Taggart's Woman

by Carole Mortimer

  The baby smiled at his father, proudly displaying the four teeth that had been recent acquisitions, holding out his arms to the man he adored.

  Heather watched the two of them together, their relationship unmistakable, both being dark-haired and grey-eyed. It was only the second Christmas she and Daniel had shared, their first as a family, and it was a time they had all been looking forward to.

  A shadow darkened her eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ Daniel was instantly attuned to her mood, interesting Jason in the buttons on his jacket as he frowned his concern at Heather.

  ‘Uncle Lionel,’ she explained sadly. ‘I wish things could have been different for him.’

  ‘Darling,’ Daniel squeezed her hand sympathetically, ‘he wouldn’t have wanted to live without Stella, the heart attack was kinder.’

  ‘You’re right.’ She shook off her sadness for what might have been, smiling brightly. ‘Now let’s get this tree decorated; Father Christmas has all those presents to wrap up yet!’

  ‘My present doesn’t need any wrapping,’ Daniel murmured throatily.

  They shared a smile of complete intimacy. ‘That present isn’t going to be under the tree tonight,’ Heather said huskily.

  Daniel looked at the tree, and then at the glowing fireplace. ‘No, I don’t think it will be!’ He put Jason down, the baby instantly crawling to the box of brightly coloured decorations he had been denied touching all day. ‘That rug looks much more comfortable,’ Daniel told Heather softly as he took her in his arms. ‘I love you, Mrs Taggart.’

  ‘And I adore you, Mr Taggart,’ she answered with feeling.

  A family. They had become their own family, needing no one else but each other and Jason, and the other children they hoped to have. They were a real family.

  * * * * *

  Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of USA Today bestselling author

  Carol Marinelli’s next book,

  CLAIMING HIS HIDDEN HEIR

  Seduced then dismissed by her demanding boss Luka, Cecelia’s hiding a secret—their daughter! But when Luka uncovers her deceit, there’s no escaping the consequences of her passionate surrender…

  Keep reading to get a glimpse of

  CLAIMING HIS HIDDEN HEIR

  PROLOGUE

  HE WOULD NOT be hiring Cecelia Andrews.

  Property magnate Luka Kargas had already decided that Candidate Number Two would be his new personal assistant.

  ‘Ms Andrews is here for her interview,’ Hannah, his current PA, informed him.

  ‘There’s no need for me to meet her,’ Luka responded. ‘I’ve decided to go with Candidate Two.’

  ‘Luka!’ Hannah reproached, a little braver now that she was leaving. ‘At least have the decency to see her. She’s been through two extensive interviews with me, and as well as that it’s pouring outside. She had to come across London in the middle of a storm.’

  ‘Not interested,’ Luka said, because he didn’t buy into sob stories. ‘It’s a waste of my time.’

  And a slice of Luka’s time was precious indeed.

  But then Luka suddenly remembered that Ms Andrews had been personally recommended by Justin, a contact he wanted to keep onside.

  ‘Fine, send her in,’ Luka said, deciding to see her briefly but then to get rid of her as soon as he could.

  Impatient fingers drummed the desk as he waited, and then Candidate Three was shown in.

  ‘Ms Andrews.’ Luka stood and shook her right hand, noticing that on her left she wore an engagement ring.

  Nothing would induce him to hire her, for she would have to have the most patient fiancé in the world to tolerate the ridiculous hours she would have to devote to him.

  And everyone knew his reputation.

  He just had to give her a few minutes of his time so he could tell Justin that he had interviewed her but gone with another candidate.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Take a seat.’

  Cecelia knew that although he had called her Ms Andrews he was awaiting correction and an invitation to call her by her first name.

  There would be no such invitation to do so.

  Ms Andrews would do just fine, Cecelia had decided.

  She had read about him, thoroughly researched him, and even been told by his current PA during two prolonged interviews about his bad-boy ways.

  ‘You would have to deal with his girlfriends, or rather his exes,’ Hannah had explained. ‘It can be quite a juggling act at times. Luka works hard all week and then works just as hard breaking hearts at the weekend.’

  Cecelia had seen it all before, and not just through her work. She abhorred the rich, debauched kind of lifestyle he led and with good reason—her mother, Harriet, had lived and died the same way.

