Christy McKellen - One Week With The French Tycoon

She couldn’t meet his gaze, the memory of the humiliation she’d felt burning through her once again. “Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” He moved his head to the side, then bent toward her, waiting until he’d caught her eye before he spoke again. “Indigo, it does. I’m not normally so unfriendly. You’ve just caught me at a bad time.”

She gave him a shaky smile, cocking her head and splaying out her hands on either side of her. “Okay, I accept your apology.”

There was relief in his eyes and something else. Her lips tingled as his gaze dropped to her mouth and her pulse rocketed.

He looked like he wanted to … kiss her.

The thought lit a fire inside her, burning through her veins and turning her nerve endings into a crackling mass of need.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Formerly a video and radio producer, CHRISTY McKELLENnow 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 ahold of her at www.christymckellen.com.

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This one’s for my beautiful, witty and fiercely clever sisters-in-law, Kat and Buffy. Thank you for being the sisters I never had and welcoming me so warmly into your family. I love spending time with you. Here’s to spending many more fabulous weekends in London together.

Contents

Cover

Introduction “Look, Indigo, I should apologize for being so rude last night at dinner.” She couldn’t meet his gaze, the memory of the humiliation she’d felt burning through her once again. “Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.” “Yes, it does.” He moved his head to the side, then bent toward her, waiting until he’d caught her eye before he spoke again. “Indigo, it does. I’m not normally so unfriendly. You’ve just caught me at a bad time.” She gave him a shaky smile, cocking her head and splaying out her hands on either side of her. “Okay, I accept your apology.” There was relief in his eyes and something else. Her lips tingled as his gaze dropped to her mouth and her pulse rocketed. He looked like he wanted to … kiss her. The thought lit a fire inside her, burning through her veins and turning her nerve endings into a crackling mass of need.

Title Page One Week with the French Tycoon Christy McKellen www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author 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 ahold of her at www.christymckellen.com .

Dedication This one’s for my beautiful, witty and fiercely clever sisters-in-law, Kat and Buffy. Thank you for being the sisters I never had and welcoming me so warmly into your family. I love spending time with you. Here’s to spending many more fabulous weekends in London together.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Arriving in Amalfi—a most lively and dramatic town in which to begin your journey...

WHEN INDIGO HUGHES had spent long hours daydreaming about her walking holiday along the Amalfi Coast of Southern Italy, this wasn’t exactly what she’d envisioned.

Luggageless—after the airline had inexplicably sent her backpack containing her carefully organised walking gear to goodness knew where instead of Naples—and apparently dispossessed, because of a foul-up on the computer with her hotel booking, she was now facing the reality of spending the first night of her much anticipated holiday sleeping rough on the streets of Amalfi.

Whilst she wasn’t averse to roughing it—she’d travelled to enough festivals and partaken in enough camping trips for that not to be an issue—she’d been looking forward to falling into a comfortable bed after a crazy week of late nights and early mornings, and was not in the mood to laugh this off.

‘But my ex-boyfriend booked a room in this hotel months ago,’ she explained again to the receptionist, her voice now projecting the disconcerting characteristic of a crow with a sore throat.

The intimidatingly poised receptionist pursed her blood-red lips and tightened her arms across her impressive cleavage. ‘I’m sorry, Signorina. As I said, I have no record of your booking and we are fully booked. If you had the documents to prove it, or even the credit card it was booked with, I could perhaps do something for you, but as it is...’ From the look on her face, she clearly wasn’t keen on having someone as scruffy as Indigo messing up her beautifully appointed five-star hotel reception desk whilst also challenging her competency.

Panicky heat rushed to Indigo’s face. ‘As I explained, my ex-boyfriend booked the room so I don’t have the credit card or documents. I assumed a booking reference number would be enough.’

The woman’s helpless shrug, then her overemphasised shift in eye contact to the next person in line, tipped Indigo over the edge of frustration into fiery indignation. But before she could draw breath there was a movement behind her and a tall man in a beautifully cut casual suit stepped forwards to stand next to her at the desk.

‘Pardon, mademoiselle,’ he interjected smoothly, his fresh, spicy scent hitting her nose at the exact same moment his eyes locked with hers.

Indigo had never related to the expression of being ‘swept off her feet’ by a man before, but that was exactly how she felt right now. As if the power of his presence had physically lifted her into the air, her internal organs quivering as if she were in free fall. She gazed up at him, his unusual combination of whisky-brown eyes and sandy-blond hair keeping her transfixed as her pulse beat an enthusiastic rhythm in her throat. But apparently she didn’t capture his interest in the same way because, after giving her a curt nod, he turned sharply away, bringing her back down to earth with a thump.

‘I have a reservation,’ he said to the receptionist in a deep, smoky, French-accented voice, which made Indigo think of the actors in the Gallic art house films she’d been so in love with during her college days.

Lounging against the desk, he held up his smartphone so the receptionist could see the screen and type the booking reference into her computer.

Indigo looked from one to the other in disbelief. She seemed to have been well and truly dismissed.