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Happy New Year!
I hope 2007 is going to be a great New Year for you. It certainly is going to be an exciting year for Harlequin Romance! We’ll be bringing you:
More of what you love!
From February, six Harlequin Romances will be hitting the shelves every month. You’ll find stories from your favorite authors, as well as some exciting new names, too!
A new date for your diary…
From February, you will find your Harlequin Romance books on sale from the middle of the month. (Instead of the beginning of the month.)
Most important, Harlequin Romance will continue to offer the kinds of stories you love—and more! From royalty to ranchers, bumps to babies, big cities to exotic desert kingdoms, these are emotional and uplifting stories, from the heart, for the heart!
So make a date with Harlequin Romance—in the middle of each month—and we promise it will be the most romantic date you’ll make!
Happy reading!
Kimberley Young
Senior Editor
The Nanny and the Sheikh
Barbara McMahon
MILLS & BOON
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THE BRIDES OF BELLA LUCIA
A family torn apart by secrets, reunited by marriage
Having the Frenchman’s Baby—Rebecca Winters
Coming Home to the Cowboy—Patricia Thayer
The Rebel Prince—Raye Morgan
Wanted: Outback Wife—Ally Blake
Married Under the Mistletoe—Linda Goodnight
Crazy About the Boss—Teresa Southwick
The Nanny and the Sheikh—Barbara McMahon
The Valentine Bride—Liz Fielding
To Pat McLaughlin—a long-distance friend dear to my heart! Thank goodness for phones!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
MELISSA FOX threw down her pencil and rubbed her eyes. Arching her back, she tried to relieve the tense muscles. Translating business documents wasn’t the most stimulating activity. She shook her head and took a deep breath, glancing around the crowded office of Bella Lucia. The headquarters for the famous London restaurant group was a busy place. The accountants had their own row, quieter than where she was working. The general manager had a private office. She was seated in an extra desk near the receptionist who fielded a gazillion phone calls a day.
But she shouldn’t complain. She was between jobs and thankful to have something to do. Her mother had obtained this assignment for her through her new husband. It was only temporary, until mid-February when she flew to the United States to take on a new family.
A professional nanny, Melissa had recently quit her job as childcare resident at a large international hotel in Lake Geneva. She’d been there for five years, and had loved every minute. Or, almost every moment. Until the debacle with Paul. Now she planned to move on to working as nanny to a single family. The McDonalds were expecting their third child in February. When they had met her last fall in Switzerland, they’d talked her into accepting an assignment with them when the new baby arrived. After the end of her relationship with Paul, she was ready to change. Their current nanny was planning to marry in late January and the timing would be perfect.
Melissa looked back at the lengthy document. She was almost finished. She would complete the translation today before heading home. At loose ends since quitting her job just before the holidays, she was grateful for the chance to earn some money until she took up her new position. But she missed the children and the activities and her friends in Switzerland. Still, the chance to spend some time with her mother was great.
Staring at the page, she let her mind wander a bit. When her mother had prevailed upon her new husband, Robert Valentine, to offer Melissa a temporary job, Robert’s oldest son, Max, had come up with a spot in the office for the exclusive Bella Lucia restaurant business. She’d started by filing, then answering the phones. Once Max had discovered she was fluent in French, he had immediately started her on translating a stack of documents he had received from Sheikh Surim Al-Thani who lived in Qu’ Arim, an Arabic country on the Persian Gulf. Apparently the two men had been corresponding for some time about the feasibility of opening a Bella Lucia restaurant in Qu’ Arim. Sheikh Surim Al-Thani and Max wrote their letters in English. It was the construction firm giving preliminary bids who used French.
Working with the translations, Melissa was learning a great deal about the restaurant business and how Max envisioned the operations to run. She cross-referenced the documents with the correspondence between Max and the sheikh. It was a new venture for the family-owned and -operated restaurants—expanding in a foreign market. She knew Max had mentioned opening a few more worldwide if this one proved successful. Maybe he’d open one in Boston one day—near enough that she could visit while she was employed by the McDonald family.
She picked up her pencil to begin again. Only a few more paragraphs.