By Sharon Kendrick
Dear Reader,
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100>th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
IN THE penthouse boardroom of the vast Christou shipping empire, Alexei Christou swung round in his chair and leaned back to gaze at the ceiling as the beautiful brunette who knelt before him began to unzip his trousers.
‘Mmm,’ he murmured. ‘Omorfo.’
A sigh of pleasure escaped from his lips, and he had just settled back to enjoy the ministrations of the ever-eager woman when the telephone began to ring. His mouth hardened with disbelief and fury and he tried ignoring it, thinking that the interruption might just go away. But it didn’t go anywhere. Infuriatingly, it just rang and rang, and he snatched it up in anger.
‘Ne? What the hell is going on?’ he bit out. ‘I told you that under no circumstances was I to be disturbed!’
He heard his male assistant give a nervous cough. ‘Forgive me, Kyrios Christou, for making this one exception—but in the circumstances I thought—’
‘What is it?’ hissed Alexei, deadly as a snake.
‘I have your … er … wife on the phone.’
There was a pause.
‘My wife?’ echoed Alexei softly, and the brunette jerked her head up from his lap to stare at him.
‘Ne, kyrios. What would you like me to tell her?’
That she was a heartless, unfaithful bitch? That she was the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life and Alexei was not a man who tolerated mistakes in anyone—least of all himself?
His eyes narrowed. This was no doubt a follow-up call to the letter he had received from England—so it wasn’t completely out of the blue. But even so, to hear from someone who had been out of your life for seven long years was a pretty strange sensation. Someone who had ripped through his heart and body and soul. A woman who had ensnared him and then betrayed him. His attention now fully engaged, he gave a cruel smile which would have filled his many business rivals with abject fear.
He held his hand up in a silent command for the brunette to stop what she was doing. Temporarily. It might not be the wisest thing in the world to be orgasming into her mouth while talking to his estranged wife—though in view of the way she had betrayed him might it not be a fitting revenge? His black eyes glittered. With ice for a heart—would she even care?
But Alexei resisted the temptation, recognising that such a self-indulgence would put him at a disadvantage—for what would it yield other than the momentary pleasure of release? There was a reason why men abstained from sex before battle and it was a good one. Sex weakened even the strongest of men, and Alexei was never weak—not any more. Not since the cheating witch he had married had disappeared from his life.