Michelle Conder - Duty At What Cost?

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Michelle Conder - Duty At What Cost?» — ознакомительный отрывок электронной книги совершенно бесплатно, а после прочтения отрывка купить полную версию. В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: unrecognised, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Duty At What Cost?: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Duty At What Cost?»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

When the Wolfe’s at the door…To protect Princess Ava de Veers, James Wolfe must keep his mind on the job.Having shared one passionate night with her, Wolfe knows exactly how wilful, independent – and sexy – she is.But he will separate his feelings for Ava from the task at hand. Wolfe is the most daring man Ava has ever met and he drives her crazy!Yet as the threat to her life escalates he’s the only man she can trust – and the only place she feels safe is in his arms.But she’s royalty, and Ava knows that duty always comes at a cost…‘An emotional rollercoaster throughout, Michelle builds this story brilliantly.’Ann, 39, Warwickwww.michelleconder.com

Duty At What Cost? — читать онлайн ознакомительный отрывок

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Duty At What Cost?», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать
Wolfe has also been hired as your personal bodyguard for the duration of the - фото 1

‘Wolfe has also been hired as your personal bodyguard for the duration of the investigation.’

The breath stalled in Ava’s lungs and the room spun. ‘I don’t think I heard you correctly, sir.’

Neither had Wolfe.

Her personal bodyguard?

He glanced at Ava’s shocked expression and hoped his own didn’t mirror it. The King had requested that he organise personal security for her—not that he be responsible for her himself.

‘Wolfe is clearly too busy, sir. But I’m sure there’s another person out there just as capable.’

She was right about him being too busy, Wolfe thought, but there really was no one else he would trust with her life. Wolfe wasn’t sure about anything right now except two things: his need for this woman was stronger than it had ever been, and taking on the role as her personal bodyguard was absolute insanity.

About the Author

From as far back as she can remember MICHELLE CONDERdreamed of being a writer. She penned the first chapter of a romance novel just out of high school, but it took much study, many (varied) jobs, one ultra-understanding husband and three very patient children before she finally sat down to turn that dream into a reality.

Michelle lives in Australia, and when she isn’t busy plotting loves to read, ride horses, travel and practise yoga.

Recent titles by the same author:

LIVING THE CHARADE

HIS LAST CHANCE AT REDEMPTION

GIRL BEHIND THE SCANDALOUS REPUTATION

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Duty

At What Cost?

Michelle Conder

Duty At What Cost - изображение 2

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

To Paul, with love.

And “a big kiss” to Anne-Emmanuelle

for her wonderful friendship and even more

wonderful French translations. Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

AVA GLANCED OUT of the car window at the sparkling summer sunshine bouncing off the exquisite French countryside and wished herself a thousand miles away. Maybe a million. That would land her on another planet where no one knew her name. Where no one knew the man her father had expected her to marry was about to marry another woman, and felt sorry for her in the process.

‘It’s time you stopped messing around in Paris, my girl , and came home to Anders.’

That particularly supportive comment had come only this morning, making her blood boil. His condescending words filled her head, drowning out the singer on the car radio who was warbling about wanting to go home. Home was the last place Ava wanted to go.

Not that her father’s anger was entirely unexpected. Of course he was disappointed that the man she had been pledged to marry since she was a child had fallen in love with someone else. the way he’d spoken to her—‘A woman your age doesn’t have time to waste!’—as if turning thirty in a year meant that she was over the hill—made it seem as if it was her fault.

But Ava wanted to fall in love! She wanted to get married! She just hadn’t wanted to marry Gilles—a childhood friend who was more like a brother to her than her own—and he hadn’t wanted to marry her. The problem was they had played along with their fathers’ archaic pledge for a little too long, sometimes using each other for a fill-in date when the need arose.

Oh, how her father would love to hear that… Somehow, after her mother’s death fifteen years ago, her relationship with him had disintegrated to the point where they barely spoke, let alone saw each other. Of course if she had been born a boy things would have been different.

Very different.

She would have had different choices. She would have been Crown Prince, for one—and, while she had no wish at all to rule their small European nation, she would at least have had her father’s respect. His affection. Something.

Ava gripped the steering wheel of her hatchback more tightly as she turned onto the narrow country lane that ran alongside Château Verne, Gilles’s fifteenth-century estate.

For eight years she had lived a happy, relatively low-key existence in Paris; finishing university and building her business, stepping in at royal functions when her brother Frédéric had been absent. Now that Gilles, Marquis de Bassonne, was set to marry a friend of hers, she had a bad feeling that was all about to change.

Ava crinkled her nose at her uncharacteristically gloomy mood. Gilles and Anne had fallen in love at first sight two months ago and were happier than she’d ever seen either one of them before. They completed each other in a way that would inspire songwriters and she wasn’t jealous.

Not at all.

Her life was rolling along just fine. Her art gallery, Gallery Nouveau, had just been reviewed in a prestigious art magazine and she was busier than ever. It was true that her love-life was a little on the nonexistent side, but her break-up three years ago with Colyn—the man she had believed she would eventually marry—had left her emotionally drained and a little wary.

At nearly twenty years her senior he had seemed to her to be the epitome of bourgeois intellectualism: a man who didn’t care about her heritage and loved her for herself. It had taken a couple of years to figure out that his subtle criticisms of her status and his desire to ‘teach’ her all that he knew made him as egotistical and controlling as her father.

And she really wished he hadn’t popped into her mind, because now she felt truly terrible.

The only other times she’d felt this miserable had been during gorgeous evenings wandering by herself along the Seine, when she was unable to avoid watching couples so helplessly in love with each other they couldn’t walk two paces without stopping to steal another kiss.

She had never felt that. Not once.

She frowned, wondering if she ever would.

After Colyn she had been determined only to date nice men with solid family values. Men who were in touch with their feelings. But they hadn’t inspired much more than friendship in her. Thankfully her business kept her too busy to dwell on what she lacked, and if she was getting older…

Pah!

Stamping on even more mood-altering thoughts, she adjusted the volume dial on the radio and wasn’t at all prepared when she put her foot on the brake to slow down for a bend in the road and nothing happened. Imagining that she had put her foot on the accelerator instead, she’d moved to correct the oversight when the car hit a patch of gravel and started to slide.

Panicking, she yanked on the steering wheel to keep the car straight, but the car had gathered momentum and in the blink of an eye it fishtailed and rammed into some sort of small tree.

Groaning, Ava clasped her head where it had bounced off the steering wheel.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Duty At What Cost?»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Duty At What Cost?» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «Duty At What Cost?»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Duty At What Cost?» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x