JACQUELINE BAIRD

Mediterranean Tycoons: Untamed & Unleashed: Picture of Innocence / Untamed Italian, Blackmailed Innocent / The Italian's Blackmailed Mistress


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      Mills & Boon is proud to present a wonderful selection of novels featuring her trademark Mediterranean males from international bestselling author

      JACQUELINE BAIRD

      Each volume has three terrific, powerful and passionate stories written by a queen of the genre. We know you’ll love them…

      JACQUELINE BAIRD was born and brought up in Northumbria. She met her husband when she was eighteen. Eight years later, after many adventures around the world, she came home and married him. They still live in Northumbria and now have two grown sons.

      Jacqueline’s number one passion is writing. She has always been an avid reader and she had her first success as a writer at the age of eleven, when she won first prize in the Nature Diary of the Year competition at school. But she felt a little guilty because her diary was more fiction than fact.

      She always loved romance novels and, when her sons went to school all day, she thought she would try writing one. She’s been writing for Mills & Boon ever since and she still gets a thrill every time a new book is published.

      When Jacqueline is not busy writing, she likes to spend her time travelling, reading and playing cards. She was a keen sailor until a knee injury ended her sailing days, but she still enjoys swimming in the sea when the weather allows.

      With a more sedentary lifestyle, she does visit a gym three times a week and has made the surprising discovery that she gets some good ideas while doing the mind-numbingly boring exercises on the cycling and weight machines.

       Mediterranean Tycoons Untamed & Unleashed

       Picture of Innocence

       Untamed Italian, Blackmailed Innocent

       The Italian’s Blackmailed Mistress

       Jacqueline Baird

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       About the Author

       Title Page

      Picture of Innocence

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       EPILOGUE

       Untamed Italian, Blackmailed Innocent

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       EPILOGUE

       The Italian’s Blackmailed Mistress

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       Copyright

Picture of Innocence

       CHAPTER ONE

      LORENZO ZANELLI, owner of the centuries-old Zanelli Merchant Bank, originally bankers to Italian principalities and now a global concern, exited the elevator at his office suite on the top floor of the magnificent old building in the heart of Verona, a frown marring his broad brow.

      His business lunch with Manuel Cervantes, the head of an Argentinean conglomerate whose family had been valued clients for years, had gone well, but Lorenzo was not a happy man … His secretary had called to warn him he was going to be late for his next appointment as his lunch had severely overrun—despite the fact that they had completed their business quite quickly.

      As soon as work was out of the way Manuel had turned to a more personal topic: the necessity of giving up his career as a mountaineer and keen photographer to take over the running of the company after the death of his father five years ago and his subsequent marriage and two children. Then finally he had shown Lorenzo some shots he had belatedly got around to printing from his last trip to the Alps.

      They were pictures taken at the main base camp on Manuel’s final expedition to Mont Blanc, and included by sheer chance a few shots of Lorenzo’s brother, Antonio, and Damien Steadman his friend, wearing bright red jackets and even brighter grins, just arriving as Manuel’s team were about to start their ascent.

      The next morning Manuel’s team had been on the last stage of the climb to the summit when he had received news that his father had suffered a heart attack. He’d been airlifted off the mountain by helicopter, and his last shot was a view of the mountain as he was flown down to base camp for the dash back to Argentina to be at his father’s bedside. He had heard much later of Antonio’s tragic death, and had thought Lorenzo would like to have what were probably the last pictures of his brother. Lorenzo was grateful, but it brought back memories he had spent years trying to forget.

      Lorenzo had been looking through the photos as he’d walked back to his offices, taking in the implications of the detail in the landscape shot Manuel had pointed out to him, when he’d literally bumped into an old friend, Olivia Paglia, which had delayed him even further.

      His frown deepened as he saw the fair head of a woman seated in the reception area, obviously waiting for him. He had almost forgotten about Miss Steadman, and now was