Forbidden until their sn.., p.1
Forbidden Until Their Snowbound Night, page 1
Aerin tried to ignore the tiny feather-duster flutter along the floor of her belly.
“I’m sure you’ll be a perfect gentleman.”
Drake’s scarred eyebrow came up again in a cynical arc. “Me? Perfect?” He gave a deep chuckle of wry amusement and added, “I hardly think so.” His hooded gaze dipped to her mouth for an infinitesimal moment, the atmosphere in the office charged with a nerve-tingling energy. His gaze came back to hers, and she let out a breath she had forgotten she was holding. That was surely why she was a little light-headed, right? Not just because he was looking at her with those intensely dark eyes.
“I—I’d better get going...” Aerin scooped her bag off the floor and slung its strap over her shoulder. “I’ll book the flights and get back to you with the details. The dress for the dinner is formal.” She turned for the door, more flustered than she cared to admit in his alluring presence. She had never been alone with him for such a long period before. How was she going to manage the weekend?
Weddings Worth Billions
Say yes...to the wedding of your dreams!
At Happily Ever After Weddings, nothing short of perfection will do! Best friends Ruby, Harper and Aerin will not rest until they give each überrich client a wedding beyond their wildest dreams.
Still, while the trio witness true love on an almost daily basis, they have yet to experience it themselves. Will the arrival of three billionaires lead Ruby, Harper and Aerin to say “I do,” too?
Read Ruby and Lucas’s story in
Cinderella’s Invitation to Greece
Read Harper and Jack’s story in
Nine Months After That Night
Read Aerin and Drake’s story in
Forbidden Until Their Snowbound Night
All available now!
Melanie Milburne
Forbidden Until Their Snowbound Night
Melanie Milburne read her first Harlequin novel at the age of seventeen, in between studying for her final exams. After completing a master’s degree in education, she decided to write a novel, and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and a keen dog lover and trainer. She enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the HOLT Medallion, a prestigious award honoring outstanding literary talent.
Books by Melanie Milburne
Harlequin Presents
The Billion-Dollar Bride Hunt
The Scandalous Campbell Sisters
Shy Innocent in the Spotlight
A Contract for His Runaway Bride
Wanted: A Billionaire
One Night on the Virgin’s Terms
Breaking the Playboy’s Rules
One Hot New York Night
Weddings Worth Billions
Cinderella’s Invitation to Greece
Nine Months After That Night
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
To Louis Jacques, my beautiful toy poodle puppy. You are only a baby, but you have already brought so much laughter and joy to us. You are a mischievous pocket rocket who is unstoppable and completely and utterly adorable. xxxx
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM THE PRINCE’S ROYAL WEDDING DEMAND BY LORRAINE HALL
CHAPTER ONE
AERIN SAW HIM before he saw her. Drake Cawthorn was standing on the corner of the street opposite her, checking something on his phone while he waited for the ‘walk’ signal at the busy London intersection near his office. She took a moment to study him in secret and a little frisson danced down her spine. Drake was head and shoulders over everyone else in the crowd, with hair as black and sleek as a raven’s wing and a strong nose that looked like it might once have been broken. He was wearing a dark blue suit teamed with a crisp white business shirt that emphasised his olive-toned skin. His tie was a checked blue, but it was loosened at his neck, as if he had tugged at it impatiently at one point during the day and not bothered to readjust it. He would have ticked number one on her soulmate checklist for ‘tall, dark and handsome’ perfectly if it weren’t for his bent nose and the jagged scar that interrupted his left eyebrow.
The pedestrian signal beeped and Drake lifted his head from his phone and his eyes met Aerin’s. Even though she was several metres away, as soon as that bottomless dark brown gaze meshed with hers it was like being struck by a bolt of lightning.
Every. Single. Time.
Which was why she didn’t cross paths with him unless there was absolutely no choice. He was the celebrity lawyer who specialised in iron-clad prenuptial agreements she and her wedding business partners recommended to clients from time to time. But Aerin wasn’t standing outside his suite of rooms hoping to see him about a business matter—she preferred to email or send a text to inform him of a client’s wish to see him. This visit was personal. Embarrassingly, skin-crawlingly personal. Aerin hadn’t seen him face to face in months, and normally, she liked it that way. She had turned keeping her distance from him into quite a consummate skill. She found his arrant masculinity a little too...unsettling. His hardwired cynicism too jarring to a hopeless romantic as herself. And his sardonic smile and those dark chocolate eyes a little too mocking.
Drake strode across the intersection in long easy strides, carving his way through the bustle of people until he came to her side of the street. Her feet were suddenly glued to the footpath, her heart doing a complicated gymnastics routine in her chest and her cheeks feeling hot enough to buckle the bitumen.
‘Hi there, Goldilocks. Were you on your way to see me?’ His tone was as gently teasing as his smile.
