A Business Engagement. Merline Lovelace
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In this Duchess Diaries novel, USA TODAY bestselling author Merline Lovelace shows how revenge can be sweet when you have a royal (phony) fiancée.
When the glossy magazine where Lady Sarah St. Sebastian works as an editor names Devon Hunter one of the Ten Sexiest Single Men, he is besieged by embarrassing attention. The perfect revenge? Force Sarah to play his fiancée during a business trip to Paris. Because of a recent family indiscretion, Sarah must agree if she wants to protect the St. Sebastian name. But in the City of Lights, their fake engagement unexpectedly leads to real desire—and dangerous complications….
“I’m sorry, sarah. I jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
Dev reached for her hand, trying to bridge the gap. She slid it away. “Just for the record, I didn’t know the magazine had put a photographer on us.”
“I believe you.”
It was too little, too late. He realized that with her next words.
“I am aware, however, that Alexis wanted to exploit the story, so I take full responsibility for this invasion of your privacy.”
“Our privacy, Sarah.”
“Your privacy,” she countered quietly. “There is no us. It was all just a façade, wasn’t it?”
“That’s not what you said last night,” Dev reminded her…
Dear Reader,
During our years in uniform, Al and I traveled to or were stationed at bases in North and South America, Europe and Asia. Since then, we’ve visited the remaining three continents of Australia, Africa and Antarctica.
Yet of all the wonderful places we’ve explored, Paris holds a special place in my heart. It’s the city of light and love, of glorious art galleries and soaring cathedrals, of cozy cafés and bakeries emitting the mouthwatering scent of fresh-baked baguettes. What better place for two people trapped in a fake engagement to make it real?
I hope you enjoy Sarah and Dev’s story, and that you will watch for Gina and Jack’s story in the near future.
All my best,
Merline
A Business Engagement
Merline Lovelace
A career Air Force officer, MERLINE LOVELACE served at bases all over the world. When she hung up her uniform for the last time she decided to combine her love of adventure with a flair for storytelling, basing many of her tales on her own experiences in uniform. Since then she’s produced more than ninety action-packed sizzlers, many of which have made the USA TODAY and Waldenbooks bestseller lists. Over eleven million copies of her books are available in some thirty countries.
When she’s not tied to her keyboard, Merline enjoys reading, chasing little white balls around the fairways of Oklahoma and traveling to new and exotic locales with her handsome husband, Al. Check her website at www. merlinelovelace.com or friend her on Facebook for news and information about her latest releases.
To Susan and Monroe and Debbie and Scott and most especially, le beau Monsieur Al. Thanks for those magical days in Paris. Next time, I promise not to break a foot—or anything else!
Contents
Prologue
Ah, the joys of having two such beautiful, loving granddaughters. And the worries! Eugenia, my joyful Eugenia, is like a playful kitten. She gets into such mischief but always seems to land on her feet. It’s Sarah I worry about. So quiet, so elegant and so determined to shoulder the burdens of our small family. She’s only two years older than her sister but has been Eugenia’s champion and protector since the day those darling girls came to live with me.
Now Sarah worries about me. I admit to a touch of arthritis and have one annoying bout of angina, but she insists on fussing over me like a mother hen. I’ve told her repeatedly I won’t have her putting her life on hold because of me, but she won’t listen. It’s time, I think, to take more direct action. I’m not quite certain at this point just what action, but something will come to me. It must.
From the diary of Charlotte,
Grand Duchess of Karlenburgh
One
Sarah heard the low buzz but didn’t pay any attention to it. She was on deadline and only had until noon to finish the layout for Beguile’s feature on the best new ski resorts for the young and ultrastylish. She wanted to finish the mock-up in time for the senior staff’s weekly working lunch. If she didn’t have it ready, Alexis Danvers, the magazine’s executive editor, would skewer her with one of the basilisk-like stares that had made her a legend in the world of glossy women’s magazines.
Not that her boss’s stony stares particularly bothered Sarah. They might put the rest of the staff in a flophouse sweat, but she and her sister had been raised by a grandmother who could reduce pompous officials or supercilious headwaiters to a quivering bundle of nerves with the lift of a single brow. Charlotte St. Sebastian had once moved in the same circles as Princess Grace and Jackie O. Those days were long gone, Sarah acknowledged, as she switched the headline font from Futura to Trajan, but Grandmama still adhered to the unshakable belief that good breeding and quiet elegance could see a woman through anything life might throw at her.
Sarah agreed completely. Which was one of the reasons she’d refined her own understated style during her three years as layout editor for a magazine aimed at thirtysomethings