Liz Fielding: Anything but Vanilla...

Even more tempting than ice cream!

Sorrel Amery is determined to make her summer event the talk of the town, and she knows just the way into people’s hearts—champagne sorbet! It’s the perfect strategy… Until the ice cream parlour’s owner runs off, leaving Sorrel’s plans melting faster than a sundae in the summer sun.

All Sorrel wants is to get back into her comfort zone, but when the gorgeous Alexander West arrives to help pick up the pieces her life gets shaken up more than ever before! Especially as this globe-trotting adventurer is determined that nothing in Sorrel’s life should ever be boring old vanilla again…

ANYTHING BUT VANILLA…

Sorrel had assumed Alexander would take the spoon from her, but instead he leaned forward and put his lips around it.

His hair fell forward and brushed against her wrist, giving her goose bumps. He put his hand beneath hers to steady it when it began to shake, then raised heavy lids to look straight into her eyes.

They were dangerously close.

She’d taken an involuntary step back, shocked by such a powerful response to a man who, while undeniably attractive, she was not predisposed to like. But lust had nothing to do with liking. It was an unthinking, mindless live-now-pay-later physical response to the atavistic need of a species to reproduce itself. A lingering madness, as outdated, as unnecessary, as troublesome as the appendix. Something she’d have had removed if it was an option.

And yet, with his palm cradling her hand, face-to-face, the effect was amplified; not so much a ripple as a tsunami…

Anything but Vanilla…

Liz Fielding

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT LIZ FIELDING

Liz Fielding was born with itchy feet. She made it to Zambia before her twenty-first birthday and, gathering her own special hero and a couple of children on the way, lived in Botswana, Kenya and Bahrain—with pauses for sightseeing pretty much everywhere in between. She finally came to a full stop in a tiny Welsh village cradled by misty hills, and these days mostly leaves her pen to do the traveling.

When she’s not sorting out the lives and loves of her characters, she potters in the garden, reads her favourite authors and spends a lot of time wondering, What if…?

For news of upcoming books—and to sign up for her occasional newsletter—visit Liz’s website, www.lizfielding.com.

This and other titles by Liz Fielding are available in ebook format—check out www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This book is dedicated to the authors with whom I share my writing life. They are my support group, a cyber hug away when the writing is tough and, when life gives you lemons, they’re always on hand to make lemonade.

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

Chapter Thirteen

Excerpt

ONE

There’s nothing more cheering than a good friend when we’re in trouble—except a good friend with ice cream.

—from Rosie’s ‘Little Book of Ice Cream’

‘Hello? Shop?’

Alexander West ignored the rapping on the shop door, the call for attention. The closed sign was up; Knickerbocker Gloria was out of business. End of story.

The accounts were a mess, the petty cash tin contained nothing but paper clips and he’d found a pile of unopened bills in the bottom drawer of the desk. All the classic signs of a small business going down the pan and Ria, with her fingers in her ears, singing la-la-la as the creditors closed in.

It was probably one of them at the door now. Some poor woman whose own cash flow was about to hit the skids hoping to catch her with some loose change in the till, which was why this wouldn’t wait.

He topped up his mug with coffee, eased the ache in his shoulder and set about dealing with the pile of unopened bills.

There was no point in getting mad at Ria. This was his fault.

She’d promised him that she’d be more organised, not let things get out of hand. He was so sure that she’d learned her lesson, but maybe he’d just allowed himself to be convinced simply because he wanted it to be true.

She tried, he knew she did, and everything would be fine for a while, but then she’d hear something, see something and it would trigger her depression...get her hopes up. Then, when they were dashed, she’d be ignoring everything, especially the scary brown envelopes. It didn’t take long for a business to go off the rails.

‘Ria?’

He frowned. It was the same voice, but whoever it belonged to was no longer outside—

‘I’ve come to pick up the Jefferson order,’ she called out. ‘Don’t disturb yourself if you’re busy. I can find it.’

—but inside, and helping herself to the stock.

He hauled himself out of the chair, took a short cut across the preparation room—scrubbed, gleaming and ready for a new day that was never going to come—and pushed open the door to the stockroom.

All he could see of the ‘voice’ was a pair of long, satin-smooth legs and a short skirt that rode up her thighs and stretched across a neat handful of backside. It was an unexpected pleasure in what was a very bad day and, in no hurry to halt her raid on the freezer, he leaned against the door making the most of the view.

She muttered something and reached further into its depths, balancing on one toe while extending the other towards him as if inviting him to admire the black suede shoe clinging to a long, slender foot. A high-heeled black suede shoe, cut away at the side and with a saucy bow on the toe. Very expensive, very sexy and designed to display a foot, an ankle, to perfection. He dutifully admired the ankle, the leg, a teasing glimpse of lace—that skirt was criminally short—and several inches of bare flesh where her top had slithered forward, at his leisure.

The combination of long legs and dark red skirt, sandwiched between cream silk and lace, reminded him of a cone filled with Ria’s home-made raspberry ripple ice cream. It had been a while since he’d been within touching distance of temptation but now, recalling that perfect mix of fresh tangy fruit and creamy sweetness, he contemplated the idea of scooping her up and running his tongue along the narrow gap of golden skin at her waist.

‘I’ve got the strawberry and cream gelato and the cupcakes, Ria.’ Her voice, sexily breathless as she shifted containers, echoed from the depths of the freezer. ‘And I’ve found the bread and honey ice cream. But there’s no Earl Grey granita, champagne sorbet or cucumber ice cream.’

Cucumber ice cream?

No wonder Ria was in trouble.

He took a final, appreciative look at the endless legs and, calling the hormones to heel, said, ‘If it’s not there, then I’m sorry, you’re out of luck.’

Sorrel Amery froze.

Metaphorically as well as literally. With her head deep in the freezer and nothing but a strappy silk camisole between her and frozen to death, she was already feeling the chill, but either Ria had the worst sore throat in history, or that was—