Best Modern Romances Of The Year 2017

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Sheathed in a hot-pink dress, jacket and perilously high heels, Tia joined Max for breakfast. ‘Where did you sleep last night?’ she asked him bluntly.

‘Right here. The seat reclines. I didn’t want to disturb you,’ Max responded smoothly.

‘A normal bridegroom would have shaken me awake,’ Tia murmured only half under her breath.

His dark golden eyes flared in surprise. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘So you should,’ Tia told him roundly, refusing to back down. ‘It was our wedding night and we spent it apart.’

‘Perhaps I was trying to be considerate.’

‘The next time you get the urge to be considerate, run it by me first,’ Tia advised waspishly.

Sardonic amusement flashed across Max’s lean, strong face. ‘I’m not the most democratic guy you’ll meet. I tend to take unilateral decisions.’

Tia frowned. ‘That won’t work for me. I believe that marriage should be an equal partnership.’

‘Duly noted, bella mia,’ Max drawled, more amused by that fiery note in her nature than persuaded to change either his outlook, in which marriage would make very little difference to his life, or his strategy in how best to integrate a wife into his daily schedule.

Teddy was parcelled off to a quarantine kennel to fulfil UK pet regulations. He would stay there for a few months until he had passed a final rabies test. Misty-eyed at that enforced parting, Tia clambered awkwardly into the limousine that collected them from the airport, displaying a long, slender stretch of creamy thigh.

‘You have fabulous legs,’ Max heard himself say, his attention riveted to that shapely expanse of pearly skin.

Tia smiled at him, honey-blonde hair falling across her cheek, because his phone had been ringing since they landed and he was finally ignoring it and paying heed to her instead. She had every respect for a man with a strong work ethic but not when it came between her and what she wanted. And what she wanted was a man who acted like a new husband. Circumstances might have dictated that they shelve any prospect of a honeymoon, but that didn’t mean it was all right for Max to behave as though they had been married for twenty years. She stretched out her legs, encouraging the hem of her dress to shimmy higher up over her thighs. It was hugely important for her to feel wanted by Max because nobody had ever really wanted or needed her before.

‘Are you trying to tempt me?’ Max intoned thickly.

Tia rested innocent blue eyes on him. ‘Why would I try to do that?’

And Max forgot his ringing phone and his strategy and how considerate he ought to be and simply grabbed her, tugging her across the car and down onto his lap. Long brown fingers darted below the hem to stroke up a satin-smooth inner thigh and rake across the taut stretch of her knickers, skimming her most tender flesh with his nails.

Thoroughly disconcerted, Tia gasped into the mouth that plunged hungrily down on hers. It was as if fireworks were detonating inside her. Her whole being was locked into the provocative exploration of his fingers. She was hot and damp and tender and she had never craved touch the way she did at that moment, her body pushing up into his hand, her thighs splayed, her nipples hard little buds that tingled.

‘As you see, I don’t need that much encouragement,’ Max growled into her ear as he yanked at the garment preventing him from reaching his objective. He traced the heart of her, finding her as aroused as he was. He eased his finger in while his thumb brushed back and forth across her most sensitive spot and before she knew where she was or what she was doing, Tia yelped and bucked. Her excitement peaked so fast she was electrified and she arched and sobbed with intoxicated pleasure as the thunderous waves of release crashed through her entire body.

‘And neither, it seems, do you,’ Max declared, treating her to a wickedly appreciative appraisal that shot even more colour into her flustered face.

Tia was stunned by what had just happened between them. Within minutes excitement had sent her body racing from zero to sixty. With a trembling hand she retrieved her underwear but dug it into her bag, intensely aware that while she was satisfied, he was not. She slid closer, small fingers smoothing uncertainly over a lean, muscular thigh, awesomely conscious of what was concealed below his trousers.

Max caught her hand in his. ‘Not here,’ he breathed in a roughened undertone, a little taken aback by her readiness to experiment but very much excited by the unexpected promise of that adventurous vibe. ‘Later, bella mia. I shouldn’t have touched you here in the car. We need more privacy.’

