A Countess For Christmas. Christy McKellen

      

      The earl’s secret bride...

      Emma Carmichael is shocked when she sees who she’s waitressing for at a lavish party—Jack Westwood, the new Earl of Redminster. Her new life comes crashing down when Jack announces to the world that they’re married!

      Jack has never forgotten his first love despite the tragedy that tore them apart. When the paparazzi cameras intrude, he proposes they live as man and wife until the fuss dies down. Emma feels like Cinderella, masquerading as his countess...only, behind closed doors, their marriage feels tantalizingly real...

      Maids Under the Mistletoe

      Promoted: from maids to Christmas brides!

      Maids Emma, Ashleigh, Grace and Sophie work for the same elite London agency. And with Christmas just around the corner they’re gearing up for their busiest period yet!

      But as the snowflakes begin to fall these Christmas Cinderellas are about to be swept off their feet by romantic heroes of their own...

      Don’t miss the first book in our Maids Under the Mistletoe quartet

      A Countess for Christmas

      by Christy McKellen

      October 2016

      Also in this series

      Greek Tycoon’s Mistletoe Proposal

      by Kandy Shepherd

      November 2016

      Christmas in the Boss’s Castle

      by Scarlet Wilson

      December 2016

      Her New Year Baby Secret

      by Jessica Gilmore

      January 2017

      A Countess for Christmass

      Christy McKellen

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Formerly a video and radio producer, CHRISTY MCKELLEN now spends her time writing fun, impassioned and emotive romance with an undercurrent of sensual tension. When she’s not writing she can be found enjoying life with her husband and three children, walking for pleasure and researching other people’s deepest secrets and desires.

      Christy loves to hear from readers. You can get hold of her at www.christymckellen.com.

      This one’s for all my wonderful friends, especially Alice, Karen and Sophie, my best buddies since our school days, and for the fabulous ladies writing this continuity with me, Kandy, Scarlet and Jessica, who I’m also privileged to call my friends.

      Contents

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       Introduction

       Title Page

       About the Author

       Dedication

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       Extract

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      THIS HAD TO be the most challenging party that Emma Carmichael had ever worked at.

      As fabulous as the setting was—a grand Chelsea town house that had been interior designed to within an inch of its life, presiding over the genteel glamour of Sloane Square—the party itself felt stilted and lifeless.

      The trouble was, Emma mused as she glided inconspicuously through the throng, handing out drinks to the primped and polished partygoers, it was full of people who attended parties for a living rather than for pleasure, in an attempt to rub shoulders with London’s great and good.

      She knew all about that type of party after being invited to a glut of them in her late teens, either with her parents or with friends from her private girls’ school in Cambridge. But she’d been a very different person then, pampered and carefree. Those privileged days were long gone now though, along with her darling late father’s reputation and all their family’s money.

      As if her thoughts had conjured up the demons that had plagued her for the six years following his death, her phone vibrated in her pocket and she discreetly slipped it out and glanced at it, only to see it was another text message from her last remaining creditor reminding her she was late with her final repayment. Stomach sinking, she shoved the phone back into her pocket and desperately tried to reinstate the cheerful smile that her boss, Jolyon Fitzherbert, expected his staff to wear at all times.

      ‘Emma, a word! Over here!’ came the peremptory tones of the man himself from the other side of the room.

      Darn. Busted.

      Turning, she met her boss’s narrowed eyes and swallowed hard as he beckoned her over to where he stood holding court to a small group of guests with one elbow propped jauntily against the vulgar marble fireplace.

      Emma had encountered the bunch of reprobates he was with a number of times since she’d begun working for Jolyon two months ago so she was well used to their contemptuous gazes that slid over her face as she approached now. They didn’t believe in fraternising with the hired help.

      If only Jolyon felt the same.

      It was becoming harder and harder to avoid his wandering hands and suggestive gaze, especially when she found herself alone with him. So far she’d been politely cool and it seemed to have held him at bay, but as soon as he got a couple of drinks into