ANNE WEALE - Desert Honeymoon

“I’ve come to ask you to marry me.” “I’ve come to ask you to marry me.” “Marry you?” Nicole said faintly, unable to believe she could have heard him correctly. “You sound astonished. Why?” Alex asked bluntly. “Well...because...because I didn’t think you were interested in marrying anyone...least of all me.” “Until recently I wasn’t. As you may know, I was married once...a long time ago.” His expression remained impassive. “But I’ve spent too long looking back. Now I have to look to the future. Your son needs a father. My father needs a grandson.” Alex paused for a moment “I think you and I both need the practical benefits of marriage. Companionship. Moral support. And someone to share our bed...” Anne Weale celebrates her 75th novel for Harlequin ® with Desert Honeymoon Letter to Reader Dear Reader, This story came Into my mind during one of the happiest journeys in a lifetime of wonderful travels. Several of my forbearers lived in India during the British Raj. As a child I listened to their reminiscences of a land that sounded far more colourful and exciting than England—where I grew up. Unwittingly, my great-uncles and great-aunts, who had gone abroad out of duty rather than inclination, sowed the seeds of my wanderlust I’ve been traveling the world since I was twenty-one. But somehow my destinations never included India. My son made that dream come true. Having arranged to canoe down India’s most sacred river, the Ganges, he suggested that, afterward, his father and I should meet him in Delhi and he would take us to some of his favorite parts of the Country. The region I found most romantic was in the far northwest...the remote walled cities of Rajasthan. I hope this story will bring you some of the magic of Rajasthan. Anne Weale Title Page Desert Honeymoon Anne Weale www.millsandboon.co.uk CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE Copyright

“I’ve come to ask you to marry me.”

“Marry you?” Nicole said faintly, unable to believe she could have heard him correctly.

“You sound astonished. Why?” Alex asked bluntly.

“Well...because...because I didn’t think you were interested in marrying anyone...least of all me.”

“Until recently I wasn’t. As you may know, I was married once...a long time ago.” His expression remained impassive. “But I’ve spent too long looking back. Now I have to look to the future. Your son needs a father. My father needs a grandson.” Alex paused for a moment “I think you and I both need the practical benefits of marriage. Companionship. Moral support. And someone to share our bed...”

Anne Weale celebrates

her 75th novel for Harlequin ®with Desert Honeymoon

Dear Reader,

This story came Into my mind during one of the happiest journeys in a lifetime of wonderful travels.

Several of my forbearers lived in India during the British Raj. As a child I listened to their reminiscences of a land that sounded far more colourful and exciting than England—where I grew up. Unwittingly, my great-uncles and great-aunts, who had gone abroad out of duty rather than inclination, sowed the seeds of my wanderlust

I’ve been traveling the world since I was twenty-one. But somehow my destinations never included India. My son made that dream come true. Having arranged to canoe down India’s most sacred river, the Ganges, he suggested that, afterward, his father and I should meet him in Delhi and he would take us to some of his favorite parts of the Country.

The region I found most romantic was in the far northwest...the remote walled cities of Rajasthan. I hope this story will bring you some of the magic of Rajasthan.

Anne Weale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

ON HER way to the final interview, Nicole still didn’t know whose advertisement she had answered, or how many others had survived the first weeding out. In fact she knew little more than she had after reading The Times advertisement offering a suitably qualified person an interesting and challenging post, at a generous salary, in an exotic location, its exact whereabouts unspecified.

That she had been short-listed was encouraging, but to be the winner of this strange contest was something else. Design was a crowded field. She knew she was a good designer, but she didn’t underestimate the competition she would be facing.

The address to which she had been summoned was in the most fashionable part of London. It turned out to be an elegant block of flats with a uniformed hall porter in gold-buttoned pale grey livery. While Nicole gave him her name, she was aware of being scrutinised by a younger man in a business suit...a man who had ‘plain clothes policeman’ or ‘ex-Special Air Service’ written all over him.

She met his eyes, seeing in them not the smallest flicker of interest in her as a woman. Clearly he was a security guard of the most efficient kind. Any unauthorised person trying to get past him would be in big trouble. Which meant that the owners of the apartments must be very important or very rich: the kind of people who needed impregnable protection.

‘You’ll find Dr Strathallen in Flat Two on the fourth floor, madam,’ said the porter, escorting her to the lift where he leaned in to press the button for her. As the door glided into place, shutting her inside the most luxurious elevator she had ever been in, Nicole considered this clue.

Was Dr Strathallen male or female? Was he or she the so far unidentified prospective employer? What kind of doctor was he or she? Not medical presumably. Why would a physician need the services of a textiles designer?

Before she had time to work out what kind of doctor might need such services, the lift opened at the fourth floor, revealing a carpeted corridor. Directly opposite the lift was an alcove containing a sofa and, above it, a painting Nicole recognised as a Gustav Klimt Surely it couldn’t be an original Klimt...could it? Perhaps at this level of living, even the pictures in the corridors had to be the genuine article.

At one side of the alcove, a discreet sign indicated the direction in which she would find the entrance to Flat Two. Her footsteps muffled by the carpet and its thick springy underlay, Nicole arrived there exactly on time and pressed the bell.

Within moments the door was opened. She found herself confronting a man whose grey eyes seemed even colder man those of the guard in the lobby.

She had never been shy or timid, even in her teens. But at first glance something about this man zapped her normal self-confidence. Perhaps because, without being in any way handsome, he was incredibly attractive. She had never met anyone, in real life, whose charisma struck her so forcibly. Some film stars had this sort of impact when they appeared on the screen, but ordinary men didn’t, at least none she had ever met

Conscious of a constriction in her throat, she said, ‘Dr Strathallen?’

He nodded. ‘Come in.’ His voice was deep and brusque, giving the impression he had better things to do than interview her and was irked by the necessity of it.

As she obeyed his gesture and moved past him, Nicole was assailed by a powerful awareness of his physical presence; his height, his build, his aura of extreme fitness. In a totally inconsequential flashback, her memory transported her to a day in her childhood when her parents had taken her to the Regent’s Park Zoo. She hadn’t enjoyed it. The sight of wild animals in cages had upset her.

The one she remembered most clearly was the cheetah. The placard attached to its enclosure had said that, over short distances, it was the fastest animal on earth, hunting in daylight by sight rather than scent. She remembered reading that it was an endangered species, extinct in many of its former habitats. At the zoo, the size of its cage had permitted the creature only to pace its domain. It could never run at full speed, never enjoy its power.