Innocent in His Diamonds. Maya Blake

      

       ‘Save the act, Miss Duval. Pretending outrage while your eyes devour me wears thin after a while,’ he sliced at her.

      ‘God, you are full of yourself, aren’t you? The outrage is real. I’ve never met anyone more infuriating than you. And there’s nothing remotely sexual about that!’

      There—that should set him straight, she congratulated herself, so pleased with her comeback that she didn’t acknowledge the charged silence until his hand landed on her shoulder.

      ‘Then this shouldn’t affect you too much.’

      ‘Wha—?’

      His lips slanted over hers before she could get the word out.

      Ana’s world imploded. Every coherent thought, every ounce of outrage fled as she experienced Bastien, up close and devastatingly personal.

      His kiss started out as a ruthless lesson. Very quickly it became something else. Something that made her stomach muscles quiver.

      His lips, hot and urgent, seared her, branded her, evoking such electrifying reactions that she could do nothing but cling on, crave more, open herself to the pleasure drenching her.

      When his tongue stroked hers molten heat seared through her, singeing every nerve-ending, every drop of her blood, until she burned, engulfed in sensual flames.

      Bastien had called her reaction to him an act. Except it wasn’t an act. The world might think Ana Duval represented sex on legs, but the truth would shock them even more. The fact was that she was as far removed from being sexually promiscuous as was humanly possible.

      MAYA BLAKE’s hopes of becoming a writer were born when she picked up her first Mills & Boon^® aged thirteen. Little did she know her dream would come true! Does she still pinch herself every now and then to make sure it’s not a dream? Yes, she does!

      Feel free to pinch her too, via Twitter, Facebook or Goodreads!

      Innocent

      in His Diamonds

      Maya Blake

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      Contents

       Cover

       Excerpt

       About the Author

       Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       Extract

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      BASTIEN HEIDECKER THREW OPEN the doors of his boardroom and strode in. For several seconds none of his board members noticed his presence, absorbed as they were by the catastrophe playing out in high definition on the big screen.

      Henry Lang, his CFO, spotted him first.

      ‘Mr Heidecker! We were just catching up on the latest development...’ The short dark-haired man grabbed the remote, pressed a button and dashed to his seat.

      Bastien watched the rest of his staff scramble into their places, his already simmering anger mounting as his gaze shifted to the screen.

      Her frozen image stared back at him. Despite the storm brewing beneath the surface of his calm, Bastien couldn’t fault his team for being enthralled by the woman at the centre of the chaos engulfing his company.

      Ana Duval was stunning perfection. The half-Colombian, half-English supermodel’s beauty combined innocence and defiance with a hint of cultivated vulnerability that had been skilfully honed into the perfect commodity. That combination had ensnared every red-blooded male in the western hemisphere and ensured her a permanent place in the limelight by the time she’d turned twenty-one.

      Hell, it had nearly ensnared him...

      Even at fifteen Bastien had known the skinny, doe-eyed, eight-year-old he’d had the misfortune of spending that unforgettable winter with was nothing but trouble. What he hadn’t foreseen was that sixteen years later Ana Duval would bring bedlam right to his doorstep.

      His gaze skimmed the silky fall of her straight black hair, the slim, delicate structure of her lissom figure and the legs that had once been described by a fawning companion as forty-two inches of creamy paradise.

      Against his will his body stirred in remembrance of having that body close to his only two months ago,