A giant blush of self-reproach engulfed Tia in what felt like a head-to-toe flood. She didn’t have the sexual confidence to argue with him but she didn’t like the fact that he had contrived to do what he wanted but was now denying her the same freedom. She felt controlled and that annoyed her. Perhaps she would have done it wrong, she told herself in consolation; perhaps she would have humiliated herself had she continued. Or perhaps her boldness had turned Max off. She stole a glance at him and discovered, with a faint little smile of feminine satisfaction tilting her full mouth, that that was not the problem.

Tia spoke little until the limo turned off the road down a long driveway edged by mature woodland.

‘Redbridge Hall, your grandfather’s country house. He grew up here,’ Max explained. ‘His father bought the place before the First World War. Andrew has a town house in London as well but he rarely uses it. I live in a city apartment.’

Tia stared as a rambling Tudor mansion surrounded by lush trees appeared in front of them. The patterned red-brick walls were matched by tall arched and mullioned windows that reflected the sunlight. ‘My goodness,’ she whispered. ‘It’s huge.’

‘I believe there are twelve bedrooms,’ Max remarked.

‘There are a lot of cars here,’ Tia noted, because at least ten luxury vehicles were parked on the gravelled frontage. ‘Are there people staying?’

‘I doubt it. It looks more as though Andrew has given way to his need to show you off.’ Max bit back a frustrated exclamation because he had advised the older man to allow Tia a little time to adapt to her new surroundings before plunging her into a social whirl.

‘Who on earth would he want to show me off to?’

‘Friends and family.’

‘Family?’ she queried with greater interest.

‘Although you’re Andrew’s only blood relative, his late wife, your grandmother, had several siblings, so you do have a bunch of cousins on that side of the family,’ Max told her, his lean, darkly handsome features stiffening because most of her cousins resented his very existence, not to mention his business connections with and his closeness to Andrew.

‘Cousins. That should be interesting,’ Tia commented, stepping out with care in her high heels, already missing Teddy’s reassuring presence.

Her grandfather awaited her in a big crowded drawing room. Andrew Grayson beamed and opened both his arms. ‘Come here, my dear, and let me have a closer look at you,’ he urged.

While she sat beside the old man, the guests drifted over to meet her. ‘I’m Ronnie...’ A pretty brunette with adorable twin girl toddlers clinging to her legs gave Tia a harassed but very friendly smile.

There were too many names and faces for Tia to absorb all at once. She got mixed up about which were siblings and which were couples, but she was overwhelmed to finally have relatives eager to make her acquaintance. Throughout the session, Max stayed anchored nearby and Andrew frequently consulted him. Tia noticed that most of the visitors were daunted by Max and that in company he seemed much more aloof and remote than he was with her in private. But she was grateful for Max’s support when she was faced with more searching questions about her years in Brazil, her mother and her father’s activities, for he parried the more challenging queries with an unblemished cool that she could never have matched.

‘So, you only married Max yesterday?’ Ronnie shook her head in wonder as she poured tea for Tia, her warm brown eyes brimming with curiosity. ‘A whirlwind romance, I gather, and I must admit that that was a shock. Max always strikes one as a very controlled, cold-blooded businessman, not the type to do anything madly impulsive, but then the rule book goes out the window when a beautiful woman is involved. And you are, if you don’t mind me saying so, remarkably beautiful and probably very photogenic. The press will go mad for pictures of you when they find out you exist.’

Unable to relate to the concept of Max being in any way cold-blooded, Tia had gone pink. ‘Why would the press be interested in me?’

‘Are you serious?’ Ronnie rolled amused eyes in emphasis. ‘Andrew’s long-lost granddaughter from Brazil gets married to the CEO of Grayson Industries? Andrew is a very rich and important man and Max is renowned in the business world and on the social scene.’

‘I haven’t grown up with that background the way you have,’ Tia said uncomfortably.

‘Oh, neither did I. I grew up on a farm. Your grandmother may have married a tycoon but the rest of the family is reasonably ordinary in terms of wealth and status,’ Ronnie explained.

