Diana Hamilton - Mistress for a Night

Jason closed the space between them. “Have you seen the state of the sea? I can’t put out in that. It’s a full-blooded storm.”

He wasn’t leaving! Her heart beat faster.

“What a bore for you,” she said, and swung away, aware of the flirtatious flick of her skirt as the soft fabric settled seductively back against her thighs.

“Don’t play games with me, Georgia! They can land you in more trouble than you can handle.” He swung her around to face him, their bodies almost touching.

“Or is that what you want?” he asked thickly.

The tips of his fingers began moving gently over her silky skin and Georgia felt herself catch fire. She sucked in her breath, caught the dark glitter of his eyes and knew he was going to kiss her.

Anything can happen behind closed doors!

Do you dare find out…?

Welcome again to DO NOT DISTURB!

Meet Jason and Georgia, a couple thrown together by circumstances into a whirlwind of unexpected attraction. Forced into each other’s company whether they like it or not, they’re soon in the grip of passion—and definitely don’t want to be disturbed!

Popular Presents ®author Diana Hamilton explores this delicious fantasy in a tantalizing romance you simply won’t want to put down.

So what happens when Georgia becomes Jason’s mistress for one night of all-consuming passion? Turn the pages and find out!

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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

JASON HARCOURT’S right hand hovered over the telephone for a second, then dropped down to his side. He pushed both hands into the side pockets of his dark, well-worn cords and hunched his wide shoulders.

The room was crowding in on him. The over-ornate French antiques, the baroque-framed paintings, the fussy carpets suffocating him. He paced to the long, elaborately draped French windows, dark brows drawn down over flint-grey eyes as he stared moodily out over Lytham Court’s winter-bleak gardens.

How he hated this place!

Seven years since he’d set foot over the doorstep—except for the hour he’d spent here after Harold’s second wife Vivienne’s funeral—and he was only here now because he had no real option. Lytham held bad memories, more than a few.

Following Vivienne’s death, four years ago, he had made peace, of a sort, with Harold, the man who had legally adopted him almost thirty years ago on his marriage to Jason’s widowed mother. For a three-year-old child, whose real father had been killed in a climbing accident before he was born, it had been easy enough to accept the substitute.

Only after his mother had died of leukaemia, when he was seventeen, had he begun to see his adoptive father with new eyes.

But that was in the past, and the tentative peace had progressed relatively smoothly because he had stipulated that their occasional meetings took place at the older man’s London club. Neutral ground. He was glad, now, that he’d gone with the flow, somewhat sceptically giving Harold the benefit of the doubt when he had insisted he’d changed. He owed his adoptive father that much.

But the scepticism had hardened to downright disbelief when at their last meeting, two months ago, Harold had told him, ‘Georgia’s been back in England for six months now; we’ve been meeting fairly regularly.’

Jason had watched the way the mere mention of her name had made Harold’s tired, faded eyes brighten in the older man’s face, a face that had shrunk in on its own bones. Harold had gone downhill, slowly but very surely, since Vivienne had died, and his obvious physical frailty had been the only thing that had stopped Jason from getting up from the lunch table and walking out of the muted dark brown atmosphere of the club and into the relative sanity of London’s teeming streets.

‘So you keep in touch with Georgia.’ He practically spat the words out, the old bitterness surfacing as it always did whenever he was unguarded enough to think about her.

‘Since Vivvie died, yes. She, God rest and bless her, was the stumbling block there. Wouldn’t have her daughter’s name mentioned.’ Harold pushed his barely touched meal aside. Jason speared a forkful of game pie with smooth savagery, debated whether he wanted it, decided not, and laid down his cutlery.

‘I know you said you were going to break the long silence and phone New York to tell her of Vivienne’s death,’ he said carefully. He had offered to put his personal distaste aside and break the news of the fatal car accident, to spare Harold, but the old man had insisted he was the one to do it. As it turned out no one need have bothered; she hadn’t cared enough to attend her own mother’s funeral.

‘Well, yes.’ Old eyes fell uneasily. ‘There were things that had to be said, and I said them,’ he stated enigmatically. ‘And I like to think we got close again after the air was cleared. It doesn’t do to hold on to old grudges. In any case, she’s well settled back in England now. She heads up one of the design teams at the branch of her advertising agency in Birmingham—you’ll remember she went out with the girl Sue’s family when the father opened a branch in New York?’

Jason glanced fiercely at his watch. He’d had enough of this. Of course he remembered!

‘I thought we might all get together at Lytham one weekend soon,’ Harold said. ‘Mend fences. You and little Georgia are the only family I have left.’

‘Spare me the sentimentality.’ Jason flung his napkin down. ‘It’s not impressing me.’ He stood up.

‘It was worth a try.’ The faded eyes held a sudden gleam of humour. ‘But you will come? I’ll fix a weekend with Georgia. Be like old times.’

Old times he could do without. ‘In your dreams!’ he said, and walked out.

He hadn’t seen Harold since. He’d meant to, of course he had, but work had got in the way. He regretted that now that Harold was dead, he thought, his eyes still fixed on the dreary garden scene.

It was raining now, icy needles that clattered against the window pane, and the short winter day was ending. The housekeeper, Mrs Moody, had told him that a hard frost was forecast for tonight.

It meant driving conditions would be tricky in the morning. Georgia would probably decide not to risk the icy roads. She hadn’t bothered to grab a flight and get over for her mother’s funeral, so why should she put herself out to attend Harold’s?