The Wedding Date. Ally Blake
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Praise for Ally Blake
“Fast-paced and sexy, graced with great characters and funny dialogue, this one’s a standout from start to finish.’
—RT Book Reviews on
Dating the Rebel Tycoon
‘Ally Blake’s The Magnate’s Indecent Proposal starts with an amusing premise and quickly moves into an entertaining love-at-first-sight tale. It’s full of humor, witty dialogue, a hero to die for and a heroine that’s his match in every way.’ —RT Book Reviews
‘Flirty and totally funny,
The Magnate’s Indecent Proposal will leave readers smiling and thoroughly entertained by its characters. Ms Blake has penned an extraordinary story.’ —www.cataromance.com
‘Ms Blake’s prose is a revelation. She lets the characters speak for themselves—no telling here, thank you very much—and their dialogue zips along in a demonstrable meeting of true minds. It’s funny. It’s zingy. It’s touching. It is, in other words, just plain good.’
—www.likesbooks.com on
The Magnate’s Indecent Proposal
About the Author
When ALLY BLAKE was a little girl she made a wish that when she turned twenty-six she would marry an Italian two years older than her. After it actually came true she realised she was onto something with these wish things. So, next she wished that she could make a living spending her days in her pyjamas, eating M&Ms and drinking scads of coffee while turning her formative experiences of wallowing in teenage crushes and romantic movies into creating love stories of her own. The fact that she is now able to spend her spare time searching the internet for pictures of handsome guys for research purposes is merely a bonus!
Come along and visit her website at www.allyblake.com
Also by Ally Blake
The Rules of Engagement
Getting Red-Hot with the Rogue
Dating the Rebel Tycoon
A Night with the Society Playboy
The Magnate’s Indecent Proposal
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
The Wedding Date
Ally Blake
MILLS & BOON
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This one’s for white chocolate raspberry muffins
and macadamia choc chip cookies.
Or, more specifically, the fab staff at my fave
local cafés who let me write this book in their
welcoming warmth and know my order by heart.
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU’RE him! Aren’t you?’
The gorgeous specimen of manhood in the dark sunglasses, at the pointy end of a squat pale pink fingernail, sat stock still. To the eclectic, late-afternoon Brunswick Street crowd rushing past the sidewalk café he would have appeared simply cool. Collected. Quietly attentive behind a half-smile so effortlessly sexy it could stop traffic. Literally.
Hannah knew better.
Hannah, who worked harder and with longer hours than anyone else she knew, would have bet her precious life savings on the fact that, behind those ubiquitous dark sunglasses he was hoping, almost desperately, that the older woman on the other end of the finger might quickly realise she had mistaken him for someone else.
No such luck.
‘You are!’ the woman continued, flat feet planted determinedly on the uneven cobbled ground. ‘I know you are! You’re the guy who makes that Voyagers TV show. I’ve seen you in magazines. And on the telly. My daughter just loooves you. She even considered going into training once, so she could be one of those regular-type people you send off into the wild and up mountains with nothing but a toothbrush and a packet of Tim-Tams. Or however it goes. And that’s saying something! It’s all but impossible to get that girl off the couch. You know what? I should give you her number. She’s quite pretty in her way, and unquestionably single …’
Sitting—with apparently Ninja-like invisibility—on the other side of the rickety table that served as Knight Productions’ office those times when the boss felt the need to get out of the confines of their manic headquarters, Hannah had to cover her mouth to smother the laugh threatening to bubble to the surface.
Any other time of day or night her boss was like the mountains he had so famously conquered before turning his attentions to encouraging others to do the same on TV. He was colossal, tough, unyielding, indomitable, enigmatic. Which was why seeing him wriggle and squirm and practically lose the power of speech under the attentions of an overtly loving fan was always a moment to relish.
It had taken Hannah less than half a day of the year she’d worked for Bradley Knight to realise that overt adoration was her boss’s Achilles’ heel. Awards, industry accolades, gushing peers, bowing and scraping minions—all turned him to stone.
And then there were the fans. The many, many, many fans who knew a good thing when they saw it. And there was no denying that Bradley Knight was six feet four inches of very good thing.
Just like that, the laughter tickling Hannah’s throat turned into a small, uncomfortable lump.
She frowned deeply, cleared her throat, and shifted on her wrought-iron seat, redistributing the balance of her buttocks. And more importantly her train of thought.
The very last thing her boss needed was even the smallest clue that in moments of overworked, overtired weakness he’d even given her the occasional tummy-flutter. And sweaty palms. And hot flushes. And raging fantasies the likes of which she wouldn’t dare share with even her best friend, whose good-natured ribbing about Hannah’s constant proximity to their gorgeous boss had come all too close to hitting the mark on a number of occasions.
The beep of a car horn split the air, and Hannah flinched out of her heady daydream to find herself breathing a little too heavily and staring moonily at her boss.
Hannah frowned so hard she pulled a muscle in her neck.
She’d worked her backside off to get there, to take any job she could get in order to gain experience before finally finding the one she loved. The one she was really good at. The one she was meant to do. And she wasn’t going to do anything to risk that career path now.
Even if that wasn’t reason