Tia was relaxed by Ronnie’s warm, open manner. ‘I believe Max is very successful.’

‘You know that legendary king who could turn anything to gold with a touch?’ Ronnie interposed and nodded solemnly. ‘When Max was in banking, he was a total whiz-kid. Doug was always very jealous of him.’

‘Who’s Doug?’

‘A cousin who doesn’t visit. He and Max went to the same school but they don’t get on,’ Ronnie muttered, her face rather flushed as she looked apologetically at Tia. ‘Please don’t mention to Max that I brought up Doug. I would hate him to think that I was pot-stirring.’

‘But why would he think that?’ Tia asked in surprise, glancing across the room only to encounter Max’s dark observant gaze and experience a snaking shivery little frisson somewhere in the region of her pelvis. She remembered the heat of his mouth and his wickedly skilled hands and was honestly afraid that she could spontaneously combust.

Ronnie winced at the question. ‘I’m not getting into old scandals. The truth is we’ve always been rather intimidated by Max. When he was younger some of the cousins were quite rude to him because he was related to Andrew’s housekeeper. It must’ve been tough for him. I’ve never had much time for that kind of snobbery.’

Some of the other guests joined them. Unused to a crowd of strangers, Tia was relieved when Max rescued her to bring her back to her grandfather’s side. Seated quietly with the older man, she began to relax again.

Dinner was served in a big dining room at a table almost groaning beneath its weight of crystal, elaborate porcelain and burnished silver.

‘It’s like another world,’ she muttered to Max.

‘This lifestyle does belong to a bygone age,’ Max agreed. ‘Andrew lives as his father lived.’

‘In incredible comfort,’ Tia whispered back. ‘But I’d really like to see the housekeeper’s flat where you grew up.’

A rueful and surprised smile at that declaration tilted Max’s expressive mouth but he had tensed. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t exist any more. Andrew renovated the servants’ accommodation after my aunt died and upgraded it all.’

‘When she did pass away?’ Tia asked.

‘What was that that you were saying?’ her grandfather demanded from her other side.

‘I was asking Max how long it is since his aunt died,’ Tia explained, looking up.

‘Eight years,’ Andrew supplied, his thin face tightening. ‘It was a complete shock. Carina caught the flu and it turned into pneumonia. She was gone by the time Max managed to get to the hospital.’

‘I was a student on a work placement in New York at the time,’ Max explained.

‘She was a good woman, Max,’ the older man pronounced, his voice quavering slightly, his sorrow visible.

And Tia noticed that the table had fallen silent and that the rest of the diners seemed disproportionately interested in the subject being discussed. She wished she had kept quiet and refrained from mentioning Max’s aunt, but she could not imagine why the passing of the old man’s former housekeeper should rouse such curiosity.

‘Tomorrow, I’ll show you round the house,’ Max murmured lazily, apparently impervious to the tension in the atmosphere. ‘Then you’ll feel more at home here.’

Tia did not think she could ever feel at home with servants and fancy clothes and even fancier furniture, but then she glanced at Max and a kind of peace entered her soul. He made her feel safe and, while he was present, he made her feel as if she belonged. Yet ironically, if she was to believe Ronnie, as a boy Max had been looked down on at Redbridge for being related to the housekeeper. Was that why he still seemed unapproachable in the company of Andrew’s relations and friends? Did he think that old snobbish outlook still existed? Or was it simply that Max was a loner?

After the coffee was served, guests began to leave and a welter of invitations came Tia’s way. Her phone was soon crammed with new numbers and names.

‘Who’s Doug?’ Tia pressed Max, recalling Ronnie’s nervous backtracking and that evocative word, ‘scandal’, which had only roused her intense curiosity. ‘And why doesn’t he visit?’

‘One of your cousins. Someone mention him?’ Max’s strong jaw line squared. ‘He doesn’t visit because of something that happened a long time ago when we were teenagers,’ he admitted grittily. ‘It was supposed to destroy my reputation but instead it destroyed Doug’s family and made Andrew angry with him.’

