Tempestuous Reunion

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.

Tempestuous Reunion

Lynne Graham

CHAPTER ONE

‘MARRY you?’ Luc echoed, his brilliant dark gaze rampant with incredulity as he abruptly cast aside the financial report he had been studying. ‘Why would I want to marry you?’

Catherine’s slender hand was shaking. Hurriedly she set down her coffee-cup, her courage sinking fast. ‘I just wondered if you had ever thought of it.’ Her restless fingers made a minute adjustment to the siting of the sugar bowl. She was afraid to meet his eyes. ‘It was just an idea.’

‘Whose idea?’ he prompted softly. ‘You are perfectly content as you are.’

She didn’t want to think about what Luc had made of her. But certainly contentment had rarely featured in her responses. From the beginning she had loved him wildly, recklessly, and with that edge of desperation which prevented her from ever standing as his equal.

Over the past two years, she had swung between ecstasy and despair more times than he would ever have believed. Or cared to believe. This beautiful, luxurious apartment was her prison. Not his. She was a pretty songbird in a gilded cage for Luc’s exclusive enjoyment. But it wasn’t bars that kept her imprisoned, it was love.

She stole a nervous glance at him. His light intonation had been deceptive. Luc was silently seething. But not at her. His ire was directed at some imaginary scapegoat, who had dared to contaminate her with ideas, quite embarrassing ideas above her station.

‘Catherine,’ he pressed impatiently.

Under the table the fingernails of her other hand grooved sharp crescents into her damp palm. Skating on thin ice wasn’t a habit of hers with Luc. ‘It was my own idea and…I’d appreciate an answer,’ she dared in an ironic lie, for she didn’t really want that answer; she didn’t want to hear it.

Had the Santini electronics empire crashed overnight, Luc could not have looked more grim than he did now, pierced by a thorn from a normally very well-trained source. ‘You have neither the background nor the education that I would require in my wife. There, it is said,’ he delivered with the decisive speed and the ruthlessness which had made his name as much feared as respected in the business world. ‘Now you need wonder no longer.’

Every scrap of colour slowly drained from her cheeks. She recoiled from the brutal candour she had invited, ashamed to discover that she had, after all, nurtured a tiny, fragile hope that deep down inside he might feel differently. Her soft blue eyes flinched from his, her head bowing. ‘No, I won’t need to wonder,’ she managed half under her breath.

Having devastated her, he relented infinitesimally. ‘This isn’t what I would term breakfast conversation,’ he murmured with a teasing harshness that she easily translated into a rebuke for her presumption in daring to raise the subject. ‘Why should you aspire to a relationship within which you would not be at ease…hmm? As a lover, I imagine, I am far less demanding than I would be as a husband.’

In the midst of what she deemed to be the most agonising d;aaenouement of her life, an hysterical giggle feathered dangerously in her convulsed throat. A blunt, sun-browned finger languorously played over the knuckles showing white beneath the skin of her clenched hand. Even though she was conscious that Luc was using his customary methods of distraction, the electricity of a powerful sexual chemistry tautened her every sinew and the fleeting desire to laugh away the ashes of painful disillusionment vanished.

With a faint sigh, he shrugged back a pristine silk shirt cuff to consult the rapier-thin Cartier watch on his wrist and frowned.

‘You’ll be late for your meeting.’ She said it for him as she stood up, for the very first time fiercely glad to see the approach of the departure which usually tore her apart.

Luc rose fluidly upright to regard her narrowly. ‘You’re jumpy this morning. Is there something wrong?’

The other matter, she registered in disbelief, was already forgotten, written off as some impulsive and foolishly feminine piece of nonsense. It wouldn’t occur to Luc that she had deliberately saved that question until he was about to leave. She hadn’t wanted to spoil the last few hours they would ever spend together.