  Still, Luka Kargas’s morals were his own concern, not hers. Cecelia had her sights set on working for royalty and he was a step in the right direction, that was all.

  ‘He has a yacht, currently moored in Xanero,’ Hannah had said.

  ‘That’s where he’s from?’ Cecelia checked, although she had found that out in her research.

  ‘Yes, though you won’t be expected to travel there with him and you won’t be involved with the family business there. Luka keeps that strictly separate.’

  She would not be falling for him, Cecelia had reassured both his incumbent PA and herself. The only thing the career-minded Cecelia wanted from Luka Kargas was his name on her résumé and the glowing reference that, after a year’s hard work, he would surely provide.

  But now she had finally met him, and as his long olive fingers had closed around hers, the very sensible Cecelia’s conviction that she would not be attracted to him in the least had wavered somewhat.

  ‘Hannah said you got caught in the storm,’ Luka frowned.

  The skies had darkened just over an hour ago.

  Luka, from his vantage point of the fortieth floor, had watched the black clouds gather and roll over London.

  Candidate Two had arrived drenched and had asked Hannah for a ten-minute delay before proceeding with the interview.

  Usually that would have been enough to ensure a black mark against her name but, having watched the storm himself, Luka had accepted the excuse and the rather bedraggled candidate.

  Cecelia Andrews was far from bedraggled, though.

  She wore a dark grey suit that was immaculate, her blonde hair, worn up, was sleek and smooth, while her make-up was both discreet and in place.

  Hannah had insinuated that a drowned rat sat in the entrance yet the woman who sat before him was far from that.

  ‘I got caught up in the storm,’ Cecelia said, ‘but I wasn’t caught out—I heeded the warnings.’

  And she might want to start heeding them now, she thought, for the impact of him on her senses was like nothing she had ever known.

  He wore a dark suit and tie and his crisp white shirt accentuated his olive skin; he hadn’t shaved that morning.

  The air in the room had changed, as if the charge that had lit the sky for the past hour had joined them.

  Luka Kargas was everything her aunt had warned her about, and though she had told herself she could handle it, and that there was no way she could ever be attracted to someone like him, Cecelia hadn’t allowed for the impact of Luka close up.

  They skipped through the formalities, both determined to get this over and done with and move on with the day.

  ‘Hannah will have explained that the hours are long,’ Luka said.

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Sixteen-hour days at times.’

  ‘Yes.’ Cecelia nodded.

  ‘And there’s an awful lot of travel,’ Luka said. ‘Though for all that the working week is hell, you do get every weekend off.’

  She smiled a tight, slightly disbelieving smile.

  ‘You do,’ Luka said, as he read those full lips. ‘Come Friday night, the entire weekend is yours.’

  ‘Though I’m guessing I wouldn’t be out of here by five p.m.?’
<
br />   ‘No,’ he said. ‘Usually around ten.’

  So not really the entire weekend to herself, Cecelia thought as his black eyes scanned through her paperwork. ‘Why are you finishing up with Justin?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to live in Dubai.’

  ‘I go there a lot,’ Luka said, ‘which would mean, by default, so would you.’

  ‘That’s fine. I just don’t want to live there,’ Cecelia said, and she knew, she just knew, he was alluding to the fact she had a fiancé whose needs would have impacted on her decision.

  He was right.

  Gordon wouldn’t consider it.

  ‘Do you speak Greek?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Cecelia said, suddenly hoping it was a prerequisite for the role and that this torture would therefore come to an end. It was torture because her stomach seemed to be folding in on itself and she all of a sudden could feel the weight of her breasts. She had never had such a violent reaction to another person, though of course it was one-sided.

  Luka Kargas looked thoroughly bored.

  ‘Do you speak any other languages?’ he asked.

  ‘Some French,’ Cecelia said, even though she spoke it very well and had both lived and worked in France for a year.

  Anyway, he didn’t want her French, whether a little or a lot of it, for he screwed up his nose.

  Good, because Cecelia had now decided that she did not want this job.

  She liked safe, and for very good reasons.

  Cecelia liked her world ordered, and ten minutes alone with Luka Kargas had just rocked hers.

  His black eyes were mesmerising and his brusque indifference had her re-crossing her legs.