Andrew’s housekeeper, Janette, a slim, no-nonsense brunette, escorted them upstairs and Tia was forced to swallow back the dozen nosy questions brimming on her lips.

‘Mr Grayson asked me to prepare the master suite for you,’ the housekeeper informed them.

Max frowned in surprise. ‘But that’s—’ He bit off what he had almost said and compressed his lips. The master suite had once been Andrew’s, but since his illness had been diagnosed Andrew had been using a specially adapted room on the ground floor and, given that he needed a wheelchair, it was far more suitable for him. But putting both Max and Tia into the principal room at the hall was making a very public statement about how the owner of the house viewed the status of his newly married granddaughter and her husband.

‘I hope you’ll be comfortable here, madam,’ Janette declared warmly, closing the door on them.

‘It’s beautiful...’ Tia whispered, her bright eyes skimming appreciatively from the welcome log fire burning in the grate to the silk-clad bed and the arrangement of glorious white roses sited in front of the elegantly draped windows. Kicking off her high heels, she moved closer to the fire because the spring chill of an English evening was downright cold compared with the hot, humid climate she was used to.

Turning her head, she focused on Max. ‘Now tell me about what happened between you and this Doug,’ she urged.

‘Later,’ Max breathed, his faint accent fracturing the word as his hands came down on her narrow shoulders to slowly turn her round and ease her out of her jacket. The fire cast a reddish glow over her blonde hair, darkening the glossy strands while accentuating the creamy perfection of her skin.

Her breath fluttered in her dry throat. ‘Later?’ she queried, the evocative scent of him, heat and masculinity with a faint hint of something citrusy, flaring her nostrils.

‘Right now I only have time for you,’ Max confided, tiny flames reflected from the fire dancing in his dark eyes, transforming them to liquid bronze. ‘I let you sleep last night because you were very tired. It was the unselfish thing to do. I also thought you might be...sore...’

Her face flamed. ‘Not any more.’

‘And I need you to be at full strength,’ Max imparted, ‘because I’m not sure I could be that gentle again, bella mia. In your radius I’m in an almost continual state of arousal.’

‘Is that so?’ Tia almost whispered, all woman, all appreciation of the compliment being paid.

‘I’m naturally a selfish bastard but I’m trying very hard to put your needs first.’

Tia lifted her hands and let them skim down over his warm torso, revelling in the strength of the muscular body beneath his shirt. Her fingers drifted lower, discovering the bold outline of him, stroking and caressing with newfound assurance. ‘I think you’re going to be a terrific husband,’ she told him, smiling as he arched his hips into her hand. ‘But if we’re going to be true equals I’ve got a lot to learn too.’

‘You can practise on me whenever you like,’ Max admitted, peeling off his jacket and wrenching at his shirt with flattering impatience.

As the ropes of muscle across his abdomen flexed, Tia unbuckled his belt and unzipped him. Max breathed in starkly, savouring the fact that she constantly took him by surprise. Her hand stroked the length of him and she bent her head, her tongue flicking out to taste him. By the time the warm, wet heat of her mouth engulfed him, Max was almost unbearably full and hard, the grinding pulse of driving hunger gripping him in a vice. Watching her pleasure him excited him beyond bearing and, long before she could tease him to a climax, he reached down and forcefully pulled her up to him, lifting her to plunge his tongue deep into her sweet, intoxicating mouth and feel the answering leap of response vibrate through both of them.

‘Max... I—’ Tia began.

‘Another time,’ Max growled, settling her down on the edge of the table by the window, pushing up her skirt and stepping between her spread thighs. ‘This is what I’ve been dreaming of all day.’

And with that grated confession, Max tilted her back, hurriedly donned a condom and thrust into her hard and deep and strong. The table creaked in complaint but Tia’s body was hot and slick with arousal and her tender flesh yielded to him.

‘Dannazione,’ he groaned feverishly. ‘You are so tight.’

