One Christmas Night In…

      A Night in the Palace

      Carole Mortimer

      A Christmas Night to Remember

      Helen Brooks

      Texas Tycoon’s Christmas Fiancée

      Sara Orwig

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      We all dream of being swept off our

      feet by an attractive, successful and

      charismatic man; getting swept away

      to an exciting, exotic location.

      Spend

      ONE

      Christmas NIGHT IN …

      Italy, London or

      on the American tycoon’s yacht!

      Three new, irresistible, festive romances

      from bestselling, beloved authors

      CAROLE MORTIMER,

      HELEN BROOKS & SARA ORWIG

       A Night in the Palace

      Carole Mortimer

      About the Author

      CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978 and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon^®. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

       Look for exciting new novels from Carole Mortimer available from Mills & Boon^® Modern™ romance and Historical romance.

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘THIS is an urgent announcement for Ms Giselle Barton, travelling on the thirteen-thirty flight to Rome. Please come immediately to desk number six in the departure terminal. Ms Giselle Barton—go immediately to desk number six.’

      Lily Barton—no one but her dearly missed mother had ever called her Giselle!—had struggled all the way through the airport terminal, dragging her wayward case behind her to desk number fifty-two to join the long queue of people waiting to book in for the flight to Rome. She now gave a disbelieving groan at the realisation that desk number six had to be all the way back where she had originally started from.

      So far on this cold December morning, only two days before Christmas, Lily’s taxi had been late picking her up from her apartment, and the freezing temperatures and the snow that had been falling for most of the night had made the journey to the airport both slow and treacherous—ensuring that Lily was likely to be the very last passenger to join the queue checking in for Rome. As a consequence she would probably be allocated a lousy seat on the plane. No doubt squashed between two overweight businessmen who would spend the whole flight trying to look down the scooped neckline of her blue sweater once she had removed the heavy jacket she had worn against the freezing English weather outside!

      To add to her misery, one of the wheels had decided to drop off her suitcase—an old and battered one of her mother’s—as the taxi driver pulled it out of the boot of the car outside the airport. It had then refused to be fixed back into place, meaning that Lily now carried a superfluous wheel in her over-large shoulder bag—which had already weighed a ton even before the addition of the metal wheel—and the suitcase now had a tendency to veer off to the left as she attempted to drag it along behind her.

      If, for some reason, she was now going to be bumped off the flight to Rome—which was highly likely considering how late she had booked her ticket and the fact that most flights tended to be overbooked at this time of year—she was just going to sit down and howl! It really would be the last straw in an already disastrous day.

      ‘Ms Giselle Barton—please come immediately to desk number six in the departure terminal.’

      ‘All right, all right, all right!’ Lily muttered as the announcement was repeated, grabbing the handle of her suitcase to walk back to where she had started. The announcement had sounded more imperious this time, she noted, which probably meant she was definitely going to get bumped off the flight. No doubt with an offer to rebook her onto one leaving after Christmas.

      Damn, damn, damn.

      It had been a last-minute decision to spend Christmas in Rome with her brother—Felix had moved over there to work as PA to Count Dmitri Scarletti three months ago—when Lily’s original plans for the holidays had fallen through. She should have known better than to think that Danny, the man she had been dating for the past couple of months, would abandon his divorced mother—with whom he still lived—in order to spend Christmas with her after Miriam had made it clear she had no intention of inviting Lily to join them. The perfect time, Lily had decided ruefully, to end that particular going-nowhere relationship.

      Thank goodness her emotions hadn’t been seriously involved; Danny, a fellow teacher at the secondary school where they both worked, had been fun to go out to the cinema or dinner with, but his domineering and demanding mother was a definite turn off!

      Once her decision to go to Rome for Christmas had been made, Lily had felt her excitement start to grow. She had never been to Rome—or anywhere out of England, as it happened—and it would be lovely to see her brother again after all these months apart. Their parents had both died eight years ago, bringing brother and sister closer than ever, and emails and phone calls just weren’t the same as actually spending time with the irrepressible Felix.

      Well … it would have been exciting to spend Christmas in Rome with her brother, after Danny had proved to be such a disappointment, but as Lily was about to be bumped off the flight she might just have to settle for a turkey meal for one in front of the television in England. Wonderful. She didn’t think!

      The heating in the terminal seemed to be on full, ensuring that Lily was hot as well as bothered by the time she reached the other end of the building—only to stand in the middle of the cavernous and crowded terminal for several disorientated minutes as she endeavoured to locate desk six.

      There didn’t appear to be a desk six. Desk five, yes. And a desk seven. But no desk six—

      ‘Miss Barton?’

      Lily turned abruptly, almost falling over her own suitcase as it remained solidly in place behind her without the benefit of that second wheel. Lily blew several tendrils of platinum blond hair out of her eyes before focusing on the beautiful dark-haired flight attendant who stood up from behind an unmarked desk and towered over Lily’s five feet two inches in height as she moved to join her. ‘I’m Lily Barton, yes …’

      The other woman eyed her uncertainly. ‘Lily? But—’

      ‘Don’t worry about it—it’s a family thing.’ Lily had absolutely no interest in explaining that as a young child her brother, unable to get his tongue around the name Giselle, had instead called her Lelly, which had eventually become Lily. And stuck fast. Thank goodness; Giselle sounded like someone’s elderly aunt. And whilst she might one day become exactly that, at only twenty-six she preferred to stick with Lily! ‘See.’ She fished her passport out of the zip pocket of her bag and held it in front of the other woman’s beautifully straight nose.

      Not the most flattering photograph ever taken of her, Lily acknowledged ruefully. Oh, her long and completely straight—and completely natural—platinum-blond hair was tidy enough, but her blue eyes had widened as soon as the flash went off, giving her a slightly startled appearance. As she hadn’t been allowed to smile her face looked slightly woebegone,