Melanie Milburne - At No Man's Command

The shock engagement of the century!

It looks like our favorite tearaway, the notorious Aiesha Adams, is trying to change her spots. Inside sources have revealed that not only is she currently holed up in the Scottish countryside with the gorgeous aristocrat James Challender, but the pair are secretly engaged!

We’ve always had a soft spot for Aiesha, and with rumors of her unhappy childhood trailing her footsteps wherever she goes, we knew her wild streak hid something more. But we thought Aiesha and James were sworn enemies…perhaps when there are fireworks outside the bedroom, the sparks are just too impossible to resist!

The dark blue of his eyes intensified, holding hers in a lock that made something inside her belly tilt and then spill.

‘You’re scared.’

Aiesha sent her tongue out in a quick darting movement to moisten her lips. ‘Let me go, James.’

‘I have a little forfeit to collect first.’

Something dropped off a shelf in her stomach. ‘Forfeit?’

He spread his hands through the mane of her hair, his gaze moving from her eyes to her mouth in a slow and mesmerising fashion. ‘You remember? Now I get to kiss you. Fair’s fair.’

She affected a sneer but was pretty sure it was wide of the mark. ‘Is that meant to be a punishment?’

‘Why don’t we find out?’ he said, tugging her against him, and his mouth came down over hers.

From as soon as MELANIE MILBURNE could pick up a pen she knew she wanted to write. It was when she picked up her first Mills & Boon® at seventeen that she realised she wanted to write romance. After being distracted for a few years by meeting and marrying her own handsome hero, surgeon husband Steve, and having two boys, plus completing a Masters of Education and becoming a nationally ranked athlete (masters swimming), she decided to write. Five submissions later she sold her first book and is now a multi-published, bestselling, award-winning USA TODAY author. In 2008 she won the Australian Readers’ Association most popular category/series romance, and in 2011 she won the prestigious Romance Writers of Australia R*BY award.

Melanie loves to hear from her readers via her website, www.melaniemilburne.com.auor on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Melanie-Milburne/351594482609.

At No Man’s Command

Melanie Milburne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Nadine and Regan Drew. Thanks for your friendship and all the fun memories we share. May there be many more to come! xx

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EXTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

AIESHA HAD BEEN at Lochbannon a week without a single whisper in the press about her whereabouts. But then, who would have thought of hunting her down in the Highlands of Scotland in the home of the woman whose marriage she had effectively destroyed ten years ago?

It was the perfect hideaway, and the fact that Louise Challender had been called away to visit a sick friend abroad meant Aiesha had had the place to herself for the last couple of days. And, being the dead of winter, there was not even a housekeeper or a gardener to disturb her idyll.

Bliss.

She closed her eyes and, tilting her head back, breathed in the ice in the air as fresh flakes of snow began to fall. The soft press of each snowflake was like a caress against her skin. After the traffic fumes and incessant noise and activity of Las Vegas, the cold, fresh, quiet Highland air was like breathing in an elixir, bringing her jaded senses back to zinging life.

Being up here on her own where no one could find her was like coming off a stage. Stepping out of a costume. Undressing the part of Vegas showgirl. She could feel it falling away from her like a heavy cloak. Up here she could take her game face off. The flirty vamp face. The face that told everyone she was perfectly happy singing in a gentlemen’s club because the tips were great and she had the days free to shop, hang out by the pool or get a spray tan.

Up here in the Highlands she could relax. Regroup. Get in touch with nature.

Revisit her dreams...

The only hiccup was the dog.

Aiesha could babysit cats, no problem. Cats were pretty easy to take care of. She just filled their dish with biscuits and cleaned out their litter tray, if they had one. She didn’t have to pat them or get close to them. Most cats were pretty aloof, which suited her just fine.

Dogs were different. Dogs wanted to get close to you. To bond with you. To love you.

To trust you to keep them safe.

Aiesha glanced down at the limpid brown eyes of the golden retriever sitting at her feet with slavish devotion, its tail brushing against the carpet of snow like a feathered fan.

The memory of another pair of trusting brown eyes stabbed at her heart like a knitting needle. Eyes that still haunted her, even though so many years had passed. She pushed back the thick sleeve of her coat and looked at the underside of her wrist where the blue-and-red ink of her tattoo was a vivid and permanent reminder of her failure to keep her one and only best friend safe.

Aiesha swallowed the monkey wrench of guilt in her throat and frowned down at the dog. ‘Why can’t you take yourself for a walk? It’s not as if you need me to show you the way. There aren’t any fences to stop you.’ She made a shooing motion with her hand. ‘Go on. Go for a run. Go chase a rabbit or a stoat or something.’

The dog continued to look at her with that unblinking stare, a soft little ‘play with me’ whine coming from its throat. Aiesha blew out a breath of resignation and began trudging in the direction of the forest that fringed the stately Highland home. ‘Come on, then, you stupid mutt. But I’m only going as far as the river. It looks like this snow’s going to set in for the night.’

* * *

James Challender drove through the snow-encrusted wrought-iron gates of Lochbannon as evening folded in. The secluded estate was spectacular in any season but in winter it turned into a wonderland. The Gothic-style mansion with its turrets and spires looked like something out of a children’s fairy tale. The frozen water in the fountain in front of the house looked like a Renaissance ice sculpture with delicate icicles hanging down like centuries-old stalactites. The thick forest that backed on to the estate was coated in pure white snow, the rolling fields were also thickly carpeted, and the air was so sharp and clean and cold it burned his nostrils as he drew it in.

The lights were on in the house, which meant the housekeeper, Mrs McBain, had generously postponed her annual holiday to look after Bonnie while his mother visited her friend, who had suffered an accident in outback Australia. James had offered to look after the dog but his mother had insisted via a hurried text before she boarded her flight that it was all organised and not to worry. Why his mother couldn’t put her dog in boarding kennels like everyone else did was beyond him. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t afford it. He’d made sure she was well provided for after the divorce from his father.