  Until this moment, sex had been a perfectly pleasant experience, if sometimes a bit of a chore.

  Now, though, she sat across from a man who made her think of it.

  Actually sit and think about torrid, impromptu sex at two p.m. on a Monday afternoon, and that could never do.

  ‘Ms Andrews…’

  ‘Cecelia,’ she corrected, but only because she didn’t want to sound like some uptight spinster.

  And she wasn’t.

  She was engaged to be married, and right now she found herself desperately trying to hold onto that thought.

  Oh, this really would never do!

  ‘Cecelia.’ He nodded. ‘I see that you don’t have any real experience in the hospitality industry.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Cecelia said. ‘Not a jot.’

  ‘A jot?’ His black eyes looked up and met her green ones and she saw that his were not actually black but the deepest of browns.

  ‘I don’t have any experience in the hospitality industry, none at all.’

  ‘And I note that you wear an engagement ring.’

  ‘Excuse me…’ Cecelia frowned ‘…but you can’t comment on that.’

  He waved his hand dismissively.

  Luka read her emergency contact and saw that it wasn’t her fiancé but, in fact, her aunt.

  And she intrigued him a touch. ‘Are you engaged?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cecelia bristled. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

  ‘Cecelia, if you are considering working for me, then you might as well know from the outset that I am not known for my political correctness. I’ll tell it to you straight—I don’t want a PA who is in the throes of planning a big wedding, neither I don’t want someone who is going to have to dash off at six because her fiancé is sulking.’

  Cecelia’s jaw tightened because at times Gordon did just that.

  ‘Mr Kargas, my personal life is not your concern and, let me assure you, it never will be.’

  Never, because she was not taking the job!

  He heard the double meaning behind her words and almost smiled but then checked himself.

  ‘Come over here,’ he said, and stood up and headed to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  It was like no interview she had ever experienced before, Cecelia thought as she stood and walked over to join him.

  Gosh, he was tall.

  And he smelt as if he had bathed in bergamot with a testosterone undertone.

  ‘See the view,’ Luka said.

  ‘It’s amazing.’ Cecelia nodded, looking out across a gleaming, wet and shiny London. The grey skies were starting to clear and black clouds were lined with silver but there was no rainbow that she could see.

  ‘It’s all yours,’ Luka said, and Cecelia frowned. ‘When you finish on a Friday, right up to Monday morning the world out there is your oyster.’ Then he looked over at her. ‘But when you’re here…’

  He expected devotion. Cecelia got his meaning.

  ‘When can you start?’ Luka asked.

  Before she declined, Cecelia took a deep breath and thought of the perks of this job—a salary that was almost twice her current one, endless travel and the Kargas name on her résumé for ever.

  And then she thought of the pitfalls.

  Sixty-hour weeks spent beside this stunning man.

  Her attraction to him was as unexpected as it was unsettling.

  She actually didn’t know what to do.

  ‘I’d like some time to think about it,’ Cecelia said in response to his offer.

  ‘Well, I’m looking for someone who trusts their own instincts and can make prompt decisions.’

  Luka now wanted her working for him.

  She had impressed him when he had not expected to be impressed, yet something told him that if she walked out of the door Cecelia Andrews would not be coming back.

  He could feel her hesitation.

  And because he was Luka Kargas he knew when to push, and how. ‘So, I’ll ask again, when can you start, Cecelia?’

  Never! Her instincts screamed.

  Yet she had so badly wanted this job and the challenge it would bring and, though he was undoubtedly attractive, Cecelia knew herself well enough to be certain she would never get involved with anyone at work.

  ‘Now,’ Cecelia said, shocked at her own decision. ‘I can start now.’

  ‘Then welcome aboard,’

  And as he shook her hand, Cecelia told herself she could handle it.

  Copyright © 2017 by Carol Marinelli

  Don’t miss

  CLAIMING HIS HIDDEN HEIR

  by USA Today bestselling author

  Carol Marinelli,

  available May 2018 wherever

  Harlequin Books and ebooks are sold.

  www.Harlequin.com

  ISBN-13: 978-1-488-07901-6

  Taggart’s Woman

  First published in 1987

  This edition published in 2018

  Copyright © 1987 by Carole Mortimer.

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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