CAROL MARINELLI - Playing the Dutiful Wife

Meg was playing a part, Niklas got that, but as her lips met his cheek it did not matter that she was playing, for it was the first reprieve to his senses in months.

It was a kiss for others, and his mind tried to keep it at that—except her breath tasted of the outside. He drank it in, and the feel of her in his arms allowed temporary escape.

It was Meg who pulled back. Meg who stood with her cheeks burning red. There were tears of shame and hurt and anger in her eyes, and her lips pressed closed as one guard said something that made the other one laugh, and then a door opened and they walked into a small, simply furnished room. She couldn’t stand for very much longer, so she sat on a chair for a moment, honestly shaken.

Not just at the sight of him—not just at the shock of seeing Niklas with his hair cropped almost as short as the dark stubble on his chin, dressed in rough prison denim—but because he was still the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

‘Why would you come here?’ he demanded, and then she looked at him. He could see her green eyes flash with suppressed rage, and he heard the spit of her words when finally she answered him.

‘You’re entitled to me, apparently.’

CAROL MARINELLIrecently filled in a form where she was asked for her job title and was thrilled, after all these years, to be able to put down her answer as ‘writer’. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation and, after chewing her pen for a moment, Carol put down the truth: ‘writing’. The third question asked, ‘What are your hobbies?’ Well, not wanting to look obsessed or, worse still, boring, she crossed the fingers on her free hand and answered ‘swimming and tennis’. But, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, and the closest she’s got to a tennis racket in the last couple of years is watching the Australian Open, I’m sure you can guess the real answer!

Recent titles by the same author:

BEHOLDEN TO THE THRONE * * linked titles Carol also writes for Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™! Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk BANISHED TO THE HAREM * * linked titles Carol also writes for Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™! Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk AN INDECENT PROPOSITION A SHAMEFUL CONSEQUENCE

(The Secrets of Xanos)

* BEHOLDEN TO THE THRONE * * linked titles Carol also writes for Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™! Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk BANISHED TO THE HAREM * * linked titles Carol also writes for Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™! Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk AN INDECENT PROPOSITION A SHAMEFUL CONSEQUENCE (The Secrets of Xanos) * linked titles Carol also writes for Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™! Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk linked titles

Carol also writes for Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™!

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

www.millsandboon.co.uk

‘I’M GOING TO have to go,’ Meg said to her mother. ‘They’ve finished boarding, so I’d better turn off my phone.’

‘You’ll be fine for a while yet.’ Ruth Hamilton persisted with their conversation. ‘Did you finish up the work for the Evans purchase?’

‘Yes.’ Meg tried to keep the edge from her voice. She really wanted just to turn off the phone and relax. Meg hated flying. Well, not all of it—just the take-off part. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and listen to music, take some nice calming breaths before the plane prepared for its departure from Sydney Airport—except, as usual, her mother wanted to talk about work. ‘Like I said,’ Meg said calmly, because if she so much as gave a hint that she was irritated her mum would want to know more, ‘everything is up-to-date.’

‘Good,’ Ruth said, but still she did not leave things there.

Meg coiled a length of her very straight red hair around and around one finger, as she always did when either tense or concentrating.

‘You need to make sure that you sleep on the plane, Meg, because you’ll be straight into it once you land. You wouldn’t believe how many people are here. There are so many opportunities …’

Meg closed her eyes and held on to a sigh of frustration as her mum chatted on about the conference and then moved to travel details. Meg already knew that a car would meet her at Los Angeles airport and take her straight to the hotel where the conference was being held. And, yes, she knew she would have about half an hour to wash and get changed.

Meg’s parents were prominent in Sydney’s real estate market and were now looking to branch into overseas investments for some of their clients. They had left for Los Angeles on Friday to network, while Meg caught up with the paperwork backlog at the office before joining them.

Meg knew that she should be far more excited at the prospect of a trip to Los Angeles. Usually she loved visiting new places, and deep down Meg knew that really she had nothing to complain about—she was flying business class and would be staying in the sumptuous hotel where the conference was being held. She would play the part of successful professional, as would her parents.

Even though, in truth, the family business wasn’t doing particularly well at the moment.

Her parents were always very eager to jump on the latest get-rich-quick scheme. Meg, who could always be relied on for sensible advice, had suggested that rather than all of them flying over maybe just one of them should go, or perhaps they should give it a miss entirely and concentrate on the properties they already had on their books.

Of course her parents hadn’t wanted to hear that. This, they had insisted, was the next big thing.

Meg doubted it.

It wasn’t that, though, which caused her disquiet.

