JACQUELINE BAIRD - Mediterranean Tycoons - Tempting & Taken - The Italian's Runaway Bride / His Inherited Bride / Pregnancy of Revenge

Mills & Boon is proud to present a wonderful selection of novels featuring her trademark Mediterranean males from international bestselling author

JACQUELINE BAIRD

Each volume has three terrific, powerful and passionate stories written by a queen of the genre.

We know you’ll love them …

JACQUELINE BAIRDwas born and brought up in Northumbria. She met her husband when she was eighteen. Eight years later, after many adventures around the world, she came home and married him. They still live in Northumbria and now have two grown sons.

Jacqueline’s number one passion is writing. She has always been an avid reader and she had her first success as a writer at the age of eleven, when she won first prize in the Nature Diary of the Year competition at school. But she felt a little guilty because her diary was more fiction than fact.

She always loved romance novels and, when her sons went to school all day, she thought she would try writing one. She’s been writing for Mills & Boon ever since and she still gets a thrill every time a new book is published.

When Jacqueline is not busy writing, she likes to spend her time travelling, reading and playing cards. She was a keen sailor until a knee injury ended her sailing days, but she still enjoys swimming in the sea when the weather allows.

With a more sedentary lifestyle, she does visit a gym three times a week and has made the surprising discovery that she gets some good ideas while doing the mind-numbingly boring exercises on the cycling and weight machines.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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About the Author JACQUELINE BAIRD was born and brought up in Northumbria. She met her husband when she was eighteen. Eight years later, after many adventures around the world, she came home and married him. They still live in Northumbria and now have two grown sons. Jacqueline’s number one passion is writing. She has always been an avid reader and she had her first success as a writer at the age of eleven, when she won first prize in the Nature Diary of the Year competition at school. But she felt a little guilty because her diary was more fiction than fact. She always loved romance novels and, when her sons went to school all day, she thought she would try writing one. She’s been writing for Mills & Boon ever since and she still gets a thrill every time a new book is published. When Jacqueline is not busy writing, she likes to spend her time travelling, reading and playing cards. She was a keen sailor until a knee injury ended her sailing days, but she still enjoys swimming in the sea when the weather allows. With a more sedentary lifestyle, she does visit a gym three times a week and has made the surprising discovery that she gets some good ideas while doing the mind-numbingly boring exercises on the cycling and weight machines.

Title Page Mediterranean Tycoons Tempting & Taken The Italian’s Runaway Bride His Inherited Bride Pregnancy of Revenge Jacqueline Baird www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Italian’s Runaway Bride The Italian’s Runaway Bride Jacqueline Baird

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

His Inherited Bride

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Pregnancy of Revenge

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

The Italian’s Runaway Bride

Jacqueline Baird

KELLY MCKENZIE, skimpily clad in cut-off denim shorts and shirt, lay flat on her back on the lawn that sloped softly to the edge of Lake Garda, and sighed her contentment. It was the end of August; the sun was shining and life was great. Rolling onto her stomach, she looked back at the house, a glorious old stone building set some fifty yards from the water’s edge. A terrace extended across the full width of the house, and at one end a cluster of cypress trees and shrubs cascaded over the stone balustrades. Shrubs that appeared to be moving, although there was not a breath of wind! How odd!

Then she saw him. Her blue eyes narrowed warily. It was the figure of a man half-hidden by the bushes; one hand was on the balustrade and he was leaning over, trying to peer into a window. In his other hand was an iron bar. Kelly’s heart missed a beat. Suspicious didn’t cover it… He looked downright dangerous.

Every muscle of her body filled with tension. She watched as he straightened up, his back to her. Dressed in a white vest and a pair of oil-stained khaki shorts, he looked thoroughly disreputable. He was tall—well over six feet—broad-shouldered with lean hips, and he had long legs that rippled with muscle and sinew as he moved.

A man who was moving furtively towards the steps up to the terrace and the entrance to the rear windows of the house…

Stay cool, girl, she told herself, you can handle this. Three months ago, when she’d bumped into an old school friend, Judy Bertoni, in Bournemouth, and Judy had offered her a job as a nanny to her son with the family in Italy for ten weeks, Kelly had leapt at the chance to spend a summer in the sun, before taking up her post as a research chemist with a government laboratory in Dorset in October.

It had seemed a great idea at the time, but now, faced with what looked like a very sinister intruder, Kelly was not so sure…

She was on her own. The family was in Rome, and Marta the housekeeper had taken the opportunity of her employer’s absence to go and visit friends, after having warned Kelly to lock up carefully as there had been a spate of burglaries in the area.

Kelly fought down the panicked urge to leap up and run and sat silently watching the figure of the man move stealthily to the first step. The tyre iron in his hand said it all. He was obviously intent on breaking in.

Well, there was nothing for it, Kelly told herself: desperate situations required desperate remedies, and she’d been a keen gymnast in her youth and the university Thai kick-boxing champion two years running. While the intruder’s attention was firmly fixed on the windows of the house she psyched herself into fighting mode. Slowly, silently she rose to her feet, adrenaline pumping through her veins.

Then, with a blood-curdling yell, she spun through the air like a whirlwind, and in a few deft kicks the would-be burglar was flat on his back and she had the tyre iron in her hand and her foot on his throat.

Gianfranco Maldini had spun around in surprise at the noise, then he’d had a fleeting image of silver-blonde hair and a very feminine form flying towards him, then all the air had left his lungs.