âYou will need a working wardrobe commensurate with your position,â Raphael informed her.
Charley looked at him. âI have plenty of clothes at home that my sisters can send out to me.â
Raphael raised one eyebrow in a way that made her face burn. âLet me guess: these clothes that you have at home are dull, plain garments that are two sizes too big for you? Si? They will not be suitable for your new role. You will be dealing with artists and craftsmen who value beauty,â he emphasised. âWhy does the thought of wearing beautiful clothes fill you with such panic? Most womenââ
âI am not most women, and it does not fill me with panic,â Charley denied. But of course he was right. She couldnât tell him that she was afraid of beautiful clothes because she knew they would only underline how unworthy she was of wearing them.
âYou have already agreed to work under my direction and to abide by my conditions,â Raphael reminded her.
âAs your project manager, not with you telling me what to wear,â Charley retorted. âWork clothes for me mean a sturdy pair of boots and a properly fitting hard hat.â
âYou shall have those, of course, but I hardly think that even you would want to dress in such things for dinner.â
Best-selling Modern Romance⢠author Penny Jordan brings you an exciting new trilogyâ¦
NEEDED: THE WORLDâS MOST ELIGIBLE BILLIONAIRES
Three penniless sisters, pure and proudâ¦but about to be purchased!
With bills that need to be paid, a house about to be repossessed and little twin boys to feed, sisters Lizzie, Charley and Ruby refuse to drown in their debts. They will hold their heads up high and fight to feed their family!
But three of the richest, most ruthless men in the world are about to enter their livesâ¦
Pure, proud, but penniless, how far will the sisters go to save the ones they love?
Lizzieâs storyâ
THE WEALTHY GREEKâS CONTRACT WIFE
Ilios Manos is Greek and ruthless. A dangerous combination! Lizzie owes him thousands, but heâll take her as his wife in payment.
Charleyâs storyâ
THE ITALIAN DUKEâS VIRGIN MISTRESS
When project manager Charley is hired by demanding Raphael Della Striozzi, heâs adamant she must have a makeover! Now the dowdy frump has been transformed, sheâs sexy enough for another role: his mistress!
Look out for Rubyâs story, coming soon!
The
Italian Dukeâs Virgin Mistress
By
Penny Jordan has been writing for more than twenty years and has an outstanding record: over 175 novels published, including the phenomenally successful A PERFECT FAMILY, TO LOVE, HONOUR AND BETRAY, THE PERFECT SINNER and POWER PLAY, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Penny Jordan was born in Preston, Lancashire, and now lives in rural Cheshire.
Recent titles by the same author:
A BRIDE FOR HIS MAJESTYâS PLEASURE
THE SICILIAN BOSSâS MISTRESS>*
THE SICILIANâS BABY BARGAIN>*
CAPTIVE AT THE SICILIAN BILLIONAIREâS COMMAND>*
TAKEN BY THE SHEIKH
THE SHEIKHâS BLACKMAILED MISTRESS
VIRGIN FOR THE BILLIONAIREâS TAKING
*The Leopardi Brothers
âARE you Charlotte Wareham, the project manager from Kentham Brothers?â
CharlotteâCharleyâWareham looked up from her laptop, blinking in the strong Italian spring sunshine. She had only just returned from a snatched, very late lunchâa sandwich and a cup of delicious cappuccino in a local café. Her meeting with the two civic dignitaries responsible for the restoration project on a derelict public garden, to be completed for the five hundredth anniversary of the gardenâs creation, which she would be overseeing, had overrun badly.
The man now towering over her, whom she hadnât met before, and who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, was plainly angryâvery angry indeedâas he gestured towards the cheap faux stone urns and other replica samples she had shipped over for client inspection.
âAnd what, may I ask, are these vile abominations?â he demanded.
It wasnât his anger, though, that had a coil of shocked disbelief tightening her whole body. Dimly she recognised that the sharp, swift pang of sensation possessing her was instinctive female recognition of a man so alpha that no woman could or would even want to deny him.
This was a man born to stand head and shoulders above his peersâa man born to produce strong sons in his own imageâa man born to take the woman of his choice to his bed and to give her such pleasure there that she would be bound to him by the mere memory for the rest of her life.
She must have been sitting in the sun for too long, Charley decided shakily. Such thoughts were certainly not something she was normally prone toâquite the opposite.
She made a determined effort to pull herself together, putting her laptop down, rising from the faux stone bench on which she had been sitting, and standing up to confront her interrogator.
He was tall and dark and as filled with furious rage as a volcano about to erupt. He was also, as her senses had already recognised, extraordinarily good-looking. His olive-toned skin was drawn smoothly over the tautly masculine bone structure of his face, and he was tall, dark-haired, with the kind of arrogantly proud chiselled features that spoke of patrician forebears. His unexpectedly steely grey-eyed gaze swept over her with open contempt, his look like a sculptorâs chisel, seeking the exact spot in a piece of marble where it was most vulnerable.