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      One Night With His

       Virgin Mistress

      Sara Craven

      About the Author

      SARA CRAVEN was born in South Devon, and grew up surrounded by books in a house by the sea. After leaving grammar school she worked as a local journalist, covering everything from flower shows to murders. She started writing for Harlequin in 1975. Sara Craven has appeared as a contestant on the Channel Four game show Fifteen to One, and in 1997 won the title of Television Mastermind of Great Britain.

      Sara shares her Somerset home with several thousand books and an amazing video and DVD collection. When she’s not writing, she likes to travel in Europe, particularly in Greece and Italy. She loves music, theatre, cooking and eating in good restaurants, but reading will always be her greatest passion. Since the birth of her twin grandchildren in New York City, she has become a regular visitor to the Big Apple.

      PROLOGUE

      HE’D had, he decided, more than enough. First, there’d been that burning nightmare of a journey, wondering if each moment would be their last, then the flight in the Hercules, and now this damned farce of a press conference with its endless questions.

      When all he really wanted was complete solitude, an opportunity to get out of clothes that stank and felt as if they were crawling, and a torrent of hot water to rid him of the dirt and the fear and make him human again. And God help anyone who got in his way.

      But now the idiot female reporter in the front row was batting her eyelashes at him once more. She’d been behaving as if she knew him, he thought wearily. And what was that all about?

      ‘So,’ she said, ‘can you describe for my readers how you felt?’

      ‘I was running for my life,’ he said tersely. ‘What do you think?’

      ‘But you were the leader,’ she went on. ‘You got everyone to safety. What’s it like, finding you’re a hero?’

      ‘Madam,’ he said curtly, ‘I’m tired and filthy, and no one’s bloody hero. Not now. Not ever. I simply did my job. And, if you’ve nothing more sensible to ask, I’m out of here.’

      They’d laid on a car to take him home, and he was thankful, knowing he wouldn’t have been fit to drive himself. He was also grateful that, by some miracle, he still had his wallet and his keys and that soon he’d be able to find sanctuary and the peace he craved.

      Yet as soon as he walked into the flat and closed the door behind him, his senses, honed by the dangers of the past few days and nights, told him that something was wrong. That he was not alone.

      He stood, listening intently for a moment, recognising that it was the sound of a shower he could hear, then went soft-footed down the hallway towards his bedroom.

      If he’s still here, invading my space, he thought, I may well kill him.

      He strode into the bathroom and halted, his furious gaze fixed incredulously on the slender shape clearly visible behind the glass walls of the shower cabinet.

      ‘God in heaven,’ he spat under his breath, ‘I don’t believe this.’

      And he stepped forward and wrenched open the doors of the shower to reveal a naked, beautiful and terrified girl.

      CHAPTER ONE

       A week earlier

      I‘T SEEMS almost too good to be true,’ Tallie Paget said with a sigh.

      ‘In which case, it probably is,’ her friend Lorna cautioned dourly. ‘You hardly know this guy. For heaven’s sake, take care.’

      Tallie gave her a reassuring smile. ‘But that’s exactly what I shall be doing, don’t you see? Taking care of Kit Benedict’s flat while he’s in Australia. Living rent-free, with just the electricity and heating bills to pick up, which I shall naturally be keeping to an absolute minimum.

      ‘That has to be better than starving in a garret while I get the book finished—even if I found a garret I could afford.’

      She paused. ‘There’s a word for this kind of thing.’

      ‘I know there is,’ said Lorna. ‘Insanity.’

      ‘Serendipity, actually,’ Tallie informed her. ‘Making happy and accidental discoveries, according to the dictionary. Just think—if I hadn’t had an evening job in one of the wine bars which Kit’s company supplies, and he hadn’t seen me scouring the evening paper for a shed in someone’s garden at less than a thousand pounds a month, none of this would have happened.’

      ‘And moving out of your present flat,’ Lorna asked dryly. ‘Is that another happy accident?’

      ‘No, of course not.’ Tallie looked down at her empty coffee cup. ‘But I can’t stay there, not under the circumstances. You must see that. And Josie made it quite clear she wasn’t planning to move out and live … with him.’

      ‘God, she’s a charmer, your cousin,’ said Lorna. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if she asked you to be her bridesmaid.’

      ‘Nor me.’ Tallie bit her lip. ‘I can hear her now. “But Natalie, Mother will be mortified if you refuse. And it isn’t as if you and Gareth were ever really involved.”’

      ‘No,’ said Lorna. ‘And just as well, under the circumstances.’

      Tallie sighed. ‘I know. And I also know I’ll come to see that myself one day.’ Her voice wobbled slightly. ‘But not quite yet.’

      Lorna gave her a searching look. ‘And this Kit Benedict—promise me you’re not falling for him on the rebound.’

      ‘Heavens, no,’ Tallie said, aghast. ‘I’ve told you. He’s off to Australia touring vineyards to learn more about the business. Besides, he’s not my type in the slightest.’

      Her type, she thought with a pang, was tall, with blond hair falling across his forehead, blue eyes and a lazy smile. Kit Benedict, on the other hand, was medium height, dark, and rather too full of himself.

      ‘He needs a house-sitter,’ she went on. ‘I need somewhere to live. Done deal.’

      ‘So what’s it like, this place of his? The usual bachelor pad, overflowing with empty bottles and take-away cartons?’

      ‘The total opposite,’ Tallie assured her more cheerfully. ‘It’s on the top floor of this Edwardian block, with an utterly fabulous living room—wonderful squashy sofas and chairs, mixed in with genuine antiques, plus views all over London. There’s a kitchen to die for, and two massive bedrooms. Kit said I could use whichever I wanted, so I’m having his—the master with its own gorgeous bathroom.’

      Her room at Josie’s was like a shoe box, she thought. One narrow single bed, with a zip-up plastic storage container underneath it for her limited wardrobe. No cupboard, so the rest of her clothes were hanging from two hooks on the back of the door.