The Trusting Game
She would not be seduced!A pretty woman with no head for business? Christa Bellingham had worked hard to banish this image of herself. Did that mean that she now came across as too outspoken particularly about men?She had learned the hard way that men were not to be trusted. And Daniel Geshard's line of business attracted the worst of deceivers.He said Christa's cynicism was a disguise and he could teach her to trust. Daniel seemed so genuine, but didn't he have a lot to gain if he could win her over?"Penny Jordan's stimulating and colorful writing will stir the imagination."Romantic Times
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Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author
PENNY JORDAN
Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!
Penny Jordan's novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.
This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan's fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.
Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon's most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan's characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.
Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.
Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women's fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
CHAPTER ONE
GRIMACING at the rain, Christa Bellingham hurried from the car park to the hotel forecourt, cursing the abrupt and unforecast change in the weather which meant that she had neither coat nor umbrella to protect her from the heavy downpour.
Up ahead of her a taxi was disgorging its two male passengers into the protection of the canopy above the hotel entrance as Christa ducked her head against the driving rain, mentally bewailing the vanity which had led to her deciding to wear her precious Armani. She was only calling in at the hotel to drop off some fabric samples and prices for John Richards, the hotel manager, on her way to the local Chamber of Commerce, where a talk was being given later in the evening on a subject in which she took a deep and antagonistic interest.
She had protested against the speaker’s being invited to address them right from the start, but Howard Findley, the new head of the chamber, had insisted that it was time they shed their old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud image and open themselves up to the possibilities of new theories and projects.
‘We might as well give a blank cheque to every charlatan who wants to come and cry his wares and get paid for it,’ Christa had protested bitterly.
‘Daniel Geshard doesn’t charge a speaker’s fee,’ John had told her mildly, but Christa had refused to be mollified. No matter how much John might have been impressed by the man, Christa knew exactly what type he was—and what he was up to. Deception was the name of the game for men like him, and they didn’t care how much pain or suffering they caused in achieving their ends, as she knew all too well…All too well.
Daniel Geshard was coming to talk to them for one purpose and one purpose only—so that he could sell himself and his spurious New Age theories to anyone gullible enough to buy them, and that included the council.
Her head full of angry thoughts, Christa closed her eyes briefly in despair. Howard Findley was a nice man, genuine and good-hearted, but he was no match for the likes of the Daniel Geshards of this world, and already, just on the strength of a telephone chat with the man, Howard was talking enthusiastically about persuading the council to fund several groups of key employees and officials through one of Daniel Geshard’s miracle courses.
‘He’s got this wonderful idea about being able to reach out to even the most disaffected members of our society and to help them get back in touch with themselves, with their real emotions and motivations,’ he had enthused.
Howard talked like that. Christa much preferred the plain straight facts and realities of life, rather than having them wrapped up in fancy words and theories…
‘Whoops!’
The amused male warning and the shock of her totally unexpected contact with the hard, warm body attached to it brought Christa’s head up sharply and her mind back to the present. The automatic brisk apology she had been about to give died on her lips as she found herself staring dazedly into a pair of pale grey, thickly lashed male eyes alight with warmth…warmth and something much…much more personal.
