Proof of Their Sin. Dani Collins

Чтение книги онлайн.

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Happy Twentieth Anniversary to my love,

      my husband Doug. (A bit late, but publishing doesn’t happen overnight, honey. Just like a marriage.)

      A loving thank you to my mother, Sharon, for leaving her Janet Dailey books on the coffee table when I was in high school. Yes, this book in your hands is all your fault.

      However, Mom does share credit with the editors at Harlequin London—most especially Suzy Clarke for her initial encouragement and my current editor, Megan Haslam, for the spot-on coaching that make my stories bigger, better, stronger.

      I’d like to also wish a Happy First Anniversary to Sandra and Dave. This is how you get a man to buy a romance novel for his wife, people. Dave will do it. He’s a romantic and a gentleman.

      And a very affectionate acknowledgement of my fellow author Cathryn Parry, who has been the most supportive friend you can imagine. If the planets align, I’ll hand this to you in person.

      CHAPTER ONE

      NOT FOR THE first time in the last several weeks, Lauren Bradley wondered where she should draw the line between becoming the bold, independent woman she’d always wished she could be and behaving like a shameless, demanding radical. Words like licentious, brazen and embarrassment trickled through her mind with increasing frequency as she walked that blurry border.

      Unsurprisingly, when those hurtful words echoed in her head, they were always pronounced in her mother’s thin, distressed voice.

      Flicking one long, brunette braid over her shoulder, Lauren silently told her absent mother to pipe down while she regarded the woman behind the counter of this exclusive hotel salon. The woman had just given Lauren the most excruciatingly polite brush-off and the habits of a lifetime urged Lauren to slink away in quiet disgrace.

      But her heart was beating for two these days, knocking hard against the wall of her breastbone and bouncing back on a spine that had to harden to contain it.

      Dare I? she wondered with a shiver of apprehension.

      Oh, she knew she appeared to be just one more hick tourist come to New York looking for a posh hairstyle to take home as a souvenir, but this meant so much more to her than that. Lauren stood on the threshold of taking control of her life in a way she’d never imagined, but to do so meant shoving past the old Lauren who always smilingly took a backseat to everyone. If she didn’t dig deep and find her true spirit right now she might as well collect her luggage from upstairs and retreat to the empty rooms of her grandmother’s mansion where she could raise her baby with all the fear of drawing attention its mother had suffered most of her life.

      No. Lauren locked her knee, surreptitiously putting her foot down.

      She allowed the salon receptionist to finish the call she’d used to try to dismiss her. Ingrained manners were a pain that way. Besides, Lauren needed the extra seconds to gather her courage and manufacture a gracious smile for the woman who gave her a strained Still here? smile as she hung up.

      “I believe there’s been a miscommunication,” Lauren said with the most warmly modulated yet implacable tone she could muster. “I’m attending the Donatelli Charity Ball this evening.”

      The woman, a little younger than Lauren’s nearly twenty-five, widened her eyelash extensions with a fraction of respect. Exactly. Paolo Donatelli was a man who made every woman stand taller and suck in her stomach.

      A zing of empowerment swept through Lauren. She was name-dropping, sure, but she’d never before СКАЧАТЬ