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One Winter's Sunrise: Gift-Wrapped in Her Wedding Dress
Alison Roberts
Barbara Hannay
Kandy Shepherd
A new hope for love…Billionaire Dominic Hunt’s party is a chance for hard-working party planner Andie Newman to make her name. She’s intent on convincing gorgeous Dominic that decking the halls will transform his brooding reputation, but he has an alternative idea— a convenient proposal!When Alice McMillan arrives at a French chateau, searching for long-lost family, she doesn’t expect to be confronted by deliciously brooding Julien Dubois. New dad and celebrity chef Julien is completely out of his depth. Could Alice be the answer to his prayers?When millionaire Zac hears of his sister’s death, he knows it’s time to abandon his party lifestyle and protect his baby niece. Travelling to snowy London there’s no-one he’d rather have at his side than his PA, Chloe – beautiful, kind…and utterly off-limits.
About the Authors
KANDY SHEPHERD swapped a career as a magazine editor for a life writing romance. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband, daughter and lots of pets. She believes in love at first sight and real-life romance—they worked for her! Kandy loves to hear from her readers. Visit her at kandyshepherd.com (http://www.kandyshepherd.com).
ALISON ROBERTS is a New Zealander, currently lucky enough to live near a beautiful beach in Auckland. She is also lucky enough to write for both the Mills & Boon Romance and Medical Romance lines. A primary schoolteacher in a former life, she is also a qualified paramedic. She loves to travel and dance, drink champagne and spend time with her daughter and her friends.
Reading and writing have always been a big part of BARBARA HANNAY’s life. She wrote her first short story at the age of eight for the Brownies’ writer’s badge. It was about a girl who was devastated when her family had to move from the city to the Australian Outback.
Since then, a love of both city and country lifestyles has been a continuing theme in Barbara’s books and in her life. Although she has mostly lived in cities, now that her family has grown up and she’s a full-time writer she’s enjoying a country lifestyle. Barbara records her country life in her blog, Barbwired, and her website is: www.barbarahannay.com (http://www.barbarahannay.com).
One Winter’s Sunrise
Gift-Wrapped in Her Wedding Dress
Kandy Shepherd
The Baby Who Saved Christmas
Alison Roberts
A Very Special Holiday Gift
Barbara Hannay
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08542-7
ONE WINTER’S SUNRISE
Gift-Wrapped in Her Wedding Dress © 2015 Kandy Shepherd The Baby Who Saved Christmas © 2015 Alison Roberts A Very Special Holiday Gift © 2014 Barbara Hannay
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)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u7b0e25c9-74b6-5e1b-aa8d-b5afc29e729d)
About the Authors (#ulink_1290226c-1039-5189-af6c-38958c57b5eb)
Title Page (#ub43554c0-3db6-5668-a806-ab2ef70eea3d)
Copyright (#u506a2d3f-597f-58d2-bb64-4f50ef015a93)
Gift-Wrapped in Her Wedding Dress (#ulink_f2dd3ab2-9f9a-5d6b-82e6-eb940ee8526b)
Dedication (#uf96e5dc6-1a1e-5d8f-83b3-87654abc26b5)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_cf9174ed-04e1-5718-8798-ac7b6f65c2e8)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_15ad6476-c405-5598-a447-eab0258e9fbd)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_c6154bc1-42e8-5113-b511-bcd51559c3d7)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_5e30cc81-09d9-585f-af62-9e2450177659)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_61a48831-d13b-5919-b202-1990a0d282b1)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_65c6dd0f-145d-52fa-88d1-2b4dfc49e86c)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_c1b040ce-e7fb-5e6c-85a5-db0e57ebe5ec)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_8c24e6b5-ce8a-5f14-8d5c-83d24f3a2c0e)
CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_6455cb7e-9425-5522-8306-d71b2da82dba)
CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_bbd40c28-a02a-58c5-aee7-c63eb04c2782)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#ulink_f4d80c8c-c0f7-5d31-8b11-2030bbd42cdc)
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)
The Baby Who Saved Christmas (#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)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
A Very Special Holiday Gift (#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)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Gift-Wrapped in Her Wedding Dress (#ulink_3cee09b1-5bb0-5e1c-bd71-904dd52412b1)
Kandy Shepherd
To all my Christmas magazine colleagues, in
particular Helen, Adriana and Jane—
the magic of the season lives on!
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_5ffc3ccd-07cc-5c11-be8e-09e0cb194890)
SO HE’D GOT on the wrong side of the media. Again. Dominic’s words, twisted out of all recognition, were all over newspapers, television and social media.
Billionaire businessman Dominic Hunt refuses to sleep out with other CEOs in charity event for homeless.
Dominic slammed his fist on his desk so hard the pain juddered all the way up his arm. He hadn’t refused to support the charity in their Christmas appeal, just refused the invitation to publicly bed down for the night in a cardboard box on the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House. His donation to the worthy cause had been significant—but anonymous. Why wasn’t that enough?
He buried his head in his hands. For a harrowing time in his life there had been no choice for him but to sleep rough for real, a cardboard box his only bed. He couldn’t go there again—not even for a charity stunt, no matter how worthy. There could be no explanation—he would not share the secrets of his past. Ever.
With a sick feeling of dread he continued to read onscreen the highlights of the recent flurry of negative press about him and his company, thoughtfully compiled in a report by his Director of Marketing.
Predictably, the reporters had then gone on to rehash his well-known aversion to Christmas. Again he’d been misquoted. It was true he loathed the whole idea of celebrating Christmas. But not for the reasons the media had so fancifully contrived. Not because he was a Scrooge. How he hated that label and the erroneous aspersions that he didn’t ever give to charity. Despaired that he was included in a round-up of Australia’s Multi-Million-Dollar Misers. It couldn’t be further from the truth.
He strongly believed that giving money to worthy causes should be conducted in private—not for public acclaim. But this time he couldn’t ignore the name-calling and innuendo. He was near to closing a game-changing deal on a joint venture with a family-owned American corporation run by a man with a strict moral code that included obvious displays of philanthropy.
Dominic could not be seen to be a Scrooge. He had to publicly prove that he was not a miser. But he did not want to reveal the extent of his charitable support because to do so would blow away the smokescreen he had carefully constructed over his past.
He’d been in a bind. Until his marketing director had suggested he would attract positive press if he opened his harbourside home for a lavish fund-raising event for charity. ‘Get your name in the newspaper for the right reasons,’ he had been advised.
Dominic hated the idea of his privacy being invaded but he had reluctantly agreed. He wanted the joint venture to happen. If a party was what it took, he was prepared to put his qualms aside and commit to it.
The party would be too big an event for it to be organised in-house. His marketing people had got outside companies involved. Trouble was the three so-called ‘party planners’ he’d been sent so far had been incompetent and he’d shown them the door within minutes of meeting. Now there was a fourth. He glanced down at the eye-catching card on the desk in front of him. Andrea Newman from a company called Party Queens—No party too big or too small the card boasted.
Party Queens. It was an interesting choice for a business name. Not nearly as stitched up as the other companies that had pitched for this business. But did it have the gravitas required? After all, this event could be the deciding factor in a deal that would extend his business interests internationally.
He glanced at his watch. This morning he was working from his home office. Ms Newman was due to meet with him right now, here at his house where the party was to take place. Despite the attention-grabbing name of the business, he had no reason to expect Party Planner Number Four to be any more impressive than the other three he’d sent packing. But he would give her twenty minutes—that was only fair and he made a point of always being fair.
On cue, the doorbell rang. Punctuality, at least, was a point in Andrea Newman’s favour. He headed down the wide marble stairs to the front door.
