trong>Praise for MY TALL DARK GREEK BOSS by Anna Cleary:
‘MY TALL DARK GREEK BOSS is a fresh, sassy and sizzling contemporary romance… Anna Cleary is a talented storyteller who combines richly drawn characters, explosive chemistry, red-hot sensuality and dramatic emotional intensity in an irresistible romance that is absolutely impossible to put down!’
—CataRomance
Look out for more fabulous stories from Anna, coming soon in Mills & Boon® Modern Heat™!
‘But…would you feel honourable about violating my person? A woman who’s never been kissed?’
His eyes flickered over her face and throat. She could sense his hesitation, his struggle against temptation. It gave her such an exhilarating feeling to see that she could tempt him from his intent. And he would succumb, she realised with a thrilled, almost incredulous certainty, her heart thundering.
Beneath his black lashes his pupils flared like a hungry wolf’s.
He curled his lean fingers under her jaw. ‘That can be fixed,’ he said. Then he brought his lips down on hers with deliberate, sensual purpose.
At that first firm touch, a fiery tingling sensation shot through her veins like an electric charge, and sent an immediate swell of warmth to her breasts. She tried to remember he was her adversary, and made a half-hearted attempt to cool her response, but he drew her in closer. Then, like the cunning devil he was, he softened the kiss to clever, gentle persuasion, until the fire on her lips ignited her bloodstream and aroused all her secret, intimate places with erotic yearning.
As a child, Anna Cleary loved reading so much that during the midnight hours she was forced to read with a torch under the bedcovers, to lull the suspicions of her sleep-obsessed parents. From an early age she dreamed of writing her own books. She saw herself in a stone cottage by the sea, wearing a velvet smoking jacket and sipping sherry, like Somerset Maugham.
In real life she became a schoolteacher, where her greatest pleasure was teaching children to write beautiful stories.
A little while ago, she and one of her friends made a pact to each write the first chapter of a romance novel in their holidays. From writing her very first line Anna was hooked, and she gave up teaching to become a full-time writer. She now lives in Queensland, with a deeply sensitive and intelligent cat. She prefers champagne to sherry, and loves music, books, four-legged people, trees, movies and restaurants.
Recent novels by this author:
TAKEN BY THE MAVERICK MILLIONAIRE
MY TALL DARK GREEK BOSS
UNTAMED BILLIONAIRE, UNDRESSED VIRGIN
BY
ANNA CLEARY
For Gabi, Ben, Michelle, Jenny, Mirandi, Tina, Vicki,
Terese and Shirley, with love and appreciation.
CHAPTER ONE
CONNOR O’BRIEN’S plane glided into Sydney on the first rays of dawn. The shadowy city materialised below, a mysterious patchwork of rooftops and dark sea, emerging from the mists of night. The comforts it promised were welcome, after the deserts he’d traversed over the last five years in the dubious name of Intelligence, but Connor expected no feeling of homecoming. To him Sydney was just another city. Its spires and skyscrapers felt no more connected to him than the mosques and minarets he’d left behind.
Once on the ground, he breezed through customs, courtesy of his diplomatic status. His honed blending-in skills spared him any undue attention. He was just another tall Australian in the Foreign Service.
The technicalities taken care of, he strolled across the International Terminal with his long easy stride, his single suitcase in tow, laptop case in his spare hand. From force of habit, with covert skill he scanned the groups of sleepy relatives waiting to embrace their loved ones. Wives and girlfriends beaming up at their men and weeping, children running into their fathers’ arms. For him, no one. With his father gone now, he kept no personal connections. No lives at risk for knowing him. His precious anonymity was intact. Not a soul to know or care if Connor O’Brien lived or died, and that was how it had to be.
The glass exit doors opened before him and he walked out into the Australian summer dawn, safe and secure in his solitariness. The sky had lightened to a pale grey, washing out the street lamps to a wan hue. Even for the height of midsummer the morning was warm. The faintest whiff of eucalyptus wafted to him on the breeze like the scent of freedom.
Scanning for the taxi rank, he felt an unaccustomed buzz.
He rubbed his bristly jaw and contemplated the potential amenities of a good hotel. Shower, breakfast, relax with the newspapers, shake off the jet lag…
‘Mr O’Brien?’
A uniformed chauffeur stepped forward from the open rear door of a limo parked in line with the exit. Respectfully he touched his cap. ‘Your lift, sir.’
Connor stilled, every one of his nerves and trigger-sharp reflexes on instant alert.
A thin, querulous voice issued from inside the car. ‘Come on, come on, O’Brien. Give Parkins your gear and let’s get on the road.’
Connor knew that voice. With disbelief he peered into the dim interior. A small elderly man swam into focus, majestically ensconced in the plush upholstery.
Sir Frank Fraser. Wily old fox, legend of the Service and one of his father’s old golfing cronies. But surely the ex-Chief had long since hung up his cloak and dagger and retired to live on the Fraser family fortune? As far as Connor knew, he was now a respectable pillar of the world of wealth and ease.
‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ The quavery voice held the autocrat’s note of incredulity at not being instantly obeyed.
Curiosity outweighed Connor’s chagrin at having his moment of freedom curtailed, so he handed his suitcase to the hovering Parkins and slid into the old guy’s travelling suite.
At once his smooth, bronzed hand was seized in a wrinkled claw and shaken with vigour.
‘Good to see you, O’Brien.’ The ancient autocrat took in Connor’s long limbs, his lean, athletic frame, with an admiring gaze. ‘And, my God, you’re the living image of your old man. Same colouring, Mick’s build—everything.’
Connor didn’t try to deny it. Sure, like his father, he’d inherited the ink-black hair, dark eyes and olive skin of some tall, long ago Spaniard who’d washed up on the Irish coast from the storm-scattered Armada, but his father had been a family man, and there the resemblance had to end.
‘And you’ve done well. What department has the embassy hired you for? Humanitarian Affairs, isn’t it?’
‘Something like that,’ Connor allowed as the limo started and nosed into the road for the city. He smiled. ‘Humanitarian Advisor to the First Secretary for Immigration.’
Sir Frank’s aged face settled into thoughtful lines. ‘Yes, yes, I can see why they need more lawyers. There’d be plenty of work involved there.’
A vision of the horror he’d had to deal with at the Australian Embassy in Baghdad swam into Connor’s mind. Unable even to begin describing it, he merely shrugged acknowledgement, waiting for his father’s old mate to spill what was on his mind.
Sir Frank sent him a glance that penetrated through to the back of his brain, and said with unnerving perspicacity, ‘Isn’t all that tragedy enough to keep you interested, without this other work you’re doing? Your father always told me the law was your first and only love.’
Connor