is one of Mills & Boonâs most popular and bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant success with readers worldwide. Since her first book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.
In this special collection, we offer readers a chance to revisit favourite books or enjoy that rare treasureâa book by a favourite writerâthey may have missed. In every case, seduction and passion with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!
âI KNOW this is a shock for you,â Daisy Wyatt murmured uncomfortably, absorbing her daughterâs stunned pallor. âI would have told you ages ago but I was afraid you might be upset.â
âMight be?â Kelda raked her rippling Titian red hair back from her brow, a fiery mix of disbelief and temper leaping through her taut frame. âFor goodnessâ sake, youâve been divorced from the man for over four years! Why on earth did you start seeing him again?â
Daisy looked uneasy. Small and blonde and barely into her forties, she was a very pretty woman but right now her face was strained. âWhen I heard that Tomaso had had a heart attack, I...Iâwell...â She stumbled under fire from an outraged emerald-green stare of enquiry. âI thought it was only decent to write with my good wishes for his recovery and Tomaso wrote me such a kind letter back asking me to visit...I didnât see how I could refuseââ
âBut that was three months ago,â Kelda condemned in a shaken tone. âYouâve been seeing him all this time and you never even dropped a hint!â
Daisy turned a guilty pink. âAt the start, it didnât seem worth mentioning. Just a few friendly visits to the hospital. Tomaso seemed so lonely. He didnât seem to have many visitors, apart...â She hesitated, assessing her daughterâs vibrating tension and hurriedly averting her gaze before reluctantly continuing, âApart from Angelo, of course.â
That name struck Kelda like a stinging slap on the face. The fact that her sensitive mother wouldnât meet her eyes when she said it didnât help. Indeed, Daisyâs visible embarrassment on Keldaâs behalf merely piled on the agony. A moment out of time when she was eighteen. Inexplicable...inexcusable. Kelda blocked out the memories threatening her, refusing to recall that dreadful night and its appalling repercussions.
âAnd I suppose Angelo was as chillingly contemptuous as he was when Tomaso married you and polluted the Rossetti family with a lowly hairdresser!â Kelda snapped with ferocious bite. âI wish I could believe you cut him dead but I bet you didnât!â
Daisy was studying her tightly linked hands. âTomaso and I should never have got married in such a hurry the first time. Angelo hadnât even met me... naturally, he was shocked.â
âLook, Iâll make us a cup of tea.â Kelda was so furious, she had to get out of the room before she burst a blood-vessel and said what she really thought. How could her mother make excuses for Angelo? How could she possibly do that? When Tomaso Rossetti had married Daisy eleven years ago, his son Angelo had scorned her, snubbed her and treated her as though she was a scheming, common little gold-digger with a greedy eye to the main chance. Keldaâs gentle, quiet mother had suffered agonies of discomfiture at Angeloâs merciless hands!
Safe in her pine galley kitchen, Kelda snatched in air in heated gasps. Her memories of Daisyâs short-lived second marriage were extremely painful. The discovery that Tomaso, for all his apparent devotion to her mother, was having an affair with another woman had shattered Kelda. The divorce had come as an incredible relief. It had freed her from the burden of a secret she had not dared to share with her vulnerable mother, and how could she tell Daisy the truth now? It wasnât even as if she had any concrete proof to offer...nothing more than the dismayed and embarrassed confirmation of a classmate.
There had been a piece about Tomaso in a newspaper. âLooks as if butter wouldnât melt in his mouth, doesnât he?â Helena had giggled. âHeâs had a mistress on the go for years, some blonde he takes to hideaway country pubs for dirty weekends. And even though he only got married recently, heâs still seeing her...my father saw them all cosied up together in a dark corner only last week! Holding hands and kissing. Everybodyâs dying to meet his new wife and see what sheâs likeââ
âSheâs my mother,â Kelda had said flatly.