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Scandals Of The Rich: A Façade to Shatter
Maisey Yates
CAITLIN CREWS
Lynn Raye Harris
Scandalised & SeducedJet pilot Zack Scott stirs from a flashback, where he finds himself pressed up against the soft, womanly body of Lia Corretti. For years, Lia has hidden her pain and the shadows in Zack's eyes call to her. But the hot heat of him as he holds her awakens her senses…*Jilted at the altar, Alessandro Corretti escapes the headlines on his yacht. Aboard his boat is Elena—the woman who tore up his heart six months ago. Alessandro wants Elena…Yet passion has consequences. If Elena carries his child, she'll be his forever.*Alessia Battaglia is a vision in white…as she flees the church. She's abandoned her fiancé, praying that his cousin, Matteo Corretti will come after her. Because there are two things Matteo doesn't know… Alessia is pregnant, and the child is his!
About the Authors
USA Today bestselling author LYNN RAYE HARRIS burst onto the scene when she won a writing contest held by Mills & Boon. The prize was an editor for a year – but only six months later, Lynn sold her first novel. A former finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award, Lynn lives in Alabama with her handsome husband and two crazy cats. Her stories have been called “exceptional and emotional,” “intense,” and “sizzling.” You can visit her at www.lynnrayeharris.com (http://www.lynnrayeharris.com).
CAITLIN CREWS discovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve. It involved swashbuckling pirates, grand adventures, a heroine with rustling skirts and a mind of her own, and a seriously mouth-watering and masterful hero. Caitlin has made her home in places as far-flung as York, England and Atlanta, Georgia. She currently lives in California, with her animator/comic book artist husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.
MAISEY YATES knew she wanted to be a writer even before she knew what it was she wanted to write. It wasn’t until she was pregnant with her second child that she found her very first Mills & Boon book in a local thrift store – by the time she’d reached the happily ever after, she had fallen in love. Maisey lives with her supportive, handsome, wonderful, diaper-changing husband and three small children, across the street from her parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of southern Oregon.
Scandals of the Rich
A Façade to Shatter
Lynn Raye Harris
A Scandal in the Headlines
Caitlin Crews
A Hunger for the Forbidden
Maisey Yates
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08514-4
SCANDALS OF THE RICH
A Façade to Shatter © 2013 Harlequin Books S.A A Scandal in the Headlines © 2013 Harlequin Books S.A A Hunger for the Forbidden © 2013 Harlequin Books S.A
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 (#u5a2e8a87-6312-5203-bcf8-4ef5ef03d514)
About the Authors (#uc687a5ff-4a5b-5dbc-a1d3-a38d3f9a3131)
Title Page (#ua4c34114-e741-5a66-a943-4c7739890fef)
Copyright (#ud1c88865-d0b5-5ed5-b4ab-9dae01670f40)
A Façade to Shatter (#ua41e1aff-4614-5b2e-8c45-c6e4662d83ec)
Dedication (#ua3011a6e-3a2a-580b-ae6b-f000757a74cc)
CHAPTER ONE (#u21fd17cc-7d86-52dc-afa2-e2dee5c8ff64)
CHAPTER TWO (#udcf3dda5-48c3-5e44-a885-c2ef0210cc7d)
CHAPTER THREE (#u73dd732d-8463-5771-9627-c2b28f7e602c)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u470327ce-6c8a-5604-9fc4-f4304abe7e5a)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ue1397906-128d-54c5-80c8-3023f8e3c8f2)
CHAPTER SIX (#u6a30418a-4423-5df5-8071-0b2a54f7ae45)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u37aad233-3159-5b43-965f-7d504cc1b4e1)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u600346d2-b68b-5ea4-8512-73b2f3db5332)
CHAPTER NINE (#u8a3c7fa3-b906-5db3-9aa8-d3adafdbff2b)
CHAPTER TEN (#u5ecbbe9e-2936-5d78-a299-52f8e53bac2f)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
A Scandal in the Headlines (#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)
A Hunger for the Forbidden (#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)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
A Façade to Shatter (#ub40964f3-e8bf-5151-b32a-54d4e0bcb38a)
Lynn Raye Harris
For all those who serve in the armed forces,
thank you for your service.
