or soft—had left him long ago. Everything about him exuded power and confidence, and a frightening arrogance. No, not arrogance. Arrogance implied a sense of entitlement beyond one’s abilities. This man was fully aware of his abilities, and was ready to use them with complete ruthlessness.
