Amy Andrews - The Most Expensive Night of Her Life

“It’s as simple as that?” he clarified.

“One night at my place and you’ll give Joanna a million quid for her charity?”

Could he put up with a pain in the butt prima donna for one night for a million quid?

“As simple as that.”

Blake regarded her. His practical side was screaming at him to take the cash but the other side of him, the one attuned to doom in all its forms was wary as hell.

“You know there are thousands of men out there who would give anything to have me for a sleep over?”

She shot him a coy look from under her fringe and Blake glanced at her mouth. It had kicked up at one side as her voice had gone all light and teasy.

He didn’t want that mouth slumming it at his place.

But one million quid was hard to turn down.

“Fine,” he sighed. “But I leave in the morning for my holiday and you have to be gone.”

“Absolutely,” she grinned. “I promise you won’t even know I’m there.”

Blake grunted as his doom-o-meter hit a new high. He sincerely doubted that.

Dear Reader

I’ve always had a secret hankering to do a bodyguard story. I just adore the trope. And, whilst this book isn’t a typical bodyguard scenario, I hope you like my take on it—because I’ve had Ava and Blake in my head in various incantations for a long time now, and it was great to finally get them down on paper.

I had a lot of fun taking mega-rich, mega-spoiled supermodel Ava and shoving her on a tiny canal boat in the UK with the only man on the planet who seems immune to her charms. I had even more fun needling private, serious, returned soldier Blake with the temptation of a woman who has absolutely no problem with baring acres of skin or leaving her lingerie all over his floating home.

I’m pleased I let Ava and Blake marinate, though. Had I written their story years ago, I don’t think they’d have had the emotional complexity they do today. Because underneath Ava’s hard, demanding surface is a woman who can’t trust. And beneath Blake’s tough, pragmatic shell is a man whose physical limitations cripple him emotionally.

Which only makes their HEA even more rewarding!

I hope you enjoy their journey to love. Oh, and London at Christmas!

Love

Amy xx

The Most Expensive Night of Her Life

Amy Andrews

www.millsandboon.co.uk

AMY ANDREWShas always loved writing, and still can’t quite believe that she gets to do it for a living. Creating wonderful heroines and gorgeous heroes and telling their stories is an amazing way to pass the day. Sometimes they don’t always act as she’d like them to—but then neither do her kids, so she’s kind of used to it. Amy lives in the very beautiful Samford Valley, with her husband and aforementioned children, along with six brown chooks and two black dogs.

She loves to hear from her readers. Drop her a line at www.amyandrews.com.au

Other MODERN TEMPTED™ titles by Amy Andrews:

GIRL LEAST LIKELY TO MARRY

This and other titles by Amy Andrews are available in eBook format—check out www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To the Kohli family, our lovely UK friends—

Amanda, Nick, Lauren and Matthew.

Even though we live on opposite sides of the world,

your friendship warms our hearts.

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

Chapter Fourteen

Excerpt

ONE

A roadside explosion in the darkest depths of a war zone three years ago had left Blake Walker with a finely honed sense of doom. Today that doom stormed towards him on a pair of legs that wouldn’t quit and a ball-breaking attitude that was guaranteed to ruin his last day on the job.

Ava Kelly might be one of the world’s most beautiful women but she redefined the term diva.

Doing this job for her had been a freaking nightmare.

‘Blake!’

Her classy Oxford accent grated and Blake took a deep breath. He went to the happy place the army shrink had insisted he find—which at the moment was anywhere but here.

Last day, man, keep yourself together.

‘Ava,’ he greeted as she stopped on the opposite side of the beautiful maple-wood island bench in the kitchen where he was poring over some paperwork. He’d polished the top to glass-like perfection with his own two hands. ‘Problem?’

‘You could say that,’ she said, folding her arms and glaring at him.

Blake did not drop his gaze and admire how the arm-crossing emphasised the tanned perfection of her cleavage. Even if it was on open display in her loosely tied gossamer gown that reeked of a designer label and through which her itty-bitty, red bikini could also be clearly seen.

He did not think about how wet she was underneath it. About the water droplets that dripped off the ends of her slicked-back hair or trekked down the elegant line of her throat to cling precariously to her prominent collarbones before heading further south.

Blake did not look.

Blake was in a good place in his life. He was fit and healthy after a long period of being neither. He was financially secure. He had direction and purpose.

He could get laid any night of the week with just one phone call placed to any of half a dozen women. He didn’t need to ogle the one in front of him.

She was trouble and he’d already had too much of that.

Instead he thought about the month-long holiday he started tomorrow—no braving a clutch of paparazzi every morning, no twelve-hour days and, most importantly, no divas.

‘Something I can help with?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, raising her chin to peer down her nose at him in that way he’d got used to the last few months. ‘You can ask your salivating apprentice—’ she jerked her thumb in the direction of the male in question ‘—to put his eyes back in his head and keep his mind on the job. My friends aren’t here to be gawked at. They come into the privacy of my home to get away from objectification.’

Blake glanced over at the three women frolicking in the fully glassed indoor pool that ran alongside the magnificent internal open-air courtyard. They were all tall, tanned and gorgeous and if they were friends of Ava’s then they were no doubt models too. Between them there were only twelve triangles of fabric keeping them from being totally naked.

He glanced at Dougy, who was installing some sophisticated strip lighting down the outside of the glass and steel staircase that led from the courtyard to a mezzanine level for sunbathing. Ava was right: he was barely keeping his tongue inside his head. Not that Blake could really blame him. This had to be every young apprentice’s wet dream. And he was like a kid in a candy shop.

Sunlight flooded the courtyard through the open glass roof above reflecting off the stark white décor, dazzling his eyes. For a moment Blake tuned out Ava’s disapproval and admired what they’d achieved—outside a semi-detached, early-nineteenth-century terraced house, inside a vibrant contemporary home full of light and flair.