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       The Greek Tycoon’s Convenient Bride

       Kate Hewitt

      About the Author

      KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon^® romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling and learning to knit.

      After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years, and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children and the possibility of one day getting a dog. Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website, www.kate-hewitt.com

      PROLOGUE

      HE WATCHED her from the shadows.

      Lukas Petrakides stood behind the camouflaging fronds of a palm tree, his eyes tracking the young woman as she slipped from her hotel room onto the silky sand of the beach.

      Dark, wild curls blew around her face and her slender arms crept around herself in a hug that was pitiably vulnerable.

      He hadn’t meant to stumble upon her—or anyone—here. He’d been consumed with a restless energy, his mind full of plans for the new resort that had just opened here in the Languedoc, minutes from a sleepy village, stretching out to a pristine beach.

      He’d needed to escape the confines of his own suite, his own mind, even if just for a moment.

      The wind and the waves shimmering beneath a diamond sky had soothed him, and he’d slipped off his shoes, rolled up the cuffs of his trousers, and strode down the smooth, white sand.

      And had found her.

      He didn’t know what had drawn him to her, why that slender form seemed to hold so much grace, beauty, desire.

      Sorrow.

      Her head was bowed, her shoulders slightly slumped. The look of someone in grief or pain.

      Still he felt a blaze of feeling deep within. A need. A connection.

      He took one step towards her, an impulse, an instinct, before checking himself. He knew his presence here would cause questions, complications he couldn’t afford.

      He had to keep his reputation above the faintest reproach. He always had. So he stood in the shadows, watched her walk towards the waves, and wondered.

      She stood on the shore, the waves lapping her bare feet, and gazed out at the calm waters of the Mediterranean. She threw one worried glance over her shoulder towards the sliding glass door of her hotel room, as if someone were there, waiting, watching, as he was.

      Who waited for her in there? A boyfriend? Husband?

      A lover?

      Whoever it was, it was none of his business.

      If he were a different man—with a different life, different responsibilities—he might not check that impulse. He might walk up to her, say hello, make conversation.

      Nothing sleazy or sordid; he didn’t want that. Just honest conversation, a shared moment. Something real and warm and alive.

      The desire for it shook him, vibrated deep in his being. He shook his head. It was never going to happen.

      A bitter smile twisted his lips as he watched her. She dropped her arms, raised her face to the moon-bathed sky. The breeze off the sea moulded her cheap sundress to the slight contours of her body. Her curves were boyish at best, yet Lukas still felt a stirring of desire.

      A desire he wouldn’t act upon. Couldn’t. As the only son of his father, the only heir to the Petrakides real estate fortune, he carried too many responsibilities to shrug them off lightly for a mere dalliance with a slip of a girl. For a moment’s connection.

      He would never let it be anything more.

      His grey eyes hardened to pewter. He thought he heard her give a little shuddering sigh, but perhaps it was the wind. Perhaps it was his imagination.

      Perhaps that sound had come from him.

      She jerked her head around sharply, and he drew in a breath as he stepped back, deeper into the shadows. Had he made a sound—one that she’d heard?

      Her gaze swept the beach, fastened on the sliding glass door to her hotel room. She hadn’t seen him, he realised; something from inside the room—a person? A man?—had beckoned her.

      Her body sagged slightly, her arms dropping to her sides, her head bowed as she turned to head back inside.

      Lukas watched her go, wondered who—what—had called her. Why did she look so sorrowful, as if the weight of the world rested on those slight shoulders?

      He knew how that felt. He understood about crippling weight.

      The sliding glass door closed with a click, and, suppressing another wave of longing, Lukas turned to head back to his private suite.

      CHAPTER ONE

      RHIANNON DAVIES checked her reflection one last time before nodding to the babysitter.

      ‘Right … I should only be an hour or two.’ She glanced uncertainly at the baby sitting on the floor, chewing on her house keys and looking at her with dark, soulful eyes. ‘She might need a nap in a little while.’

      The babysitter, a stout Frenchwoman with an impassive expression, nodded once before stooping to pick Annabel up in her arms.

      Rhiannon watched, noticed how the older woman’s arms went comfortably around Annabel’s chubby middle and carried her with a confident ease she had yet to feel herself.

      ‘I don’t think she’ll cry,’ she ventured, and was answered with another brisk nod.

      In the two weeks since Annabel had been in her care, the baby had hardly cried at all. Despite the whirl of events, the change of both home and mother, she simply regarded the world with big, blank eyes. Rhiannon suspected the poor mite was in shock.

      That was why she was here, she told herself firmly, not for the first time, ignoring the pangs of guilt and longing stabbing her middle. Her heart.

      She had come to France, to this exclusive resort, to Lukas Petrakides, to give Annabel some stability. To give her love.

      Annabel stuck a fist in her mouth and chewed while gazing in blank curiosity at the woman who’d come so abruptly into her life.

      Rhiannon.

      They hadn’t bonded, Rhiannon acknowledged, hadn’t really tried. It was too strange, too difficult, too sad.

      She’d never