PENNY JORDAN: Scandals Of The Crown: The Life She Left Behind / The Price of Royal Duty / The Sheikh's Heir

About the Authors

MAISEY YATESknew she wanted to be a writer even before she knew what it was she wanted to write. It wasn’t until she was pregnant with her second child that she found her very first Mills & Boon book in a local thrift store – by the time she’d reached the happily ever after, she had fallen in love. Maisey lives with her supportive, handsome, wonderful, diaper-changing husband and three small children, across the street from her parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of southern Oregon.

PENNY JORDAN, one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors, sadly passed away on December 31st, 2011. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over 100 million books around the world. Penny wrote a total of 187 novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family , To Love , Honour and Betray , The Perfect Sinner and Power Play , which hit the New York Times bestseller list. Loved for her distinctive voice, she was successful in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan, “Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters.” It is perhaps this gift for sympathetic characterization that helps to explain her enduring appeal.

SHARON KENDRICKstarted story-telling at the age of eleven and has never really stopped. She likes to write fast-paced, feel-good romances with heroes who are so sexy they’ll make your toes curl! Born in west London, she now lives in the beautiful city of Winchester – where she can see the cathedral from her window (but only if she stands on tip-toe). Visit Sharon at www.sharonkendrick.com.

Scandals of the Crown

The Life She Left Behind

Maisey Yates

The Price of Royal Duty

Penny Jordan

The Sheikh’s Heir

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08335-5

SCANDALS OF THE CROWN

The Life She Left Behind © 2012 Harlequin Books S.A The Price of Royal Duty © 2012 Harlequin Books S.A The Sheikh’s Heir © 2012 Harlequin Books S.A

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

The Life She Left Behind

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

The Price of Royal Duty

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

The Sheikh’s Heir

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

About the Publisher

The Life She Left Behind

Maisey Yates

It had finally happened. Sheikh Taj Ahmad, ruler of Rahat, had lost his mind completely. She was there, standing in the shadows on the otherwise vacant balcony that extended over the back portion of the ballroom. In an instant all the well-dressed, beautiful women that surrounded him faded away. He could see nothing but Angelina Carpenter.

So many times she had featured in his dreams, and yet, she had never quite looked like this. Hair pulled back into a ponytail, skinny jeans hugging her curves. This was a formal event, the engagement party for Prince Alessandro Santina. And famed oil heiress Angelina Carpenter was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

The entire party had possessed an air of the surreal from the moment it had started. The presence of the loud, tacky Jackson family, the prince’s future in-laws, with their penchant for drama had turned the royal setting on its head from the beginning.

The tension was only heightened by the attendance of Alessandro’s ex-fiancée, who looked beautiful and brittle, ready to crack at any moment.

But none of that mattered now. He couldn’t see it anymore. He could hardly remember the reason he’d come tonight. There was nothing but Angelina now.

She turned her head, her eyes clashing with his, in spite of the distance and every person between them. She froze, up in her hiding place there on the balcony, her beautiful lips parting.

He could see her intake of breath, see her hold it, and he held his in answer. Or possibly because breathing had simply become too difficult.

“Taj,” the woman to his right, the one who had been attempting to climb him all evening, purred his name, her fingers curving into his bicep, “would you go and fetch me a drink?”

He turned to look at her, breaking the spell Angelina had held him under. The room came back, conversation rising in volume. His unwanted companion’s red lips were pursed into a pout. His stomach clenched. With annoyance, not desire.

“I do not fetch,” he said, breaking out of the woman’s grasp, redirecting his attention to the balcony.

Angelina was gone.

Had she really been an illusion? A dream? A waking one this time, sent to tempt and torment him with the memory of what he could not have?

It wasn’t possible. Angelina, in his dreams, was always the polished heiress. Never undone, not even in his more erotic dreams, when he pictured holding her in his arms, their naked limbs entwined. Even then she was the soul of high-gloss perfection.