The Sheikh's Unwilling Wife. Sharon Kendrick

      

DEAR READER LETTER

      By Sharon Kendrick

      Dear Reader,

      One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

      There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

      I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

      So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

      I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

      Love,

      Sharon xxx

      Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

      SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

      To Andy Thompson, dear friend—

       who reminds me of cool cathedral squares

       and almond croissants!

      The Sheikh’s Unwilling Wife

      Sharon Kendrick

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      Contents

       Cover

Dear Reader

       About the Author

       Title Page

       Dedication

      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

       Coming Next Month

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      YOU didn’t have to be drowning for your life to flash before you. Nor to be sleeping to feel you had stumbled into a nightmare.

      And this was her worst.

      Alexa blinked her eyes rapidly, like someone emerging from the water—their vision blurred so that they couldn’t see clearly—and found herself thinking that maybe it wasn’t him. For a split second a fragment of optimism floated before her as she narrowed her eyes to watch the man who sauntered with such careless grace down the cobblestoned street. But hope died as he grew closer and she saw a group of women stop talking mid-sentence and turn their heads to follow his path.

      He walked like the leader he undoubtedly was—a man born to money, as well as having made more than enough of his own. Tall and striking, he had crisp dark curls, hard black eyes and a proud and haughty look on a face which in repose looked faintly cruel.

      His olive skin was dark—even for a Southern Italian—and a shamelessly exotic air had only added to his mystique in his native city of Naples. Glamorous mother; father unknown.

      He was wearing a perfectly cut pale grey suit over a lean, hard body, and as he walked the women watching him almost melted on the spot. It would almost have been comic if it hadn’t made Alexa’s heart ache with a pain which should have disappeared a long time ago and yet deep, deep down was a feeling far more acute than pain.

      Fear.

      She licked her lips. Giovanni.

      Giovanni—her husband.

      Jealous, possessive, unrealistic, idealistic. Giovanni…

      Silently she said the name she had tried to forget but never would—for how could she, when she was still tied to him by law, unresolved feelings and by something deeper still? Something so precious that if…if…

      Alexa swallowed. Had he seen her? Her heart skipped a beat as that stupid hope flared into life once more. Did he know she was here?

      But even before she met the ebony glitter of his eyes, training themselves on the shop window like a hunter’s gun, or watched him beginning to cross the road towards the building,