Royalty has never been so scandalous!
STOP PRESSâCrown Prince in shock marriage
The tabloid headlines â¦
When HRH Crown Prince Alessandro of Santina proposes to paparazzi favourite Allegra Jackson it promises to be the social event of the decade
âoutrageous headlines guaranteed!
The salacious gossip â¦
Mills & Boon invites you to rub shoulders with royalty, sheikhs and glamorous socialites. Step into the decadent playground of the worldâs rich and famous â¦
THE SANTINA CROWN
THE PRICE OF ROYAL DUTY â Penny Jordan
THE SHEIKHâS HEIR â Sharon Kendrick
THE SCANDALOUS PRINCESS â Kate Hewitt
THE MAN BEHIND THE SCARS â Caitlin Crews
DEFYING THE PRINCE â Sarah Morgan
PRINCESS FROM THE SHADOWS â Maisey Yates
THE GIRL NOBODY WANTED â Lynn Raye Harris
PLAYING THE ROYAL GAME â Carol Marinelli
Ben stared at her for a moment, long enough to make her lose her edge of defiance and start to squirm. Or at least want to squirm. Thankfully she remained quite still. âAre you always this pleasant?â he finally enquired.
âNo, Iâm not,â Natalia told him. âYou happened to catch me at a good moment.â
He let out a dry chuckle, surprising her. So Ben Jackson possessed a sense of humour. A small one.
âI shudder at the thought of catching you at a bad one,â he told her, and his voice was low and honeyed enough to slide right over her senses.
Natalia knew she had been rather rude to him, but only because sheâd felt so defensive. As soon as sheâd met Ben Jackson heâd examined and dismissed her, all in the space of a few minutes. Sheâd spent a long time perfecting her air of polished, jaded sophistication, and she didnât like someone like Ben blowing it. Seeing right through it. Laughing at her.
âShudder away,â she told him. âSomehow I donât think weâll be meeting again.â
KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon>® romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and sheâs continued to read them ever since.
She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence longâfortunately, theyâve become a bit more detailed as sheâs grown older.
She has written plays, short stories, and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling, and learning to knit.
After marrying the man of her dreamsâher older brotherâs childhood friendâshe lived in England for six years and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog.
Kate loves to hear from readersâyou can contact her through her website, www.kate-hewitt.com.
Recent titles by the same author:
THE DARKEST OF SECRETS
KHOLODOVâS LAST MISTRESS MR AND MISCHIEF (The Powerful and the Pure)
Did you know these are also available as eBooks?
Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
To Meg Lewis and Anna Boatman,
who helped me see this book through to the very end! Many thanks, Kate
âNOW there, at least, is a Jackson who has bettered himself.â
Princess Natalia Santina glanced at her mother, whose arctic tone belied what had sounded like a compliment. Queen Zoeâs eyes were narrowed, her lips pressed together in disapproval. Her usual look then. Natalia turned to see who was the subject of her motherâs grudging praise. Her gaze moved through the crowd of well-heeled guests who had come to the engagement party of her older brother Alessandro and his unexpected fiancée, Allegra, daughter of British tabloid fodder and ex-footballer Bobby Jackson, to finally rest on Ben Jackson, Allegraâs older brother and self-made millionaire. Not that the money made a difference to her mother. Anyone, she liked to say with a sniff, could make money. Breeding was what mattered.
After all, the fiancé who had thankfully just broken Nataliaâs own engagementâPrince Michel of the small mountain principality of Montenavarreâhadnât had much money. Heâd claimed Natalia had possessed impossibly expensive tastes, which was undoubtedly true for him. Prince Michel might be second in line to the throne but he was practically penniless, and in any case Natalia had no intention of spending her life in some draughty castle in the Alps, listening to her husband go on and on about his countryâs tediously noble history.
The question of just how she intended to spend her life remained, as yet, unanswered. For the moment Natalia was simply glad to enjoy her reprieve from matrimony. Nothing in her experience so far had recommended it.
Now her own gaze narrowed as she took in Ben Jacksonâs powerful form. He was dressed in a well-cut grey silk business suit, his tie a sober navy, his movement restrained and precise as he chatted to another guest. Unlike his father, whose flashy tie, booming voice and expansive gestures proclaimed new money like nothing else could, Ben Jackson was the epitome of understated male elegance. Queen Zoe, Natalia had noticed with a stab of amusement, had held out only two fingers for Bobby Jackson to shake and flinched visibly when heâd lavishly kissed her hand instead.