Her innocence—exposed!
As London’s top relationship columnist, Abby Hart can’t tell anyone her biggest secret: not only is her perfect fiancé entirely fictional, she is also utterly untouched. Invited to attend a prestigious charity ball with her “husband-to-be,” she throws herself upon the mercy of brooding millionaire Luke Shelverton.
After his own engagement ended tragically, Luke is reluctant to take credit for Abby’s diamond ring. To protect her reputation, he agrees to a convenient arrangement. Except Abby’s effervescence kindles a fire he’s tempted to indulge... And uncovering her innocence compels Luke to initiate his temporary fiancée into all the sinful delights of the bridal bed!
Luke frowned. ‘You’re going to have to tell everyone eventually that you’re not in a relationship.’
‘But don’t you see? I need a stand-in fiancé in order to be able to break up with him. I’ll find someone for myself one day. But I have to get through the ball first. Please, please, please do this for me, Luke,’ Abby begged. ‘Just for a couple of hours.’
He released a long sigh. ‘All right—you win. I’ll take you for two hours. But you have to accept this is a one-off occasion and it will not be repeated.’
Abby had to stop herself from flinging herself into his arms. Or kissing him, which was even more tempting than she wanted to admit. ‘I promise.’
‘Oh, and one other thing,’ he warned. ‘I might be standing in for someone who doesn’t exist, but that’s as far as your little fantasy goes. Understood?’
‘I hope you’re not thinking I’d want you to actually marry me, because that’s just utterly ridiculous!’
‘Good to know,’ he said enigmatically. ‘See you tomorrow, Cinderella.’
MELANIE MILBURNE read her first Mills & Boon novel at the age of seventeen, in between studying for her final exams. After completing a master’s degree in education, she decided to write a novel, and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and a keen dog lover and trainer. She enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the Holt Medallion—a prestigious award honouring outstanding literary talent.
Books by Melanie Milburne
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
The Tycoon’s Marriage Deal
The Temporary Mrs Marchetti
Unwrapping His Convenient Fiancée
His Mistress for a Week
At No Man’s Command
One Night With Consequences
A Ring for the Greek’s Baby
Wedlocked!
Wedding Night with Her Enemy
The Ravensdale Scandals
Ravensdale’s Defiant Captive
Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress
Engaged to Her Ravensdale Enemy
The Most Scandalous Ravensdale
The Playboys of Argentina
The Valquez Bride
The Valquez Seduction
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.
A Virgin for a Vow
Melanie Milburne
www.millsandboon.co.uk
To my previous editor, Flo Nicoll.
It was wonderful working with you on so many books. You encouraged me, supported me and challenged me to constantly lift my writing.
I will never forget meeting you in person in Sydney. Nor will I forget all the funny conversations we’ve had over thirty-plus books.
Bless you for being wonderful you. xxxx
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Introduction
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
Extract
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
ABBY HAD ONE day left to respond to the invitation to the ball. One day. Twenty-four hours. Fourteen hundred and forty minutes. Eighty-six thousand and four hundred seconds. And if she didn’t come up with a ‘fiancé’ by then she was toast.
Burned and charred and utterly useless toast.
She sat at her desk and stared at the gold and black vellum invitation with its fancy copperplate writing.
Miss Abby Hart and Fiancé
Panic knocked on her heart like a boxer’s fist, threatening to punch it right out the back of her chest. She couldn’t show up at Top Goss and Gloss’s prestigious Spring Charity Ball alone. It was the biggest event on her career calendar. There was a three-to four-year waiting list for tickets. There were more senior people on staff than her who had never received an invitation. Receiving a personalised invitation from the head honcho as ‘guest of honour’ was a big deal. A seriously big deal. Declining the invitation was out of the question. Her boss insisted it was time for Abby’s adoring fans to finally meet her fiancé. If she showed up at the ball alone she might as well take her resignation with her instead.
Everyone thought Abby was engaged to her childhood sweetheart. Everyone at work. Everyone online. Everyone on the flipping planet thought she was engaged. But she didn’t have a childhood sweetheart. She hadn’t even had a proper childhood. Not unless you could call being shunted in and out of foster homes since you were five years old a childhood.
‘Abby, have you got time for a—? Hey, haven’t you sent your RSVP for the ball yet? Wasn’t the deadline like a week ago?’ Sabina from Fashion asked with a frown.
Abby posted an everything’s cool smile on her face. ‘I know but I’m still waiting to hear back from my fiancé about it. He...he is super-busy with work stuff just now and—’
‘But surely he’s taking you to the ball?’ Sabina said. ‘I mean, that’s what a fiancé does, right? This is the night everyone finally gets to meet your mysterious Mr Perfect. That’s why the ball has been such a massive sell-out. I think it’s so cool how you always call him that in your column and blog. You’ve created such a mystery about his identity. It’s like it’s London’s best-kept secret.’
