His Inherited Bride. JACQUELINE BAIRD

      

      “There is no need to rush, Jules,” he drawled softly.

      “We have a lot to catch up on. Or is that what you are afraid of?”

      Her green eyes collided with deep dark brown. “Not you, that’s for sure,” she snapped. But then his smallest finger trailed over her full lips, and a shiver lanced through her slender body and she knew she lied. Because suddenly she was desperately afraid—afraid of what Rand was making her feel.

      “Well, if you’re sure about that, then you won’t mind this,” he declared huskily, and she was pulled against the solid wall of his chest….

      Mama Mia!

      Harlequin Presents^®

      ITALIAN HUSBANDS

      They’re tall, dark…and ready to marry!

      If you love marriage-of-convenience stories that ignite into passionate dramas, then look no further. We’ve got the Mediterranean heroes you love to read about—step into the shoes of the women who marry and tame them.

      Watch for more exciting tales of romance, Italian-style.

      Coming in Harlequin Presents^®:

      A Sicilian Husband

       by

       Kate Walker

       May #2393

      The Italian’s Suitable Wife

       by

       Lucy Monroe

       July #2407

      His Inherited Bride

      Italian Husbands

      Jacqueline Baird

       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

      JULIA DIEZ—Jules to her friends—glanced up at the ornate carved gargoyles that decorated the outside of the old stone building and shivered, not with cold but with nerves. She had exchanged the freezing January weather in England for mid-summer in Chile, and the temperature was a sunny eighty degrees. She had arrived in Santiago late last night, and right at this moment it was the last place she wanted to be. The land of her late father, a father she had hardly known!

      She had barely slept, and, getting up at the crack of dawn, she had called her mother, Liz. Reassured she was fine, Jules had spent the past few hours in a state of nervous anticipation. Unable to eat breakfast, she had consumed numerous cups of coffee, her whole attention focused on the appointment she had to keep at twelve.

      She glanced at the slim gold watch on her wrist—almost noon. Time to keep her appointment with Randolfo Carducci. The name alone was enough to make her nervous, but realistically she knew as the executor of her father’s will he was her last hope.

      Personally she would rather live in abject poverty than take a penny from her father’s estate, she thought, straightening her slender shoulders and walking into the marble foyer of the building. But she was not prepared to risk the chances of her mother making a full recovery from her breast cancer operation for the sake of a few thousand pounds.

      In Jules’ mind her father owed her mum that much. It had been the age-old story. Liz, as a naive eighteen-year-old, had met and fallen madly in love with Carlos Diez at a polo match in the Cotswolds; he had been a visiting Chilean polo player and a much older man. Liz had been pregnant and married within months, and Jules, born in England, was the result. Carlos had continued on the polo circuit and when he had finally returned to take mother and baby back to his ranch in Chile, the marriage had not lasted six months.

      Her mum had confided in Jules, when her own youthful engagement had broken up, that her charming husband had freely admitted he’d had a mistress in Santiago, and he’d had no intention of remaining celibate while travelling the world playing polo. Liz had returned to England with her baby. She had basically run away and a quick divorce had followed.

      Jules did not blame her mum. Her own experience with her father had been a disaster. Offered a holiday in Chile at the age of fourteen, she had leapt at the chance of meeting a dad she had never seen since she was a baby, and had no memory of. Immediately she had developed an enormous crush on the neighbouring rancher’s son, twenty-year-old Enrique Eiga. Encouraged by her father, she had visited Chile each summer and had been engaged at seventeen and set to marry Enrique at eighteen before she had woken up to reality and broken the whole thing off. She had never been back to Chile or spoken to her father in the seven years since, and she would not be here now if it weren’t for her mother.

      Reception lay through a set of wide glass doors, and she caught a glimpse of her reflection as she passed through them, and held her head a little higher. Not bad, she told herself. Jules had opted to wear a cream knee-length linen skirt, with a loosely tailored short-sleeved linen jacket to match. She had woven her long hair into a French braid, and with the addition of fine-heeled sandals lending height to her average five feet five she thought she looked smart and businesslike.

      The receptionist was a young man, and his appreciative glance swept over her as she stated her business.

      ‘Señor Carducci is expecting you.’ He smiled and added in Spanish, ‘Lucky dog,’ unaware Jules understood, and her lips twitched as he ushered her into an elevator adding, ‘His secretary will meet you and escort you to his office suite.’

      Jules said, ‘Thank you,’ with a smile. It never ceased to puzzle her why men seemed to find her attractive. After all, because she was a chef and with her mother ran a successful bakery, her figure was more lush than lean, and so she dressed to disguise the fact. Her features were even, and she had inherited her mother’s pale complexion, and large, unusually brilliant green eyes, but her hair revealed her mixed parentage, a dark auburn with a tendency to curl wildly unless strictly controlled.

      It was a short journey, two floors, but long enough for Jules suddenly to be stricken with another attack of nerves. The elevator door slid open and she stepped into a deeply carpeted hall, and utter silence.

      Jules looked around. There was no secretary in sight, and only one door as far as she could see, directly opposite the elevator. She waited, minutes passed and another glance at her watch showed it was past twelve. Was Carducci playing some kind of diabolic mind game? She wouldn’t put it past him, and in a way she didn’t blame him. He had called her out of the blue five months ago and proposed she reconcile with her father; three more calls had followed and she had ignored his every suggestion.

      Mainly because, by an appalling coincidence, it had been at the same time as her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Jules had received the first call from Randolfo Carducci the week before her mother’s operation had been scheduled. A call telling her that her father had had a slight heart attack, nothing serious, he was not in hospital, but Randolfo thought Jules should maybe visit, or at least call her father. In his opinion it was time father and daughter buried their grievances and made up.

      She had been so surprised at hearing a voice from the past that she had said she would try, and the call had ended amicably.

      The next call had been on the eve of