KIM LAWRENCE - A Secret Until Now

‘Alex Arlov.’ He tipped his sleek head and to her intense relief released her hand.

How could I ever not have seen how arrogant he is? Angel grabbed a napkin from a passing tray and wiped it against the heel of her hand.

‘The name seems familiar …’

She gnawed lightly on her full lower lip, pretending to search her memory, before producing a bright smile and pausing to stretch the moment, hoping he was worrying that she might reveal all. If it wasn’t for her daughter she would, and who cared if people knew what a total fool she was.

But he didn’t look concerned, just vaguely amused as he elevated one dark brow. ‘That happens to me all the time … an instantly forgettable face.’

And so full of yourself , she wanted to scream as she smiled back, unable to repress a shudder as she looked directly into his ice-blue dark-framed eyes.

She willed herself to relax. Her life had moved on, and if time hadn’t completely healed the wounds it had allowed her to see things from a different perspective. She had made a mistake, but that mistake had given her Jasmine. This man had given her a gift and he didn’t know.

ONE NIGHT WITH CONSEQUENCES

A high price to pay for giving in to temptation!

When succumbing to a night of unbridled desire, it’s impossible to think past the morning after!

But with the sheets barely settled that little blue line appears on the pregnancy test—and it doesn’t take long for you to realise that one night of white-hot passion has turned into a lifetime of consequences!

Only one question remains:

How do you tell a man you’ve just met that you’re about to share more than just his bed?

If you enjoy A SECRET UNTIL NOW

why not try

A DEAL WITH BENEFITS by Susanna Carr

and

PROOF OF THEIR SIN by Dani Collins

A Secret Until Now

Kim Lawrence

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Though lacking much authentic Welsh blood—she comes from English/Irish stock— KIM LAWRENCEwas born and brought up in North Wales. She returned there when she married and her sons were both born on Anglesey, an island off the coast. Though not isolated, Anglesey is a little off the beaten track, but lively Dublin, which Kim loves, is only a short ferry-ride away.

Today they live on the farm her husband was brought up on. Welsh is the first language of many people in this area, and Kim’s husband and sons are all bilingual—she is having a lot of fun, not to mention a few headaches, trying to learn the language!

With small children, the unsocial hours of nursing didn’t look attractive so, encouraged by a husband who thinks she can do anything she sets her mind to, Kim tried her hand at writing. Always a keen Mills & Boon ®reader, it seemed natural for her to write a romance novel—now she can’t imagine doing anything else.

She is a keen gardener and cook and enjoys running—often on the beach, as living on an island the sea is never very far away. She is usually accompanied by her Jack Russell, Sprout—don’t ask … it’s a long story!

Recent titles by the same author:

CAPTIVATED BY HER INNOCENCE

MAID FOR MONTERO (At His Service) THE PETRELLI HEIR SANTIAGO’S COMMAND

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

For my dad, Roy, who was always proud of his writer daughter.

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

EXCERPT

PROLOGUE

London, Summer 2008, a hotel

ANGEL’S EYES HAD adjusted to the dark but from where she was lying the illuminated display of the bedside clock was hidden from her view, blocked by his shoulder. But the thin finger of light that was shining into the room through the chink in the blackout curtains suggested that it was morning.

‘The morning after the night before!’

She gave a soft shaken sigh and allowed her glance to drift around the unfamiliar room, the generic but luxurious five-star hotel furnishings familiar, especially to someone who had slept in dozens of similar suites; someone who had imagined at one point that everybody ordered their supper from room service.

Since she’d had the choice Angel had avoided rooms like this as they depressed her. Depressed... Smiling at the past tense, she raised herself slowly up on one elbow. This room was different not because it boasted a special view or had a sumptuously comfortable bed. What was different was that she was not alone.

She froze when the man on the bed beside her murmured in his sleep and her attention immediately returned to him—it had never really left him. She gulped as he threw a hand above his head, the action causing the muscles in his beautiful back to ripple in a way that made her stomach flip over. She couldn’t see his face but his breathing remained deep and regular.

Should she wake him up?

The bruised-looking half-moons underneath his spectacular eyes suggested he probably needed his sleep. She’d noticed them the moment she’d looked at him, but then she had noticed pretty much everything about him. Angel had never considered herself a particularly observant person but crazily one glance had indelibly printed his face into her memory.

Mind you, it was a pretty special face, not made any less special by the lines of fatigue etched around his wide, sensual mouth or the dark shadows beneath those totally spectacular eyes. There was a weary cynicism reflected in those electric-blue depths and also in that first instant anger.

He had been furious with her, but it wasn’t the incandescent anger that had made her legs feel hollow or even her dramatic brush with death or that he had saved her life. It was him, everything about him. He projected an aura of raw maleness that had a cataclysmic impact on her, like someone thrown in the deep end who from that first moment was treading water, barely able to breathe, throat tight with emotion as if she were submerged by a massive wave of lust.

It wasn’t until much later that she had recognised this as a crossroad moment. She didn’t see a fork in the road; there was no definable instant when she made a conscious decision. Her universe had narrowed into this total stranger, and she had known with utter and total conviction that she had to be with him. She wanted him and then she had seen in his eyes he wanted her too.

What else mattered?

Did I really just think that?

What else mattered? The defence of the greedy, absurdly needy and just plain stupid! Angel, who was utterly confident she was none of those things, was conscious that this particular inner dialogue was one it would have been more sensible to have had before, not after... After she had broken the habit of a lifetime and thrown caution, baby, bath water and the entire package out of the window!

The previous night there had been no inner dialogue, not even any inhibition-lowering alcohol in her bloodstream, no excuses. The words of a novel she had read years before popped into Angel’s head. Although at the time they had made her put the gothic romance to one side with a snort of amused disdain, now she couldn’t shake them. ‘I felt a deep craving, an ache in my body and soul that I had never imagined possible.’

The remembered words no longer made her snigger and translate with a roll of her eyes—yes, he’s hot!

Which the man in bed beside her was and then some, but Angel had met hot men before, and she had been amused by their macho posturing. She was in charge of her life and she liked it that way. History was littered with countless examples of strong women who had disastrous personal lives, but she was not going to be one of them.