Abby had only been able to keep his identity a secret because Mr Perfect had no identity. He didn’t exist other than in her imagination. Her weekly blog and column was all about relationships. Dating advice. About finding and keeping true love. Helping people find their own happy-ever-after. She had hundreds of thousands of readers and millions of followers on Twitter who wrote in for her advice.
Gulp.
Yes, millions.
Who all thought she was happily engaged to her own perfect man. She even wore an engagement ring to prove it. Not a bona fide diamond but a zirconia, which was so darn realistic no one had noticed it wasn’t the real deal and she’d been wearing it for the last two and a half years.
‘Oh, no, he would never let me down.’ It sometimes scared her how good she was at lying.
‘I wish I’d been invited to the ball,’ Sabina said with a sigh that Cinderella would have been proud of. ‘I’m absolutely dying to meet him. I’m sure that’s why you got the invitation to sit at the boss’s table. Everyone wants to meet this amazingly romantic guy who puts every other man out there to shame.’
Abby kept her smile in place but her stomach was churning so fast she could have provided enough butter for a shortbread factory. Two factories. Possibly the whole of Scotland. She had to come up with a plan. She had to come up with a man.
But who?
Just then a text message pinged in on her phone from her best friend, Ella Shelvert
on.
Her best friend who had an older brother.
Of course! It was a brilliant solution. But would Luke want to go with her? She hadn’t seen him since that night six months ago when he’d been acting a little out of character, to put it mildly. She had never been that physically close to him before. He was always a little standoffish and gruff—understandable since he was still getting over the tragic death of his girlfriend, who had been killed five years ago. But that night when Abby had called in to collect something Ella had left behind the day before, Luke had been so out of it his head had rested on her shoulder and he’d slurred his words so much she’d had to help him into his bed. Once she’d got him into bed, his hand had taken hers and for a moment she’d thought he was going to pull her down to join him, but instead he’d touched her face as if he was touching a fragile orchid and then he’d closed his eyes and promptly fallen asleep. But she could still feel the tingles in her flesh if she allowed herself to think about it.
Which she absolutely never did.
Well...only occasionally.
‘Is that your fiancé texting you?’ Sabina asked, leaning forward. ‘What did he say? Is he coming with you?’
Abby covered the screen of her phone with her hand. ‘One of Abby’s rules is don’t share your lover’s texts with your friends. They’re private.’
Sabina gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘I wish I had a lover’s text to share. I wish I had what you have, Abby. But then, everyone wants what you have.’
What exactly do I have?
Abby kept her expression in caring colleague mode. ‘I hate to sound like an agony aunt but that’s what I am so here goes. You’re a gorgeous person who deserves to be happy just like anyone else. You can’t let one bad experience with a two-timing jerk—’
‘Three-timing. Possibly four but I’m not sure if he was boasting about the redhead.’
‘Right, yes, I forgot—three-or four-timing jerk discourage you from finding the amazing and loving and commitment-friendly man who is out there just waiting to find a wonderful girl like you,’ Abby said.
Sabina smiled. ‘No wonder you’re London’s top relationships columnist. You always have the perfect answer.’
* * *
Abby had thought long and hard but eventually decided against calling Luke before she turned up at his house in Bloomsbury. She didn’t want to give him the opportunity to fob her off using the excuse of being too busy with work. He was always working on one of his medical engineering projects for which he’d become globally recognised. She’d made Ella promise not to say anything to him about her plan until she had spoken to him in person. Ella was surprisingly keen on the idea of Luke taking her to the ball when Abby had told her about it. Although, maybe it wasn’t so surprising given Ella made no secret of the fact she longed for her big brother to get some sort of social life happening again.
Not that Luke was likely to answer a call from Abby even if he did have his phone on. He kept his distance from most people, but especially from her, which made his up close and personal behaviour that night all the more unusual. But the kind of conversation she had in mind would be much better done face to face.
And because she knew he was a sucker for a bit of home baking, turning up on his swanky doorstep with a box of chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies still warm from the oven would hopefully work a treat.
Well, it would if he would jolly well answer his door.
Abby balanced the cookies under one arm and huddled under her umbrella, trying to ignore the icy spring rain spiking and splashing her ankles. She pressed the brass button for the fifth time and left it there. She knew he was home because there were lights on in his office and another one in the sitting room.
Maybe he has someone with him...
No.
She dismissed the thought out of hand. Luke hadn’t had anyone with him since his girlfriend Kimberley’s death five years ago. Not that he had been much of a party animal before that, but after Kimberley was killed in a car crash he became even more of a loner. He was the epitome of the locked down workaholic. It was sad because she couldn’t help thinking he might be quite a fun person to be around if he let himself go a bit.
Abby finally heard the tread of firm footsteps and took her finger off the bell just as the door opened. His frowning expression wasn’t what you could even loosely call welcoming. ‘Oh, it’s you...’ he said.