Aerin could hardly deny it was him she had come to see when she was standing outside his office building, but she would have dearly liked to. She had done a walk-by or two to summon up the courage to see him, oscillating whether she should go ahead or melt back in the crowd before she made a complete and utter fool of herself. But she only had five days to find a stand-in date for her high school reunion. If she didn’t find a date to accompany her she would have to suffer the embarrassment of being the last of her school friends to find a partner.
Every year that passed, she was becoming more and more of a pariah to her friends. The only singleton. The only virgin. The pitying looks from her school friends were worse each year, she was sure she wasn’t imagining it. The covert whispers, the speculation about her single status, the pointed questions and glances at her ringless left hand, when each of her friends had such gorgeous sparklers winking on their ring fingers you could practically see them from outer space. It was making her wonder if her dream of finding her own Mr Perfect was a little...well, out of touch with reality. It was quite hard to meet people these days and she wasn’t going to download the social media app unless things got desperate. Well, even more desperate than they already were with her nearly thirty and never been kissed.
But she believed in true love.
It was her goal, her lifelong hope.
Her Mr Perfect Soulmate had to be out there. All she had to do was find him.
Aerin gave Drake a mock glower. ‘I wish you’d stop calling me that.’
His wide grin made his eyes dance and fine lines crinkle at the corners. ‘I’ve been calling you that since you had braces on your teeth and pimples on your chin. I must say, you’ve improved greatly with age.’
As her older brother’s friend from university, Drake had been a regular visitor to her family home in years past. For years he had simply been Tom’s friend, Drake Cawthorn, barely worthy of her notice. But once she hit late puberty, she became increasingly aware of him as any young woman did over a handsome and charming man. Fortunately, she had never embarrassed herself by communicating any interest in him. Not that a worldly playboy like him would ever be interested in someone as homespun and conservative as her.
‘Please don’t remind me I’m turning thirty in January.’
Drake widened his eyes as if in stunned surprise. ‘No way. Got anything planned? A big party to celebrate?’
Aerin could feel a blush stealing over her cheeks hot enough to contribute to global warming. What was there to celebrate about turning thirty when she didn’t have a partner, had never had a partner and had not even been kissed? Argh. Her dream of finding Mr Perfect before she turned the big Three O was becoming a nightmare and her biological clock was ticking loud enough to wake up an entire cemetery of bodies. She shifted her gaze from his and gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe.’
He jerked his head in the direction of his suite of rooms. ‘Did you want to see me about a client? I’ve got just under an hour before I’m due in court.’
Aerin shifted her weight from foot to foot and readjusted her tote-bag strap over her left shoulder, conscious of his steady gaze. ‘Erm... I don’t want to bother you when you’re busy...’
‘I’ve always got time for you. Besides, you send a lot of business my way.’ His eyes tw
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Pity. With Jack’s sort of wealth, it could be a messy divorce without one.’
Aerin gave a stiff smile to cover her annoyance at his cynicism. ‘I don’t think they’re ever going to divorce. They’re too much in love and besides, they have baby Marli to consider.’
Drake shrugged one impossibly broad shoulder. ‘Everyone is in love until they aren’t.’
‘Have you ever been in love?’ The question popped out of her mouth before she could slam the emergency brakes on her tongue.
‘No. How about you?’
Her cheeks warmed up again and she couldn’t hold his gaze. A relationships cynic like Drake would mock her quest to find the love of her life. But it was no secret she was waiting not just for Mr Right but Mr Perfect. ‘No, but I’d like to one day.’
There was a short but weighted silence, even the sounds of rushing pedestrians and busy traffic seeming to fade into the background.
‘What did you want to see me about?’ Drake asked, looking down at her with a small frown between his eyebrows.
Aerin chewed at one side of her lower lip. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She began to step away, but he reached out and placed his broad-spanned and tanned hand on her forearm. Her cashmere coat wasn’t enough of a barrier to block the electric heat of his touch. She could not think of a time when he had ever touched her before—or at least not since he had teasingly ruffled her hair when she was a kid. Her gaze connected to his and another fizz of awareness shot through her.
His hand fell away from her arm as if he too had felt the same current of energy, his frown deepening above his dark brown eyes. ‘Is everything all right?’ His voice was pitched low, a deep rough burr of sound that sent another delicate shiver along her spine.
Aerin swallowed thickly and gave him a strained smile. ‘Can we take this somewhere a little more private?’
‘Sure.’
He led the way to the front of his office building and Aerin followed, wondering if she was being a fool for even contemplating asking him to be a stand-in date for her reunion. But who else could she ask? She didn’t want to take a stranger or someone off a dating app. She needed someone who could act convincingly as her love interest for the weekend meet-up in Scotland. Drake was the most experienced man she knew and, even better, he had known her for years. He was perfect...well, not exactly perfect according to her soulmate checklist but good enough to get her over the line. She could not suffer the embarrassment of being the only single person at her school reunion weekend—their last reunion before one of the girls emigrated to Australia with her husband. If Aerin didn’t show up, they would assume it was because of her feelings about still being alone. She had to go and she had to take a stand-in partner. That was the plan.
