Beauty And Her Boss

An innocent beauty, a scarred hero...

Could she be the one to open up his heart?

Handsome but guarded former Hollywood star Deacon Santoro prefers the confines of his mansion since an accident left him scarred both inside and out. But he promised to protect sparky beauty Gabrielle Dupré, his new PA. Can Gabrielle convince Deacon that love will give them the fairy-tale ending they deserve?

Award-winning author JENNIFER FAYE pens fun, heart-warming, contemporary romances with rugged cowboys, sexy billionaires and enchanting royalty. Internationally published, with books translated into nine languages, she is a two-time winner of the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award. She has also won the CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice Award, been named a TOP PICK author, and been nominated for numerous other awards.

Also by Jennifer Faye

Her Festive Baby BombshellSnowbound with an Heiress

Mirraccino Marriages miniseries

The Millionaire’s Royal Rescue

Married for His Secret Heir

Once Upon a Fairytale miniseries

Beauty and Her Boss

And look out for the next book

Miss White and the Seventh Heir Available June 2018

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Beauty and Her Boss

Jennifer Faye

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07736-1

BEAUTY AND HER BOSS

© 2018 Jennifer F. Stroka

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

Extract

PROLOGUE

“THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING.”

Gabrielle Dupré frowned as she perched on the edge of a hard, black plastic chair. The room was small with gray walls. Outside the little room, there was the buzz of voices and phones ringing. But inside the room, a tense silence hung in the air like a dense fog. This was a place she’d never been in her life—a police station. How had things spiraled so far out of control? Her head pounded and her stomach churned.

After being here for more than two hours, the situation wasn’t looking good. Not good at all. She’d just played her final card and she’d been praying ever since that it would pay off.

“Don’t worry, daughter.” Her father stared at her from across a black nondescript table. “Everything will be all right.”

“All right?” She struggled not to shout in frustration. “Things are so far from all right.” With each word, her voice crept up in volume. Realizing that losing her cool right now would not help their cause, she paused and swallowed hard. “Father, do you know how much trouble you’re in?”

“Gaby, don’t you understand? If I got word out about that monster, then it was worth it.” His voice was filled with conviction. “Sometimes a man has to do what he has to do.”

“And sometimes he needs to think before he acts,” she said in a heated whisper. Anger pulsed through her veins, but it wasn’t her father that she was upset with—it was herself.

Her father reached out and patted her hand. “You’ll see. This will all work out.”

She blamed herself for not being there to reason with her father. And to stop him from acting rashly. For the past six months, she’d been working two jobs to pay their outstanding bills but she was still losing financial ground. Things were so bad she was considering taking on a third job. With her father’s health declining and him now in a wheelchair, it was up to her to make ends meet.