‘Nice to see you too, Luke,’ Abby said. ‘Can I come in? It’s kind of wet and cold out here.’
‘Sure,’ he said while his expression clearly said an emphatic no.
Abby blithely ignored that, stepping over the threshold and folding her umbrella, which unfortunately sent a spray of water droplets on to the plush carpet runner that was threatening to swallow her up to her knees. Maybe even up to her neck. ‘Have I called at a bad time?’
‘I’m working on something—’
‘There are more things in life than work, you know,’ Abby said, hunting around for somewhere to place her umbrella.
‘Here.’ He held out his hand with a long-suffering look. ‘I’ll take that before you take out a window.’
Abby gave him the squinty eye. ‘I am housetrained. It’s just your house is always so darn perfect it makes me feel like I’m walking into a Vogue Living set.’
He took the umbrella and placed it on a stand near the door, somehow without allowing a single droplet of water to fall. Amazing. ‘Isn’t Ella with you?’
‘She’s got a parent teacher meeting at school this evening,’ Abby said. ‘I thought I’d drop in by myself. To...erm...see how you are.’
‘I’m fine—as you can see.’
There was a pregnant silence. A triplets or even quads pregnant silence.
Abby wondered if he was thinking about That Night. Did he ever think about it? Did he even remember it? Did he remember touching her so gently? Resting his head on her shoulder and then cradling her cheek in his hand like he was going to kiss her?
His eyes moved between each of hers in a studying way, like an academic trying to make sense of a complicated article. He was the only one who looked at her like that. In that quiet, assessing way that made her nerves start to jangle. As if he was searching for the frightened, abandoned child she had hidden deep inside herself so many years ago.
The child no one ever saw.
No one.
‘Abby.’ His voice contained a note of censure. ‘I’m really busy right now so—’
Abby shoved the box of cookies towards him. ‘Here—I made these for you.’
He took the box like he was taking a detonating device. ‘What’s this for?’
‘They’re your favourite cookies. I made them before I came over.’
He gave a God-give-me-strength sigh and put the box down on the polished walnut hall table. He led the way to the sitting room, offering her the sofa with the wave of a hand, but he remained standing as if he had set himself a time limit on her visit. ‘What do you want?’
‘That’s a bit rude, don’t you think? Just because I call on you with your favourite cookies you immediately assume I want something in return,’ Abby said, folding her arms and affecting a wounded expression that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a three-year-old.
Luke’s gaze went to her pouting lower lip, lingered there for a beat before coming back to mesh with hers. When those dark blue eyes locked on hers something wearing feather slippers shuffled across the floor of her belly. He cleared his throat and scraped his hand over his jaw. ‘Scraped’ being the operative word because the amount of stubble he had going on there was a telling reminder of the potent male hormones surging through his body. He was normally so clinically clean-shaven it was a shock to see him so ungroomed. Not a nasty shock. A pleasant I-would-like-to-see-more-of-this-side-to-him shock.
Which was kind of shocking in itself because Abby had taught herself not to notice Luke Shelverton. He was her best friend’s older brother. It was a boundary she had sworn never to
cross. But for some reason her eyes were getting a little too happy about resting on Luke’s staggeringly handsome features. His sapphire-blue eyes were framed and fringed by jet-black eyebrows and lashes, but his hair was a rich dark brown and was currently ruffled as if he’d been combing it with his fingers. Broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, with an abdomen you could crack walnuts on, he was the stuff of female fantasies. He had the sort of facial and body structure that would have made Michelangelo rush off to stock up on chisels and marble.
‘Look, about that night...’ he said.
‘I’m not here about that night,’ Abby said. ‘I’m here about another night. The most important night of my life.’ She took a quick breath and let it out in a rush. ‘I need you to do me a favour. I need a fiancé for one night.’ There. She’d said it. She’d put it out there.
Everything on his face stilled. His entire body seemed to be snap frozen as if every muscle and ligament and corpuscle of blood had turned to stone.
Even the air seemed to be sucked right out of the room.
But then he let out a breath and walked over to a drinks cabinet. ‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Would you like a drink before you go?’
Abby sat on the sofa and crossed one leg over the other as if she was settling in for the evening. No way was she leaving until she had this nailed. ‘I’ll have a red wine.’ White wine wasn’t going to cut it this time. And she certainly wasn’t in the mood for champagne.
Not until she convinced Luke to help her.
Luke came over with the wine and handed it to her. Abby tried to avoid his fingers in the exchange but somehow they both let go of the glass at the same time and it landed with a blood-like splash over the front of her brand-new baby blue cotton and cashmere blend sweater. Well, it wasn’t brand new—she’d bought it at a second-hand shop for a ridiculously cheap price—but it was cashmere.
‘Oops!’ She leapt off the sofa, almost knocking him over in her scramble to get up. But her leap sent more drops of wine splashing over the cream carpet and the sofa. ‘Oh, no...’
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