Heidi Rice - Claiming My Untouched Mistress

I’ve drawn her into my world...

And she’s mine to awaken!

Walking into my casino, Edie Spencer seemed like a spoiled heiress—until she agreed to clear her family’s debts by posing as my temporary mistress. My plan? To use her to expose my business rivals. Yet discovering Edie’s innocence has led to greater temptation than I could have imagined. Our chemistry is spectacular—now I’ll claim Edie for so much more than pleasure!

Step into this tale of innocence and desire...

USA TODAY bestselling author HEIDI RICElives in London, England. She is married with two teenage sons—which gives her rather too much of an insight into the male psyche—and also works as a film journalist. She adores her job, which involves getting swept up in a world of high emotion, sensual excitement, funny and feisty women, sexy and tortured men and glamorous locations where laundry doesn’t exist. Once she turns off her computer she often does chores—usually involving laundry!

Also by Heidi Rice

Vows They Can’t Escape

The Virgin’s Shock Baby

Captive at Her Enemy’s Command

Bound by Their Scandalous Baby

Carrying the Sheikh’s Baby

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Claiming My Untouched Mistress

Heidi Rice

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08761-2

CLAIMING MY UNTOUCHED MISTRESS

© 2019 Heidi Rice

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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To my gorgeous husband, Rob,

whose love of Texas Hold ’Em

finally became useful in my writing career!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

I STRUGGLED TO control the tidal wave of panic surging through me as I read the sign on Dante Allegri’s Monaco casino.

Welcome to The Inferno

The glitter of lights gave the building’s imposing eighteenth-century façade a fairy-tale glow in the Mediterranean night—making me feel like even more of a fraud in the second-hand designer gown and uncomfortable ice-pick heels my sister and I had sourced online. What I was about to do could make or break my family.

Please God, don’t let Dante Allegri be in the house tonight.

I’d seen photos of Allegri, and read myriad articles about him in the last month as I prepared for this night. He scared me as a competitor but terrified me as a woman.

Allegri was famous for his ruthlessness, having risen from the slums of Naples to create a billion-dollar empire of casinos in Europe and the US. If I had to play against him, and he figured out the system I had developed, he would show me no mercy.

A sea breeze from the marina below the casino lifted the tendrils of hair off my neck which had escaped the elaborate up-do my sister had spent hours constructing from my unruly curls. Shivers racked my body, but I knew it wasn’t the warm summer night that was making me feel so cold inside—it was fear.

Stop standing here like a dummy and move.

Lifting the hem of the gown, I walked up the marble stairs to the main entrance, making an effort to keep my back straight and my gaze forward. The million-dollar bank draft borrowed from my brother-in-law’s loan shark stashed in the jewelled clutch purse on my wrist felt as if it weighed several tons.

‘You want to throw good money after bad, that’s your choice, Ms Trouvé, but I’ll be here tomorrow to collect, whatever happens.’

The words of Brutus Severin, Carsoni’s muscle man, echoed in my head and the chill spread like a frost.

This was my last chance to free us from the threats and intimidation, the possibility of losing not just our family home, but also our dignity and self-respect. Something my sister Jude’s husband Jason had stolen from us twelve months ago—after losing a fortune at Allegri’s roulette tables.

Failure simply was not an option tonight.

I approached the security detail standing guard at the entrance and passed them my ID card. I prayed that Carsoni’s forger had done the job we had paid him for. The guard nodded and passed it back to me. But my panic refused to subside.

What if my system didn’t work? Or had more tells than I had anticipated. I wasn’t sure if I’d had enough time to test it properly—and I had never had the opportunity to test it against players of Allegri’s calibre. How did I know it would stand up to scrutiny? I was a maths prodigy, not a poker player, for goodness’ sake.

The buy-in for tonight’s game was a staggering one million euros. And it was one million euros I could not afford to lose.