The Innocent Virgin. Carole Mortimer

      ‘Max. What do you want?’ she demanded rudely.

      ‘Coffee, thanks,’ he replied briskly. ‘Black. One sugar.’ He dropped down into one of the comfortable armchairs.

      Abby frowned. ‘I wasn’t offering you anything to drink,’ she told him impatiently.

      ‘No?’ He raised dark brows, his grey gaze moving slowly over her face before moving down to her slender curves in denim and a blue T-shirt. ‘What were you offering me, then?’

      Carole Mortimer was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and twenty-five books for Harlequin. Carole has four sons—Matthew, Joshua, Timothy and Peter—and a bearded collie dog called Merlyn. She says, ‘I’m in a very happy relationship with Peter Senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship.’

      Recent titles by the same author:

      The Prince Brothers trilogy

      PRINCE’S PASSION

      PRINCE’S PLEASURE

      PRINCE’S LOVE-CHILD

      The Innocent Virgin

      Carole Mortimer

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CONTENTS

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      ABBY stepped into the hot scented bathwater, sat down, and let her shoulders sink beneath the luxurious bubbles, ebony hair secured loosely on top of her head, a glass of champagne in one hand, her mobile phone in the other.

      She took a large sip from the former before gently dropping the latter into the water beside her, smiling at the satisfying ‘glug’ it gave before sinking to the bottom without trace. The four-inch layer of bubbles simply closed back over the temporary dent the mobile had made in their formation.

      The landline was unplugged, the speaker system from her doorbell in the street downstairs switched off. Nothing and no one was going to disturb this hour of decadence.

      She took another sip of the champagne and gazed from the free-standing claw-footed bath at her surroundings. Twelve scented candles were her only illumination and a dreamy smile touched her lips as she looked at her frankly opulent surroundings. The floors and walls were of peach-coloured marble, the glass-sided shower unit that stood at one end of the large room had all its fittings gold-plated; the towels on the racks were a sumptuous peach of the exact shade as the walls and floor. Monty was sitting on the laundry basket, all her bottles of perfume were neatly lined up on the glass shelf beneath the tinted mirror, the bucket of ice containing the bottle of champagne was right beside her, and—

      Monty was sitting on the laundry basket!

      Her gaze swivelled sharply back to look at him. No, it wasn’t the champagne she had already imbibed; Monty really was sitting on top of the laundry basket, unmoving, those green cat-like eyes unblinking.

      Well, of course his eyes were cat-like—he was a cat, after all. A huge white, long-haired Persian, to be exact.

      Not that Monty was aware of this himself. Somewhere in his youth someone had forgotten to mention this little fact to him, and now he chose to ignore any reference to his species.

      Abby wasn’t to blame for this oversight; Monty had already been a year old when she’d chosen him over the other cats at the animal rescue centre. At least, she had thought she had chosen him; within a very few days of arriving home with him it had become more than obvious that Monty had done the choosing. Someone soft and malleable, he must have decided. Someone still young enough to be moulded into the indulgent, pandering human he needed to make his life completely comfortable. Enter Abby.

      ‘Well, of course that’s going to change now, Monty, old chap.’ She waved her champagne glass with bravado. ‘No more boiled chicken and salmon for you, I’m afraid,’ she warned him ruefully. ‘From now on you’ll be lucky if I can afford to buy you that tinned food you consider so much beneath your notice!’

      Cats, she was sure, weren’t supposed to be able to look at you with scepticism and disdain, and yet that was exactly what Monty was doing at this moment. He had several easily readable expressions, from ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ to the smug ‘Aren’t I lucky to own an accommodating human like Abby?’. At the moment it was definitely the former.

      ‘It isn’t my fault,’ Abby assured him with another wave of her champagne glass—which definitely needed replenishing, she decided, and did exactly that. ‘It’s that man’s fault.’ She took a huge swallow of her champagne. ‘I mean, whoever thought he would do such a thing?’

      She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry!

      But of course she did, her tears accompanied by huge, heaving sobs.

      How could he have done that to her? And on public television, live, in front of millions of viewers.

      Oh, God…!

      Every time she even thought of that she felt her humiliation all over again.

      ‘Weeks and weeks—several weeks, anyway,’ she amended tearfully. ‘Well, okay, seven.’ She sniffed inelegantly. ‘All that time I’ve been gently trying to persuade that man to come on my show. Yes, I know you liked him, Monty.’ Her voice rose with indignation on her bland-faced pet’s behalf. ‘So did I,’ she admitted heavily. ‘But if you only knew—if you had only heard—I had no idea, Monty.’ She shuddered. ‘Absolutely none!’ If she had she would never have got out of bed this morning!

      In fact, it was worse than that. If she had guessed in any way just how deep her annihilation was going to be this evening she would have taken a one-way trip to Bolivia earlier today and spared herself all the pain.

      She had always liked the sound of that name. Bolivia. It sounded so romantic, so mysterious, so different. But, knowing her luck, it was probably nothing like that at all. She had always liked the sound of the so-called Bermuda Triangle too, but no doubt that was just another myth…

      She had probably had too much champagne.

      ‘Okay, okay, so my thoughts are wandering,’ she acknowledged, as Monty seemed to look at her with derision. ‘But if you only knew, Monty.’ She began to cry again, the tears hot on her cheeks. ‘If you had only heard what that man said to me! You would have been shocked, Monty. Shocked!’

      Abby