The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress. Marion Lennox

      Praise for Marion Lennox:

      RESCUE AT CRADLE LAKE ‘Taking her brother Richard home for his final days is painful for Dr Ginny Viental. Many terrible memories wait in Cradle Lake, but Ginny’s determined to grant Richard’s last wish. Meeting Dr Fergus Reynard there is a mixed blessing; he cares for Richard, but he also makes Ginny want things she can’t have. On the run from his own ghosts, Fergus agrees to Ginny’s compromise when their feelings become too strong to ignore: one night together, no regrets afterwards. But it doesn’t work out that way for either of them. Marion Lennox’s RESCUE AT CRADLE LAKE is simply magical, eliciting laughter and tears in equal measure. A keeper.’ —RT Book Reviews

      CROWNED: THE PALACE NANNY ‘The search for the heir to the throne of Khryseis is over—but it doesn’t end the way Dr Stefanos Antoniadis expected. His cousin is dead, which means Stefanos must serve as Prince Regent until the heir, his eight-year-old daughter Zoe, comes of age. Persuading Zoe’s guardian, widowed marine biologist Elsa Murdoch, to accompany them to Khryseis isn’t easy, and nor are the adjustments that follow. Falling in love with Elsa is something else Stefanos doesn’t anticipate, and it doesn’t help that she’s still grieving for her husband. Humour, strong emotion and plenty of sizzle make this a story to savour—and Stefanos is simply to die for!’ —RT Book Reviews

       He wasn’t kissing her—she was kissing him. But maybe the delineation was blurring.

      Maybe they were simply kissing. A man and a woman and a need as primeval as time itself.

      Pippa.

      His defences were disappearing, crumpling at the touch of her loveliness, in the aching need of her sigh, in the heat of their bodies. He was kissing in return, demanding as well as giving, his mouth plundering, searching her sweetness, glorying in her need as well as his own.

      Pippa.

      She was like no woman he’d ever touched. His body was reacting without control. She was stripping him bare, exposing parts of himself he’d never known he had—parts hidden behind barriers he’d built up with years of careful self-restraint.

      Where was the self-restraint now?

      Certainly not with Pippa.

      About the Author

      MARION LENNOX is a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a ‘very special doctor’, Marion writes Medical^™ Romances, as well as Mills & Boon^® Romances. (She used a different name for each category for a while—if you’re looking for her past Mills & Boon Romances, search for author Trisha David as well.) She’s now had 75 romance novels accepted for publication.

      In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost). Having spun in circles for the first part of her life, she’s now stepped back from her ‘other’ career, which was teaching statistics at her local university. Finally she’s reprioritised her life, figured out what’s important, and discovered the joys of deep baths, romance and chocolate. Preferably all at the same time!

       Recent titles by the same author:

      CITY SURGEON, SMALL TOWN MIRACLE*

      A BRIDE AND CHILD WORTH WAITING FOR**

       ABBY AND THE BACHELOR COP†

       MISTY AND THE SINGLE DAD†

      *Mills & Boon^® Medical^™ Romance **Crocodile Creek †Mills & Boon^® Romance

       The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress

      Marion Lennox

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      CHAPTER ONE

      DR RILEY CHASE was bored. It was his third night in a row with no action, and Riley was a man who lived on little sleep. His medico-legal bookwork was up to date. He was on his third coffee. He’d even defeated the crossword.

      He was checking his email for the tenth time when his radio crackled to life.

      Two messages in twenty seconds. One was announcing the arrival of a daughter he’d never met, the other was a suicide.

      It was enough to make a man spill his coffee.

      Only the headlines of Britain’s gossip magazines were stopping her drowning.

       ‘Heiress Suicides!’

      Pippa was surrounded by blackness, by cold and by terror. Any minute now something would attack her legs. Maybe it already had—she could hardly feel anything below her waist. The cold was bone-numbing. She was past exhaustion, and there was only one thing holding her up.

       ‘Phillippa Penelope Fotheringham, heiress to the Fotheringham Fast Food fortune, suicides after jilting.’

      She would not give Roger the satisfaction of that headline.

      ‘Are we sure it’s suicide?’ Riley was staring intently down at the blackened sea, feeling more and more hopeless.

      ‘Jilted bride.’ Harry Toomey, pilot for New South Wales North Coast Flight-Aid, was guiding the helicopter through parallel runs from the cliff. Harry, Riley and Cordelia, the team’s Flight-Aid nurse, were searching north from Whale Cove’s swimming beach. Grim experience told them this would be where a body would be swept.

      ‘Do we have a name?’ Riley said through his headset.

      ‘Phillippa Penelope Fotheringham.’

      ‘That’s a mouthful.’ Their floodlight was sweeping the water’s surface, but the sea was choppy, making it hard to see detail. Detail like a body. ‘Do we know how long she’s been missing?’

      ‘Five hours. Maybe longer.’

      ‘Five hours!’

      ‘There was a party on the beach that went till late,’ Harry said. ‘Kids everywhere. When they left, one of the security guys noticed an abandoned bundle of clothes. Plus a purse, complete with ID and a hotel access card. She could have been in the water since dusk, but we’re assuming later, when it was good and dark.’

      ‘Five hours is about three hours too long for a happy ending.’

      Harry didn’t bother replying. The crew knew the facts. The worst part of this job was pulling suicides out of the water. The jumpers were the worst—there was no coming back when you went over cliffs around here—but almost as bad were those who swam out from the beach knowing they couldn’t get back. Desperate people. Desperate endings.

      ‘So