CHAPTER ONE (#ub40964f3-e8bf-5151-b32a-54d4e0bcb38a)
ZACH SCOTT DIDN’T do parties. Not anymore.
Once, he’d been the life of the party. But everything had changed a little over a year ago. Zach shoved his hands into his tuxedo trouser pockets and frowned. He’d thought coming to Sicily with a friend, in order to attend a wedding, would be an easy thing to do. There’d been no wedding, it had turned out, but the reception was taking place anyway. And he stood on the edge of the ballroom, wondering where Taylor Carmichael had got to. Wondering if he could slip away and text his regrets to her.
His head was pounding after a rough night. He’d been dreaming again. Dreaming of guns and explosions and planes plummeting from the sky.
There was nothing like a fight for survival to rearrange a man’s priorities. Since his plane had been shot down in enemy territory, the kinds of things he’d once done—fund-raisers, public appearances, speeches, political dinners—were now a kind of torture he’d prefer to live without.
Except it was more impossible to get out of those things now than ever before. Not only was he Zachariah James Scott IV, son of an eminent United States senator and heir to a pharmaceuticals fortune, he was also a returning military hero.
Zach’s frown deepened.
Since his rescue—in which every single marine sent to extract him had perished—he’d been in demand as a sort of all-American poster boy. The media couldn’t get enough of him, and he knew a big part of that was his father’s continual use of his story in his public appearances.
Zachariah J. Scott III wasn’t about to let the story die. Not when it could do him a world of political good.
His son had done his duty when he could have chosen an easier path. His son had chosen to serve his country instead of himself. It was true that Zach could have sat on the Scott Pharmaceuticals board and moved mountains of money instead of flying jets into a war zone. But the jets were a part of him.
Or had been a part of him until the crash had left him with crushing, unpredictable headaches that made it too dangerous to fly.
Yes, everyone loved that he’d bravely gone to war and survived.
Except he didn’t feel brave, and he damn sure didn’t feel like he’d done anything extraordinary. He didn’t want the attention, didn’t deserve the accolades. He’d failed pretty spectacularly, in his opinion.
But he couldn’t make them stop. So he stood stiffly and smiled for the cameras like a dutiful military man should, and he felt dead inside. And the deader he felt, the more interested the media seemed to get.
It wasn’t all bad, though. He’d taken over the stewardship of the Scott Foundation, his family’s charitable arm, and he worked tirelessly to promote military veterans’ causes. They often came back with so little, and with their lives shattered. The government tried to take care of them, but it was a huge job—and sometimes they fell through the cracks.
It was Zach’s goal to save as many of them as he could. He owed it to them, by God.
He made a visual sweep of the room. At least the media attention wasn’t directed at him right now. The Sicilian media was far more interested in the fact the bride had jilted the groom at the altar. Zach was of no interest whatsoever to this crowd. That, at least, was a bonus.
It wasn’t often he could move anonymously through a gathering like this one.
Still, he was on edge, as if he were being followed. He prowled the edges of the crowd in the darkened ballroom, his headache barely under control as he searched for Taylor. She wasn’t answering his texts, and he was growing concerned. She’d been so worried about this trip, about her return to acting, and about the director’s opinion of her.
But Taylor was tough, and he knew she would have gone into the press event with her head held high. She wanted this film badly, wanted the money and respectability for the veterans’ clinic back in Washington, D.C., where she’d spent so much time working to help others. He thought of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines—most suffering the debilitating effects of posttraumatic stress—the clinic helped, thought of the constant need for funding, and knew that Taylor would have entered that room determined to succeed.
What he didn’t know was how it had turned out.