Really, when she had suggested that only one of them go—given that she dealt with the legal side of things—Meg had rather hoped they might have considered sending only her.

A week away wasn’t just a luxury she required—it was fast becoming a necessity. And it wasn’t about the nice hotel—she’d stay in a tent if she had to, just for the break, just for a pause so that she could think properly. Meg felt as if she were suffocating—that wherever she turned her parents were there, simply not giving her room to think. It had been like that for as long as she could remember, and sometimes she felt as if her whole life had been planned out in advance by her parents.

In truth, it probably had.

Meg had little to complain about. She had her own nice flat in Bondi—but, given that she worked twelve-hour days, she never really got to enjoy it, and there was always something at work that needed her attention at weekends: a signature to chase up, a contract to read through. It just never seemed to end.

‘We’re actually going to look at a couple of properties this afternoon …’ Her mum carried on talking as there was a flurry of activity in the aisle beside Meg.

‘Well, don’t go agreeing to anything until I get there,’ Meg warned. ‘I mean it, Mum.’

She glanced over and saw that two flight attendants were assisting a gentleman. His face was blocked from Meg’s vision by the overhead lockers, but certainly from his physique this man didn’t look as if he required assistance.

He was clearly tall and extremely fit-looking, and from what Meg could see he appeared more than capable of putting his own laptop into the overhead locker, yet the attendants danced around him, taking his jacket and offering their apologies as he went to take the seat beside Meg.

As his face came into view Meg, who was already struggling, completely lost her place in the conversation with her mother. The man was absolutely stunning, with very thick, beautifully cut black hair worn just a little too long, so that it flopped over his forehead. He had a very straight Roman nose and high cheekbones. Really, he had all the markings of a very good-looking man, but it was his mouth that held her attention—perfectly shaped, like a dark bruise of red in the black of his unshaven jaw, and even though it was a scowling mouth, it was quite simply beautiful.

He threw a brief nod in Meg’s direction as he took the seat beside her.

Clearly somebody wasn’t very happy!

As he sat down Meg caught his scent—a mixture of expensive cologne and man—and, though she was trying to focus on what her mother was saying, Meg’s mind kept wandering to the rather terse conversation that was taking place beside her as the flight attendants did their best to appease a man whom, it would seem, wasn’t particularly easy to appease.

‘No,’ he said to the attendant. ‘This will be sorted to my satisfaction as soon as we have taken off.’

He had a deep, low voice that was rich with an accent Meg couldn’t quite place. Perhaps Spanish, she thought, but wasn’t quite sure.

What she was sure of, though, was that he demanded too much of her attention.

Not consciously, of course—she just about carried on talking to her mother, her finger still twirling in her hair—but she could not stop listening to the conversation that was none of her business.

‘Once again,’ the flight attendant said to him, ‘we apologise for any inconvenience, Mr Dos Santos.’ Then she turned her attention to Meg, and although friendly and polite, the flight attendant was not quite so gushing as she had so recently been to Meg’s fellow passenger. ‘You need to turn off your phone, Ms Hamilton. We are about to prepare for take-off.’

‘I really do have to go, Mum,’ Meg said. ‘I’ll see you there.’ With a sigh of relief she turned off her phone. ‘The best part of flying,’ she said as she did so—not necessarily to him.

‘There is nothing good about flying’ came his brusque response as the plane started to taxi towards the runway. Seeing her raised eyebrows, he tempered his words a little. ‘At least not today.’

She gave him a small smile and offered a quick ‘Sorry,’ then looked ahead rather than out of the window. After all he could be in the middle of a family emergency and racing to get somewhere. There could be many reasons for his bad mood and it was none of her business after all.

She was actually quite surprised when he answered her, and when she turned she realised that he was still looking at her. ‘Usually I do like flying—I do an awful lot of it—but today there are no seats in first class.’

Niklas Dos Santos watched as she blinked at his explanation. She had very green eyes that were staring right at him. He expected her to give a murmur of sympathy or a small tut tut as to the airline’s inefficiency; those were the responses that he was used to, so he was somewhat taken aback at hers.

‘Poor you!’ She smiled. ‘Having to slum it back here in business class.’

‘As I said, I fly a lot, and as well as working while flying I need to sleep on the plane—something that is now going to be hard to do. Admittedly I only changed my plans this morning, but even so …’ He didn’t continue. Niklas thought that was the end of the conversation, that he had explained his dark mood well enough. He hoped that now they could sit in mutual silence, but before he could look away the woman in the seat next to him spoke again.