Rafaello's Mistress

is one of Mills & Boon’s 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 treasure—a book by a favourite writer—they may have missed. In every case, seduction and passion with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon^>® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

WHEN Glory walked into the London headquarters of Grazzini Industries, every male head in the vicinity swivelled to watch her.

Her face was unforgettable: wide slanted cheekbones, bright eyes the colour of bluebells and a wide, full pink mouth. Even with her honey-blonde hair caught back, and clad in khaki combats and a casual top, she attracted attention. All the men stared: they couldn’t help themselves. That stunning face and lush figure endowed her with an extraordinary degree of sex appeal.

Impervious to the attention that she was receiving, Glory was engaged in frantically talking up her flagging courage. Rafaello would listen to her, of course he would listen. So what if it had been five years since they had last met? So what if they had parted on bad terms? He had hurt her so much that even now she could not bring herself to recall how she had felt back then but she knew she had not hurt him. Powerful, influential businessmen were not known for their sensitivity. Maybe she had dented his ego a little but then he had never suffered from any lack in that department. She wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that Rafaello barely recalled their painfully brief fling.

Yet she remembered every day, every hour, every minute. She remembered how naïve and trusting and stupid she had been. She remembered that last night she had hoped to spend with him and the resulting humiliation followed by the agony of loss and rejection. The oldest story in the book, she told herself, fighting to suppress those debilitating memories. She had wanted love but he had only wanted a temporary distraction. He might so easily have become her first lover but they had broken up before she trusted him enough to say yes.

Left alone in the steel-walled lift as it climbed higher and higher, Glory rested her hot, damp brow against the cooling metal surface. Pull yourself together, girl. Chin up, hold your head high. Never mind that her nerves were eating her alive. Or that her wardrobe did not run to a smart suit. Or that she felt horribly intimidated by Rafaello’s giant steel and glass office building. None of that mattered, she told herself. She was here to help her family: her dad, her kid brother, Sam.

Stepping out on to the top floor into an atmosphere of exclusive comfort and elegance, Glory approached the smart reception desk.

‘I have an appointment with Mr Grazzini…’ Her voice emerged all small and crushed by the sheer weight of her nervous tension.

The attractive brunette looked her up and down with a faint frownline etched between her perfect pencilled brows. ‘Your name, Miss…?’

‘Little. Glory Little,’ Glory supplied hurriedly.

‘Please take a seat…’ The cool ice-blue leather seating area was indicated.

Glory reached for a glossy women’s magazine. She flicked through fashion pages adorned by women wearing single garments that cost more than she earned in six months. Interest wandering, she glanced around herself, hugely impressed by her surroundings but anything but comfortable with them. Though it was certainly no surprise to her that Rafaello was doing extravagantly well in business. He had started out rich and would no doubt go on getting richer. Didn’t it run in his genes? He had once told her that the Grazzini clan had started coining it as merchants during the Middle Ages.

No wonder they hadn’t ended up together, she reflected, striving to see the humour of her own pitiful ignorance at the age of eighteen. Youthful bravado had persuaded her that things like different backgrounds and what some people called ‘breeding’ didn’t matter in a world approaching the second millennium. To think otherwise was incredibly old-fashioned, she had told a less naïve friend, who had implied that Rafaello could only be after ‘one thing’. When her father had tried to warn her off too, she had just laughed and pointed out that Rafaello didn’t give two hoots about silly stuff, like her having left school at sixteen!