Claiming My Untouched Mistress
I’ve drawn her into my world… And she’s mine to awaken! And she’s mine to awaken! Walking into my casino, Edie Spencer seemed like a spoilt heiress—until she agreed to clear her family’s debts by posing as my temporary mistress. My plan? To use her to expose my business rivals. Yet discovering Edie’s innocence has led to greater temptation than I could have imagined. Our chemistry is spectacular—now I’ll claim Edie for so much more than pleasure!
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I’ve drawn her into my world...
And she’s mine to awaken!
Walking into my casino, Edie Spencer seemed like a spoiled heiress—until she agreed to clear her family’s debts by posing as my temporary mistress. My plan? To use her to expose my business rivals. Yet discovering Edie’s innocence has led to greater temptation than I could have imagined. Our chemistry is spectacular—now I’ll claim Edie for so much more than pleasure!
Step into this tale of innocence and desire...
USA TODAY bestselling author HEIDI RICE lives in London, England. She is married with two teenage sons—which gives her rather too much of an insight into the male psyche—and also works as a film journalist. She adores her job, which involves getting swept up in a world of high emotion, sensual excitement, funny and feisty women, sexy and tortured men and glamorous locations where laundry doesn’t exist. Once she turns off her computer she often does chores—usually involving laundry!
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ISBN: 978-1-474-08761-2
CLAIMING MY UNTOUCHED MISTRESS
© 2019 Heidi Rice
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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To my gorgeous husband, Rob,
whose love of Texas Hold ’Em
finally became useful in my writing career!
Contents
I STRUGGLED TO control the tidal wave of panic surging through me as I read the sign on Dante Allegri’s Monaco casino.
Welcome to The Inferno
The glitter of lights gave the building’s imposing eighteenth-century façade a fairy-tale glow in the Mediterranean night—making me feel like even more of a fraud in the second-hand designer gown and uncomfortable ice-pick heels my sister and I had sourced online. What I was about to do could make or break my family.
Please God, don’t let Dante Allegri be in the house tonight.
I’d seen photos of Allegri, and read myriad articles about him in the last month as I prepared for this night. He scared me as a competitor but terrified me as a woman.
Allegri was famous for his ruthlessness, having risen from the slums of Naples to create a billion-dollar empire of casinos in Europe and the US. If I had to play against him, and he figured out the system I had developed, he would show me no mercy.
A sea breeze from the marina below the casino lifted the tendrils of hair off my neck which had escaped the elaborate up-do my sister had spent hours constructing from my unruly curls. Shivers racked my body, but I knew it wasn’t the warm summer night that was making me feel so cold inside—it was fear.
Stop standing here like a dummy and move.
Lifting the hem of the gown, I walked up the marble stairs to the main entrance, making an effort to keep my back straight and my gaze forward. The million-dollar bank draft borrowed from my brother-in-law’s loan shark stashed in the jewelled clutch purse on my wrist felt as if it weighed several tons.
