Susan Napier - The Sister Swap

Cover Page

Excerpt “And what am I?” “Don’t tempt me,” Anne threatened. “Oh, come on. You’ve been perfectly free with your insulting opinions of me so far. Why stop now?” “You’re intelligent, strong, utterly independent and self-confident to the point of arrogance.” She frankly listed the personal assets she found so irritating. Hunter’s square mouth tilted slowly in amusement. “You forgot handsome.”

SUSAN NAPIER SUSAN NAPIER was born on St. Valentine’s Day, so it’s not surprising she has developed an enduring love of romantic stories. She started her writing career as a journalist in Auckland, New Zealand, try- ing her hand at romance fiction only after she had married her handsome boss! Numerous books later she still lives with her most enduring hero, two future heroes—her sons!—two cats and a computer. When she’s not writing she likes to read and cook, often simultaneously!

Title Page The Sister Swap Susan Napier www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

“Don’t tempt me,” Anne threatened.

“Oh, come on. You’ve been perfectly free with your insulting opinions of me so far. Why stop now?”

“You’re intelligent, strong, utterly independent and self-confident to the point of arrogance.” She frankly listed the personal assets she found so irritating.

Hunter’s square mouth tilted slowly in amusement. “You forgot handsome.”

SUSAN NAPIERwas born on St. Valentine’s Day, so it’s not surprising she has developed an enduring love of romantic stories. She started her writing career as a journalist in Auckland, New Zealand, try- ing her hand at romance fiction only after she had married her handsome boss! Numerous books later she still lives with her most enduring hero, two future heroes—her sons!—two cats and a computer. When she’s not writing she likes to read and cook, often simultaneously!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

THE loud, driving rock music shook the rafters and vibrated through the hardwood floor, sending a delicious hum up through Anne’s bones as she danced joyously around the room in her bare feet.

She extended her arms above her head, clicking her fingers in time to the raucous beat as she moved with the increasing frenzy of the music. The long rope of redbrown hair whipped around her hips as she took a running leap through the shaft of late afternoon summer sunshine that slanted in through the big windows at one end of the long room, landing with a dramatic thump beside the random stacks of cardboard cartons that held her belongings. Anticipating the approaching climactic crescendo, she performed two more exuberant leaping turns and had launched into a third when she was sud- denly left hanging by the abrupt cessation of her musical support.

Anne landed awkwardly, her heartbeat accelerating as she whirled to face the man who had wrenched out the plug from the portable music-centre that sat on the high bench that separated the rest of the room from the small kitchen area.

He was tall and bullishly big, chest and thighs bulging against the unfashionably tight, faded blue T-shirt and jeans he wore. The expression on his face was as bullish as the rest of him, black eyebrows lowered over glowering dark eyes.

‘What did you do that for?’ Anne panted nervously, as much from apprehension as from her wild exertions.

The open door behind him testified to her careless stupidity. The taxi-van driver who had kindly helped carry her boxes up six flights of stairs had departed half an hour ago and she was aware that the warehouse below was empty after four-thirty. There was no one to run to her aid if she screamed.

Suddenly all the cautionary tales she had laughingly dismissed about the big, bad city came back to haunt her. She had even forgotten the first basic rule—to lock her door!

‘You mean why did I shut down that shrieking racket?’ came the snarling reply. ‘I would have thought that was bloody obvious. I’ve been pounding at your door for five minutes!’

Anne relaxed slightly. He was certainly angry but if his intentions were violent he would have welcomed the loud music and shouted lyrics as a handy cover for her screams. She took a few steps towards him and then stopped, freshly aware of the disparity in their sizes.

At five feet four she liked to think she was of average height for a woman, but the closer she got to this colossus, the more aware she was of the slenderness of her build. She had a wiry strength concealed within her fragile-looking femininity but she was wise enough to know its limits. She would have to assert herself with her intellect rather than her physical person.

‘That “shrieking racket”,’ she began firmly, ‘happens to be one of the finest rock groups in the—’

‘I don’t care if it’s Kiri Te Kanawa and the Paris Opera.’ Her invader dropped the plug on top of the dead radio and adopted the quintessential threatening male attitude, fists on hips. ‘I don’t like having music rammed down my throat at ninety decibels—’

‘Your ears,’ corrected Anne absently, thinking that the man would probably be quite handsome if he didn’t scowl like that, in a way that engraved the lines of experience in the olive skin into a vivid warning sign: Here lurks bad temper!

His eyes weren’t just dark, she discovered as he continued to glower at her, they were as black as midnight, the same colour as the thick, shaggy, collar-length hair swept back from his broad forehead. He was somewhere in his mid-thirties, she guessed, and life had delivered enough knocks to turn him into a tough customer. His chin was so square you could chisel rock with it and his rectangular mouth looked just as cutting. Anne was pleased with her mental description and she smiled, which only made him frown even more as he barked, ‘What?’

‘I think you mixed your metaphors. You mean rammed into your ears, not down your throat. You don’t hear with your mouth.’

‘Then why did your infernal racket turn my stomach?’ he growled sardonically before adding impatiently, ‘I didn’t come here for a damned language lecture—’

‘If you’re going to keep using offensive language, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave,’ said Anne primly. She had never reacted well to being barked at, especially by big, arrogant males.

He made a sound deep in his large chest, like the ap- proaching rumble of a freight train. ‘I have no intention of staying—’

‘Then why did you come?’

‘To tell you to shut the hell up!’

Anne’s own impulsive temper began to build up steam. ‘Is your vocabulary so stunted you can’t express yourself without swearing?’

‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he shot back. ‘That rock singer you’re so impressed with was shrieking out far worse at the top of his lungs.’

Anne had the grace to blush. ‘Well—er—the music puts it in a different context,’ she said weakly.

‘Oh, I see. You don’t mind being cursed at, as long as it’s to music.’

She was beginning to get the uncomfortable feeling that this hulking man might be able to run intellectual as well as physical rings around her. She was nervous enough about her move from a tiny rural town to the huge, sprawling city of Auckland and the new life she was embarking on, especially fraught as it was with guilty secrets. She didn’t need any additional undermining of her confidence. Katlin had been bad enough. Her elder sister had deeply impressed on Anne the dire conse- quences of being found out in their deception, at the same time hastily assuring her that the chances of dis- covery were infinitesimal…as long as Anne kept a cool head. Easier said than done.