Jayne Bauling - Substitute Engagement

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Excerpt “ Are we so incompatible? “There’s at least one area in which we’re wholly compatible,” Rob continued. Lucia regarded him warily. “I believe it’s called lust,” she allowed sweetly. “I believe it’s called sexual attraction. It happened to me, too, you know,” he added gently. “That doesn’t mean we have to do anything about it!” She had no intention of exploring any physical attraction with a man who didn’t respect her—and how could he when he was prepared to blackmail her?

About the Author JAYNE BAULING was born in England and grew up in South Africa. She always wrote but was too shy to show anyone until the publication of some poems in her teens gave her the confidence to attempt the romances she wanted to concentrate on, the first published being written while she was attending business college. Her home is just outside Johannesburg, a town house ruled by a sealpoint called Ranee. Travel is a major passion; at home it’s family, friends, music, swimming, reading and patio gardening.

Title Page Substitute Engagement Jayne Bauling 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

“There’s at least one area in which we’re wholly compatible,” Rob continued.

Lucia regarded him warily. “I believe it’s called lust,” she allowed sweetly.

“I believe it’s called sexual attraction. It happened to me, too, you know,” he added gently.

“That doesn’t mean we have to do anything about it!”

She had no intention of exploring any physical attraction with a man who didn’t respect her—and how could he when he was prepared to blackmail her?

was born in England and grew up in South Africa. She always wrote but was too shy to show anyone until the publication of some poems in her teens gave her the confidence to attempt the romances she wanted to concentrate on, the first published being written while she was attending business college. Her home is just outside Johannesburg, a town house ruled by a sealpoint called Ranee. Travel is a major passion; at home it’s family, friends, music, swimming, reading and patio gardening.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SHE had kept her promise to her father. Now it was time to keep another—that given to Thierry Olivier, too long ago for her liking.

Lucia’s sensitive mouth curved happily at the thought of the beautiful man she loved.

For the moment she couldn’t spot his bright red-gold head anywhere among the crowd thronging the attractive open-air functions area of Grande Comore’s newest hotel, one of the Ballard Group and the latest in a chain gracing most of the popular holiday islands of the Indian Ocean.

Thierry hadn’t been at Hahaya Airport to meet her, of course. As this was early in November, flights from South Africa were not fully booked and she had managed to get on to one a week earlier than she had originally anticipated.

Nor had he been at home when the taxi had delivered her to the Olivier estate, but the new housekeeper there had told her that he and his mother were at the hotel, so she had set out to find them, hailing the first of the local taxis to pass—one of the fourteen-seater Peugeot trucks, or ‘bakkies’, as she had learnt to call them during her three years in South Africa.

Lucia had wondered a little at Thierry’s absence from the estate at this hour on a Saturday afternoon, but when she’d failed to find him in the main bar the presence of several familiar faces among the gathering outdoors had seemed to suggest some local celebration for which this area had been hired.

But the face that distracted her gaze from its roving quest for Thierry was definitely unfamiliar. She supposed that he would stand out anywhere as he was so tall—a rangy six feet or more—but, whoever he was, he had a presence that was nothing to do with his height Somehow he appeared more sharply in focus than anyone else around him—at least to her subjective vision—as if the character so evident in the quirkily attractive dark face invested him with that sharp, clear outline.

Obeying some inner instinct that insisted on seeing the untinted reality, Lucia removed her sunglasses, but learned nothing further. He was dark, he was probably in his early thirties, and he was dead sexy.

With his attention being wholly given to a glamorous young woman with dark red hair, she was unable to discover the colour of his eyes from where she stood, here on the fringes of the throng, but she could see arrogance in the aquiline curve of his nose, while his mouth was many things—firm, controlled, sensual, and yet a little harsh, until he smiled at something the girl with him was saying and the harshness vanished.

With her own eyes no longer hidden by dark lenses, Lucia became aware of a rippling murmur of recognition in both English and French from several people close by.

‘The Flanders girl.’

‘Lucia…’

It amused her to know that it was her eyes by which she was recognised when she didn’t think much of them herself because they were neither blue nor green but something between the two. She would have preferred one or the other to such an indeterminate mixture.

An ensuing silence, so absolute as to be breathless startled her momentarily, but then she was distracted again, because the man who had caught her attention was now staring straight at her, as if alerted by the murmurs that had preceded this strangely avid hush.

She couldn’t think of a word that described his eyes—unless she settled for ‘smoke’. Their colour was as much an enigma as their expression, shadowed and secret, and yet something there made her instantly conscious of herself as a woman, automatically picturing the way she must look to him. Of course, the simple, sleeveless white dress, with its round neckline and softly gathered skirt, would flatter her more in a week or two, when she had got her light, honey-coloured tan back and her straight, fine, shoulder-length hair was fair again, instead of the light brown to which her recent lengthy stint of studying indoors had dulled it.

Lucia gave the man the tiniest of contained smiles and caused her gaze to move on casually. She had looked quite long enough for an engaged, soon-to-be-married woman.

A moment later she was forced to return her attention to him, warned by the stir of interest that she detected among those people nearest to her.

He was coming over to her, his long legs giving him a lithe, easy stride, and his face was lit with a smile that gave every indication of delight.

‘Lucia!’ the voice matched the smile. ‘You made it after all.’

Astonishment barely allowed her to register that the smoky eyes were sparkling with enjoyment as he reached her. Then amazement gave way to pure shock as he took her by the shoulders, turning her slightly so that her startled expression was concealed from the group of onlookers. She was five feet seven so he had to bend his head to brush a kiss across her cheek.

Lucia was aware of warmth both from his lips and the body so close to hers, its nearness an invasion when he was a total stranger, however welcoming.

‘What…’ she began faintly, her voice trailing away as she became conscious of something else—an urgency about the way his fingers were biting into her shoulders, their grasp somehow imperative.