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Naughty Or Nice
Rachael Stewart
She's setting the terms… In business and pleasure! Lucas Waring was my brother's best friend—before he broke my heart and betrayed my family. Yet one glance from those dark, intense eyes, and that bolt of aching need returns. Now Lucas wants my business. But the nice Eva he knew is gone forever and naughty Eva wants her cake, and a taste of deliciously hot Lucas, too. Only my heart's about to pull the biggest betrayal of all…
Ten years of wanting. Ten years of waiting. Now Eva Beaumont and Lucas Waring have one chance to satisfy everything they’ve ever wanted from each other… Enjoy their explosively sexy reunion in this enthralling romance from reader favorite Rachael Stewart.
This is my moment. Tonight, among the glitter and champagne and those who are vying for a piece of my business, it’s perfect. Gloriously so. Then Lucas Waring walks in, and one glance from his dark, intense eyes gives me the same jarring bolt of awareness I always felt when I saw him. Careful, Eva. After all, Lucas Waring is the Beaumont family’s worst nightmare…
He used to be my brother’s best friend—before he broke my eighteen-year-old heart. And yet I still feel that want, that aching need unfurling through my body. If Lucas Waring wants my business, I’ll give him a chance…once we’ve finally experienced a deliciously carnal arrangement that’s long overdue.
This time, nothing is stopping me from having what I want. Not my family. Not my locked-down heart. Nice Eva is gone forever. Naughty Eva has taken her place. Only my heart’s about to pull the biggest betrayal of all…
Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.
Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!
RACHAEL STEWART adores conjuring up stories, from heartwarmingly romantic to wildly erotic. She’s been writing since she could put pen to paper—as the stacks of scrawled-on pages in her loft will attest. A Welsh lass at heart, she now lives in Yorkshire with her very own hero and three awesome kids—and if she’s not tapping out a story she’s wrapped up in one or enjoying the great outdoors. Reach her on Facebook, Twitter (@rach_b52 (https://twitter.com/rach_b52?lang=en)) or at rachaelstewartauthor.com (http://rachaelstewartauthor.com).
Naughty or Nice
Rachael Stewart
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08722-3
NAUGHTY OR NICE
© 2019 Rachael Stewart
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)
Note to Readers (#u53309a19-af23-5c53-ab06-1388d2b89c0a)
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To my kids, who will be doing their utmost to get on Santa’s nice list! I know you’re too young to read this—in fact, you’ll always be too young—but I can’t have a Christmas book without dedicating it to you. I love you regardless of your naughty little antics.
To my family and friends for making every Christmas as special as it can be.
And to my gorgeous readers, too… Are you on the naughty or nice list this year? How about joining me and straddling them both? Ho ho ho ;-)
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good read!
Rxx
Contents
Cover (#u069d9b4e-b264-5f3b-81d0-c5ee6c9e1b09)
Back Cover Text (#u7cd35275-4a39-540c-87ac-064437843221)
About the Author (#u1465c8f5-cc46-5827-bd64-0bd73536e26e)
Title Page (#uc7e0ce4c-d035-529c-a894-119b9672764b)
Copyright (#u02c6af0a-7d08-5266-a3c8-8a4913fea498)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#ucf658272-af9b-5dc4-804b-cd7349390c6e)
PROLOGUE (#u477ee34e-9213-5d46-b4f0-93f0864bf50c)
CHAPTER ONE (#u619df85b-2c1d-5103-9444-84ee741e3a94)
CHAPTER TWO (#u87b5f98f-2b87-5e4a-a5f5-eb0a5239316d)
CHAPTER THREE (#ud73c86a0-5c15-54af-a3ca-b95aee23df88)
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)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#u53309a19-af23-5c53-ab06-1388d2b89c0a)
I TWIST MY hands in front of me, the heel of one stiletto grinding into the plush carpet of my father’s study.
I know Lucas is going to follow me here. I saw it in his eyes. That same look I’ve caught several times over in the past few months…the same look I know I sport: want, desire—love.
I’ve loved him for years—long before Mum and Dad became his guardians…long before I really knew what it was that had my heart trying to leap out of my chest, my body throbbing, my tongue tied.
I’m eighteen. It’s my birthday party. It’s as good a time as any to tell him—or so I keep telling myself. I can’t go on keeping it locked up inside. But I’m scared. It doesn’t matter that I sense he feels the same, that I see the way he looks at me when he thinks no one else is watching.
I pin his expression in my mind, focus on it as I grab my flute of champagne and throw back the remainder. The hit of alcohol makes me wince, but I need it—Dutch courage. I return it to the side as I watch the door.
You love him. You can tell him. You have to.
I hear footsteps in the hallway, louder than the music from my party, underway further down the hall, and I take a breath, pressing my hands into my thighs, forcing them to still and hoping their dampness doesn’t mark the bright white of my dress.
The door opens and I can’t breathe.
‘Evangeline?’
His voice sends blood rushing through my body, my pulse rate skittering out of control.
‘Yes…’ It comes out like a whisper, my fear coming through, and it frustrates me. I want to be confident. I want him to see me as a woman, not the little sister of his best friend, Nate.
Get it together.
His head appears around the door, his gaze hesitant as he looks from me to the hallway and back again.
‘Hey.’
He steps inside but pauses, the confident twenty-one-year-old I usually see oddly absent. He’s boyish, uncertain, and my heart turns over.
‘Hey,’ I manage back, breathless.
We don’t move closer. My knees feel like jelly and his fingers tremble a little as he rakes one hand through his hair, his other still hanging on to the door handle.
Take control. You need to do this. You need to show him.
‘Close the door.’
I’m surprised at the confidence I’ve injected into my tone—am surprised all the more when he does what I ask. But his eyes don’t return to me. They burn a hole in the floor at his feet.
I take a small breath. ‘Why won’t you look at me?’
His eyes waver and I can sense the fight in him.
I step forward, my progress slow as the tight minidress restricts my movement, riding ever higher up my thighs. The moment I’d chosen it I’d had this in mind. To confess my love, maybe even seduce him. I want my first time to be with him and tonight would be so perfect.
‘Lucas?’
He shakes his head, but then his eyes lock with mine and I feel their burn. Need is etched in the tightness of his jaw, in his hands fisting at his sides.
‘We shouldn’t be in here…alone.’
‘Then why did you come?’ I press.
Please let him be torn. Please let him confirm what I suspect.
‘I—’
He shakes his head again but his eyes are still fixed on mine. His internal fight is clear in their depths, and he runs his teeth over his lower lip. The move distracting me with the glimpse of his tongue, the mouth I so desperately want to taste.
‘Being alone with you, like this…’ He waves a hand up and down my length, his eyes travelling over me and setting my skin alight.
‘Don’t trust yourself?’ I tease, forcing out the playful jest even though I know how much rides on his response.
I pause less than an arm’s reach away and look up at him from beneath my lashes, not quite ready to reach for him. That fear of rejection is still there.
‘You know we shouldn’t.’
It’s my turn to shake my head. ‘Why?’
‘Because—because of who you are. Of who your family are to me.’
‘In a way, we’re your family too.’
‘Exactly, Eva—they’re all I have.’
I risk another step and hold his tormented gaze. I want to kiss it away, take away the pain of his past, his loss, his loneliness. He never had a father. His mother, although best friend to my own, was hardly ever present, and now she’s been dead almost a year. But I have been here. I’ve always been here for him. I can be enough. If only he will see it.
