The Italian's Pregnancy Proposal. Maggie Cox

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      MAGGIE COX loved to write almost as soon as she learned to read. Her favorite occupation was daydreaming and making up stories in her head, and this particular pastime has stayed with her through all the years of growing up, starting work, marrying and raising a family. No matter what was going on in her life, whether joy, happiness, struggle or disappointment, she’d go to bed each night and lose herself in her imagination. Through all the years of her secretarial career she kept on filling exercise books and her word processor with her writing, never showing anyone what she wrote and basically keeping her stories for her own enjoyment. It wasn’t until she met her second husband, the love of her life, that she was persuaded to start sharing those stories with a publisher. Maggie settled on Harlequin as she had loved romance novels since she was a teenager and read at least one or two paperbacks a week. After several rejections, the letters that were sent back from the publisher started to become more and more positive and encouraging, and in July 2002 she sold her first book, A Passionate Protector, to Harlequin.

      The fact that she is being published is truly a dream come true; however, each book she writes is still a journey in courage and hope and a quest to learn and grow and be the best writer she can. Her advice to aspiring authors is “Don’t give up at the first hurdle, or even the second, third or fourth, but keep on keeping on until your dream is realized because if you are truly passionate about writing and learning the craft, as Paulo Coelho states in his book The Alchemist, ‘the Universe will conspire to help you’ make it a reality.”

      The Italian’s Pregnancy Proposal

      ~BOUGHT FOR HER BABY~

      Maggie Cox

      MILLS & BOON

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THE ITALIAN’S PREGNANCY PROPOSAL

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      BLISS knew she really ought to resist, but she couldn’t help stealing another surreptitious glance at her watch to check on the time when her dragon of a supervisor’s back was momentarily turned. The store was hot and crowded and the overpowering scent of perfume from the counters arranged around hers was making her feel as though she’d wandered into an opium den. Besides that, her eyes itched from the shadow she was forced to wear to promote the make-up, and she longed to be able to scrub it off along with the foundation cream, blusher and lipstick that transformed her into someone she almost didn’t recognise. It was too bad she’d have to endure another two hours of this torture before she could give in to such a rebellious desire.

      What on earth she’d been thinking of when she’d decided to work in the plush department store that catered mainly to fashion-conscious women with more money than sense, she didn’t know. Well, yes, she did know. She’d been between jobs yet again and as inspiration about what she really wanted to do had been in appallingly scant supply, she’d let her best friend Trudy persuade her to apply for a post in the same store that she worked in. For Trudy, who loved all things retail, it was heaven. To Bliss, it was increasingly turning out to be just the opposite.

      ‘Excuse me…I would like to purchase a lipstick.’

      ‘Certainly, madam. Do you have any particular shade in mind? I can show you the—Oh, Lord!’

      Bliss watched in alarm as the striking brunette in front of the counter slid weakly down to the floor, almost like a slow-motion replay of an actor fainting in a soap opera. Beside her, an apple-cheeked toddler with big brown eyes and curly dark hair ensconced in a pushchair cried out in distress. Her actions automatic and concerned, Bliss flew round the counter to crouch beside the woman who had passed out, at the same time taking a brief moment to stroke the baby-soft cheek of the toddler and murmur something soothing. A small crowd quickly gathered and Bliss took immediate charge, urging them to stand back while she loosened the collar of the woman’s silk shirt beneath her expensive suede coat, then gently smoothed back the wavy dark hair from her olive-skinned forehead.

      ‘I don’t…I don’t feel well.’ Momentarily the woman’s surprisingly blue eyes fluttered open and her lush mouth trembled slightly as she stared dazedly up at Bliss. ‘Look after my baby,’ she said beseechingly in her accented voice before she fainted dead away again.

      ‘Don’t worry. I will.’ Her teeth clamping down worriedly on her soft lower lip, Bliss glanced across at the now-quietened toddler, who stared back at her with wide-eyed interest, as if wondering what might be going to happen next.

      ‘Now, what’s happened? Do you know this woman?’ Her supervisor pushed her way through the small knot of curious bystanders and knelt down beside Bliss in anxious distaste—as if she really didn’t need or want this untidy disruption to her working day. Fighting down the little spurt of annoyance that burst like a bubble inside her chest, Bliss briefly shook her head.

      ‘She’s a customer and she’s just passed out. We’re going to need an ambulance; can you organise it? Oh, and can somebody please get this little girl a drink? She looks hot. Hardly surprising when there’s enough heat in this place to compete with the inside of a volcano!’

      After that, things happened fairly quickly. It seemed a mere matter of moments before the familiar sound of an ambulance siren wailed in the distance, then came to an abrupt halt outside the store’s entrance. Having checked the woman had no foreign objects in her mouth, was still breathing normally and was as comfortable as she could make her, Bliss was relieved to have the two highly competent ambulance men take over. Remembering her promise to the child’s mother, Bliss took charge of the toddler in the pushchair, fed her a drink in a plastic lipped cup, then, when she began to whimper at the surrounding mayhem, lifted her out of the pushchair and safely into her arms for a cuddle. One of the ambulance men glanced over his shoulder at her as he and his colleague lifted the unconscious woman onto a stretcher.

      ‘That her child?’ he asked.

      Bliss nodded. ‘I’ve got her bag too.’ She grabbed up the expensive-looking tan leather shoulder bag she’d thrown onto the empty pushchair for safekeeping before someone either squashed it underfoot or, more worryingly, absconded with it. ‘It might have some ID inside it.’

      ‘You’d better bring it along with the child. You can ride in the ambulance with the mother. What’s your name, love?’

      ‘Bliss Maguire.’

      ‘So you’re Irish like meself?’

      ‘Half,’ Bliss muttered, thinking it was bizarre