‘My office is on the top floor,’ Drake said, walking past the four lifts situated on one side of the marble-floored foyer.
Aerin gave him a sideways glance of horror. ‘You’re not expecting me to walk up fifty flights of stairs?’
His mouth tilted in one of his wry smiles that never failed to make her stomach flip-flop. ‘I have my own private lift back here.’ He shouldered open a door and indicated for her to come through while he held it open for her. She moved past him in the doorway, catching an alluring waft of his lemon-and-lime-based aftershave on her way past his tall and lean athletic frame. The door closed behind him with a solid thump, and he led her to a lift marked Private. Drake took out a security tag from his trouser pocket and used it against the sensor and the doors swished open. He held one muscular arm against the lift door and said, ‘After you.’
Aerin stepped inside the lift and he followed her in, the doors closing on a whisper behind him. The sensation of being enclosed in a small space alone with Drake Cawthorn sent her heart rate soaring. The lift was mirrored on three sides, and she caught a glimpse of her flushed features and inwardly cringed. Why did she always have to act like an awkward teenage girl around him? Was it because he was the epitome of sophisticated man about town? A self-made billionaire playboy who had women from all over the globe flocking after him? She was a successful businesswoman, not a gauche teenager.
Well...a single-and-hating-it successful businesswoman. She loved the success, not the singledom.
There was a pinging sound when the lift arrived at Drake’s floor. ‘This way,’ he said, and she followed him down a wide plushily carpeted corridor, past a reception area where a middle-aged woman was typing on a computer. Aerin was fairly certain it was the same woman she had spoken to on a couple of occasions when she’d called to book an appointment for clients.
‘Hold my calls, please, Cathleen,’ Drake said.
Cathleen’s smile of greeting was friendly towards her but Aerin wasn’t sure if it was one of recognition or not. ‘Will do.’
Drake led Aerin to a door marked with his name on a simple plaque. He opened the door and gave a brief on-off smile to indicate for her to go in. She stepped over the threshold and glanced around at the neat but understated décor. Drake’s qualifications were framed on one wall to the left of his large wooden desk. She suspected they were only there to display to his clients he was more than qualified to act for them rather than out of any sense of pride in his own achievements. She knew that Drake had graduated with First Class Honours and taken out the university prize, but she had heard that from her brother, not Drake. There was a selection of artwork on the other walls—nothing too over the top but tasteful landscapes in an old-world style—and the windows afforded a spectacular view over the River Thames and Tower Bridge.
‘Take a seat. Can I get Cathleen to bring you a coffee or tea?’ Drake asked, shrugging off his coat and hanging it inside a cupboard near his desk.
‘No, thanks. I had one not long ago.’ Actually, she’d had three, which was probably why her pulse was racing so fast. Caffeine courage instead of Dutch courage was never a good idea. Her heart was palpitating from the stimulant...or was it because the thought of asking Drake Cawthorn this favour was sending her heart rhythm way out of whack?
Aerin sat, knowing he was too polite to take his own seat until she had taken hers. She placed her tote bag on her lap and laid her hands on top to keep it from slipping to the floor.
Drake sat in his office chair and rolled it closer to his desk, his forearms resting on the polished surface, his fingers loosely interlaced. Aerin’s gaze drifted to those long, tanned fingers and she wondered what it would feel like to have them glide along her skin. She tried to disguise a little shiver, tried but failed. Why was she suddenly thinking about his hands touching her? He was not the type of man she could ever build a future with. He was too worldly, too cynical.
‘Are you cold? I can turn up the heating if you like.’
‘No, I’m fine...’ She licked her lips and forced a smile, conscious of the glowing warmth in her cheeks and the nerves eating at the lining of her stomach like piranha teeth. ‘I have a...a favour to ask.’
He lifted his scar-interrupted eyebrow in an arc, his sharply intelligent gaze unwavering on hers. ‘Go on.’
Aerin gripped her tote bag a little more firmly. Her heart beat out a syncopated rhythm in her chest. Boom-pitty-boom...pitty-pitty-boom-boom.
‘I have a high school reunion this weekend. It’s a drinks and dinner catch-up in a remote village an hour out of Edinburgh, close to our old boarding school, and I... I have no one to take me.’
Drake lifted his arms off his desk and leaned back in his chair, his expression unreadable. ‘Why can’t you go on your own?’
Another wave of heat exploded in her cheeks. ‘For the last twelve years I’ve met up with my school friends once a year just before Christmas and I’ve always gone alone. It wasn’t so bad in the early years because some of the girls were single or between partners. But I’m now the only one without a partner. I can’t face yet another year without producing a date. It’s so mortifying to be the last singleton. I’ll never hear the end of it. They teased me so much last time I thought I would die of embarrassment.’
