Sharon Kendrick - The Sicilian's Passion

DEAR READER LETTER

By Sharon Kendrick

Dear Reader Dear Reader About the Author Title Page 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 EPILOGUE Copyright ,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

SHARON KENDRICKonce won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

The Sicilian’s Passion

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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With special thanks to Mary D’Angelo of the Italian Cultural Institute and Sarah Locke (of Winchester!) and Victoria and Alexandra and, of course, dear old Goethe.

Contents

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

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

EPILOGUE

Copyright

IT WAS probably the sexiest car Kate had ever seen. Black and sleek and gleaming, it positively screamed testosterone! And it looked all wrong on the forecourt of such an imposing mansion.

Kate smiled. In her experience, only dull little men drove around in cars like that—as if compensating for their own inadequacies with an excess of horsepower!

She squinted at it curiously. Lady St John, her client, was a very wealthy woman, yes—but in a restrained rather than an over-the-top way. Since when had she taken to entertaining people who owned such outrageously powerful cars?

Unless she had taken to driving one herself, thought Kate, her mouth quirking in amusement. It wouldn’t surprise her.

She studied the car again. Maybe not. Lady St John had an abundance of energy—but you would need to be pretty agile to gain access to that long, low and mean machine!

She took one last glance in the driving mirror before she presented herself and looped back a stray strand of fiery hair. Considering that she had been up since six that morning she didn’t look too bad! And appearances, as she knew, were everything. Particularly in her business.

Kate Connors; interior designer to the rich and—sometimes—famous. And, as jobs went, it was… Well, as she often reminded herself, it was pretty cool. It paid well, it had variety, and what was more—it enabled her to meet all kinds of interesting people.

Like Lady St John—an intrepid aristocrat who had travelled to all corners of the globe and then produced exciting—if somewhat under-read—books all about her journeys.

The St John house was as rugged as the magnificent sweep of coastline which lay to the front of it, and as Kate jangled the old-fashioned doorbell, she could hear the thunder of the sea as it crashed and foamed against the craggy grey rocks.

Such an elemental place, she thought, wishing that her job was not almost at an end, as the door was opened by the housekeeper.

‘Hello, Mrs Herley,’ smiled Kate. ‘Lady St John is expecting me, I believe?’

The woman gave a brief smile as she pulled the door open to usher Kate inside. ‘I think that your appointment may have slipped her mind,’ she confided. ‘Lady St John is a little… er… distracted today.’

Kate knew better than to ask why. It hadn’t taken her long in the job to discover that domestic employees never gave away information about their employer—and particularly not one as naturally autocratic as the rather formidable Elisabeth St John, who was nearly eighty, and yet Kate had never met a woman of such advanced years who could exude such beauty and such grace. Who could still wear clothes with the style of the fashion model she had once briefly been. If I look like that at her age, she had thought at their very first meeting, then I would be a very happy bunny indeed!

Mrs Herley shut the door again. ‘If you would like to wait in the Blue Drawing Room, Miss Connors, then I will tell Lady St John that you are here.’

‘Thanks,’ murmured Kate rather wryly.

Her early appeal to Mrs Herley that she ‘call me Kate’ had fallen on polite but deaf ears—and she had remained Miss Connors ever since! Some people’s worlds were built on different structures from her own. But such formality suited this beautiful old house, she decided dreamily, making her way to the enormous room which she was almost through with decorating.