Their Most Forbidden Fling. Melanie Milburne

       His eyes moved over her face, as if he was committing her features to memory.

      The silence throbbed with a backbeat of electric tension. She felt it echoing in her blood and wondered if he could feel it too. His eyes dropped to her mouth, pausing there for an infinitesimal moment.

      ‘In another life I would’ve kissed you the other night,’ he said in a gravel-rough tone. ‘I probably would’ve taken you to bed as well.’

      Molly looked at his mouth. She could see the tiny vertical lines of his lower lip and the slight dryness that she knew would cling to her softer one like sandpaper on silk. ‘Why not in this life?’ she asked softly.

      He reached out and brushed her lower lip with the pad of his index finger. His touch was as light as a moth’s wing but it set off a thousand bubbly, tingly sensations beneath her skin.

      ‘I think you know why not,’ he said, and stepped back from her.

      Molly felt as if the floor of her stomach had dropped right out of her as he turned and left the room. She put her hand to her mouth, touching where his finger had so briefly been …

       Dear Reader

      Every day the news is full of stories of tragic events—bad things happening to good people. I often wonder what happens to those other victims. The ones left behind to cope in whatever way they can with what happened.

      That is the essence of Lucas and Molly’s story. Lucas is a man in need of redemption. He has spent seventeen years paying for the accidental death of Matt Drummond, Molly’s older brother and his best mate since childhood. A workaholic who has virtually no private life, Lucas is locked down emotionally and deeply lonely and isolated—although he would never admit that to anyone!

      When Molly turns up at his London hospital for a short-term appointment he is determined to keep her at arm’s length. But when Molly’s landlord threatens to evict her after she rescues a stray cat, Lucas steps in and offers to share his big old empty house with her. While Lucas is confident he can remain professional and distant with her at work, living under the same roof as Molly soon stirs up a blistering passion between them!

      But the past is a wound that has never quite healed. Lucas is still struggling to come to terms with his role in the accident that took his best friend’s life. How can he be with Molly when he is the person responsible for causing her and her family such heartache?

      Lucas and Molly are two of my favourite characters. Yes, I know—I say that about every hero and heroine. Molly is caring and kind, compassionate and giving—the perfect partner for a man who has taught himself not to love.

      Their story is one of redemption and the healing power of love. I hope you enjoy following them on their journey to the happy-ever-after they both deserve so much.

      Warmest wishes

       Melanie Milburne

      About the Author

      From as soon as MELANIE MILBURNE could pick up a pen she knew she wanted to write. It was when she picked up her first Harlequin Mills & Boon at seventeen that she realised she wanted to write romance. Distracted for a few years by meeting and marrying her own handsome hero, surgeon husband Steve, and having their two boys, plus completing a Masters of Education and becoming a nationally ranked athlete (masters swimming) she decided to write. Five submissions later she sold her first book and is now a multi-published, award-winning USA TODAY bestselling author. In 2008 she won the Australian Readers Association’s most popular category/series romance, and in 2011 she won the prestigious Romance Writers of Australia R*BY award.

      Melanie loves to hear from her readers via her website, www.melaniemilburne.com.au, or on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Melanie-Milburne/351594482609

       Recent titles by Melanie Milburne:

       DR CHANDLER’S SLEEPING BEAUTY

       SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: LEXI’S SECRET*

       THE SURGEON SHE NEVER FORGOT

       THE MAN WITH THE LOCKED AWAY HEART

        * Sydney Harbour Hospital

       These books are also available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Their Most Forbidden Fling

      Melanie Milburne

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

       To Tony and Jacqui Patiniotis and their sons, Lucien, Julius and Raphael, for their generous support to the National Heart Foundation in Hobart. This one is for you!

      CHAPTER ONE

      MOLLY SAW HIM first. He was coming out of a convenience store half a block from her newly rented bedsit. He had his head down against the sleeting rain, his forehead knotted in a frown of concentration. Her heart gave a dislocated stumble as he strode towards her. The memories came rushing back, tumbling over themselves like clothes spinning in a dryer. She didn’t even realise she had spoken his name out loud until she heard the thready sound of her voice. ‘Lucas?’

      He stopped like a puppet suddenly pulled back on its strings. The jolt of recognition on his face was painful to watch. She saw the way his hazel eyes flinched; saw too the way his jaw worked in that immeasurable pause before he spoke her name. ‘Molly …’

      It had been ten years since she had heard his voice. A decade of living in London had softened his Australian outback drawl to a mellifluous baritone that for some reason sent an involuntary shiver over her skin. She looked at his face, drinking in his features one by one as if ticking off a checklist inside her head to make sure it really was him.

      The landscape of his face—the brooding brow, the determined jaw and the aquiline nose—was achingly familiar and yet different. He was older around the eyes and mouth, and his dark brown hair, though thick and glossy, had a few streaks of silver in it around his temples. His skin wasn’t quite as weathered and tanned as his father’s or brothers’ back on the farm at home, but it still had a deep olive tone.

      He was still imposingly tall and whipcord lean and fit, as if strenuous exercise was far more important to him than rest and relaxation. She looked at his hazel eyes. The same shadows were there—long, dark shadows that anchored him to the past.

      ‘I was wondering when I’d run into you,’ Molly said to fill the bruised silence. ‘I suppose Neil or Ian told you I was coming over to work at St Patrick’s for three months?’

      His expression became inscrutable and closed. ‘They mentioned something about you following a boyfriend across,’ he said.

      Molly felt a blush steal over her cheeks. She still wasn’t quite sure how to describe her relationship with Simon Westbury. For years they had been just friends, but ever since Simon had broken up with his long-term girlfriend Serena, they had drifted into an informal arrangement that was convenient but perhaps not as emotionally satisfying as Molly would have wished. ‘Simon and I have been out a couple of times but nothing serious,’ she said. ‘He’s doing a plastics registrar year over here. I thought it’d be good to have someone to travel with since it’s my first time overseas.’

      ‘Where are you staying?’ Lucas asked.

      ‘In that house over there,’ Molly said, pointing to a seen-better-days Victorian mansion that was divided into small flats and bedsits.