âThere is no need to rush, Jules,â he drawled softly.
âWe have a lot to catch up on. Or is that what you are afraid of?â
Her green eyes collided with deep dark brown. âNot you, thatâs for sure,â she snapped. But then his smallest finger trailed over her full lips, and a shiver lanced through her slender body and she knew she lied. Because suddenly she was desperately afraidâafraid of what Rand was making her feel.
âWell, if youâre sure about that, then you wonât mind this,â he declared huskily, and she was pulled against the solid wall of his chestâ¦.
Mama Mia!
Harlequin Presents>®
ITALIAN HUSBANDS
Theyâre tall, darkâ¦and ready to marry!
If you love marriage-of-convenience stories that ignite into passionate dramas, then look no further. Weâve got the Mediterranean heroes you love to read aboutâstep into the shoes of the women who marry and tame them.
Watch for more exciting tales of romance, Italian-style.
Coming in Harlequin Presents>®:
A Sicilian Husband
by Kate Walker May #2393
The Italianâs Suitable Wife
by Lucy Monroe July #2407
JULIA DIEZâJules to her friendsâglanced up at the ornate carved gargoyles that decorated the outside of the old stone building and shivered, not with cold but with nerves. She had exchanged the freezing January weather in England for mid-summer in Chile, and the temperature was a sunny eighty degrees. She had arrived in Santiago late last night, and right at this moment it was the last place she wanted to be. The land of her late father, a father she had hardly known!
She had barely slept, and, getting up at the crack of dawn, she had called her mother, Liz. Reassured she was fine, Jules had spent the past few hours in a state of nervous anticipation. Unable to eat breakfast, she had consumed numerous cups of coffee, her whole attention focused on the appointment she had to keep at twelve.
She glanced at the slim gold watch on her wristâalmost noon. Time to keep her appointment with Randolfo Carducci. The name alone was enough to make her nervous, but realistically she knew as the executor of her fatherâs will he was her last hope.
Personally she would rather live in abject poverty than take a penny from her fatherâs estate, she thought, straightening her slender shoulders and walking into the marble foyer of the building. But she was not prepared to risk the chances of her mother making a full recovery from her breast cancer operation for the sake of a few thousand pounds.
In Julesâ mind her father owed her mum that much. It had been the age-old story. Liz, as a naive eighteen-year-old, had met and fallen madly in love with Carlos Diez at a polo match in the Cotswolds; he had been a visiting Chilean polo player and a much older man. Liz had been pregnant and married within months, and Jules, born in England, was the result. Carlos had continued on the polo circuit and when he had finally returned to take mother and baby back to his ranch in Chile, the marriage had not lasted six months.
Her mum had confided in Jules, when her own youthful engagement had broken up, that her charming husband had freely admitted heâd had a mistress in Santiago, and heâd had no intention of remaining celibate while travelling the world playing polo. Liz had returned to England with her baby. She had basically run away and a quick divorce had followed.
Jules did not blame her mum. Her own experience with her father had been a disaster. Offered a holiday in Chile at the age of fourteen, she had leapt at the chance of meeting a dad she had never seen since she was a baby, and had no memory of. Immediately she had developed an enormous crush on the neighbouring rancherâs son, twenty-year-old Enrique Eiga. Encouraged by her father, she had visited Chile each summer and had been engaged at seventeen and set to marry Enrique at eighteen before she had woken up to reality and broken the whole thing off. She had never been back to Chile or spoken to her father in the seven years since, and she would not be here now if it werenât for her mother.
Reception lay through a set of wide glass doors, and she caught a glimpse of her reflection as she passed through them, and held her head a little higher. Not bad, she told herself. Jules had opted to wear a cream knee-length linen skirt, with a loosely tailored short-sleeved linen jacket to match. She had woven her long hair into a French braid, and with the addition of fine-heeled sandals lending height to her average five feet five she thought she looked smart and businesslike.
The receptionist was a young man, and his appreciative glance swept over her as she stated her business.
âSeñor Carducci is expecting you.â He smiled and added in Spanish, âLucky dog,â unaware Jules understood, and her lips twitched as he ushered her into an elevator adding, âHis secretary will meet you and escort you to his office suite.â