Tia jerked, her head falling back, blue eyes shaken by his fire as she jerked under him with a helpless moan of sensual pleasure. He was aggressive, dominating in a way he had not been the first time, and the welling of sensation deep within her throbbed with a wild hunger that thrilled her, excitement climbing as his movements became rougher and more demanding. Little internal tremors shimmied through her, bands of tension tightening within her pelvis until her body clenched convulsively around him at the height of her excitement. Wave after glorious wave washed over her as orgasmic aftershocks took her by storm. A low guttural sound was wrenched from him as he too reached completion.

In the aftermath, her body was weighted and limp. Max carried her over to the bed and laid her down, tilting her to unzip her dress and pull it off, unclipping her bra as an afterthought. As he vanished into what was obviously a bathroom, Tia released a happy sigh of contentment. Max had just shown her the hunger, passion and impatience that revealed his need for her. No, there had been nothing lukewarm about that encounter, she reflected with satisfaction, struggling to muster the energy to get up and go and wash.

‘Have to take off my make-up,’ she mumbled as he stepped out of the shower naked and dripping to reach for a towel.

Tia showered, her feminine core still pulsing from the intensity of the release he had given her and the no less energising discovery that sex could take place on a table as well as a bed and be fast and glorious as well as slow and wonderful.

She padded back to the bed and climbed in, snuggling up to Max without hesitation, one arm wrapping round his broad chest. ‘So tell me why this Doug would have wanted to destroy your reputation,’ she murmured, curiosity flickering afresh. ‘I need to learn all the ins and outs of this family...and the secrets if there are any.’

Max tensed and released his breath in a hiss as he sat up and, in so doing, freed himself from her hold. ‘All families have secrets.’

‘But this relates to you and we’re married,’ Tia reminded him unnecessarily.

Max gritted his teeth, belatedly recalling why he never stayed the night with a woman, never risked getting cosy with one, never shared late-night chat sessions. Unfortunately, he acknowledged grimly, there was no escape from a wife occupying the same bed...

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘DOUG AND I attended the same boarding school as teenagers,’ Max divulged reluctantly. ‘I didn’t know him then the way I do now. I trusted him as a friend. It didn’t occur to me that he already saw me as competition and thought Andrew took too much interest in me. In my own eyes I was the housekeeper’s nephew and I didn’t ever expect to be anything more. I was staff, Doug was family.’

Tia rested her tousled head back on the pillows and reached for a bronzed masculine hand, lacing her fingers into his without any help from him. ‘Go on...’

Max retrieved his hand. ‘Doug’s family lived nearby and he was a frequent visitor. His mother was on her second marriage and he had a stepsister, a very pretty redhead called Alice. We were only seventeen. Doug brought Alice here repeatedly that summer and I fell in love with her. Only a few weeks after I began seeing her she announced that she was pregnant and that I was the father of her child,’ he revealed grittily. ‘I was surprised because I had only slept with her on one occasion and I had been...careful.’

Tia sat up to study him in consternation. ‘And?’ she pressed.

‘There was a huge family row. Doug’s stepfather stormed over here and tried to beat me up, and then in the midst of all that, with Alice’s mother and my aunt screaming in the background and Andrew calling for order, Alice took fright and finally told the truth. The baby was Doug’s. She and Doug had been having sex for months and when she realised she was pregnant she panicked because they had been expressly warned by their parents that they were expected to think of each other as brother and sister. Together, she and Doug decided that I should be set up to take the blame, which is why she slept with me in the first place...’

‘And you loved her,’ Tia muttered unevenly, her nails digging into the palms of her hands to enable her to listen to the tawdry tale without making tactless comments. Max had been the fall guy in a nasty set-up, his conviction betrayed by a boy he had believed to be his friend and a girl whom he had learned to care about.

‘Yes, but I got over it,’ Max completed with a brisk lack of sentiment that did not impress her in the slightest. ‘However, Doug’s mother and stepfather’s marriage broke down because of that pregnancy and, sadly, Alice miscarried a few weeks later, so everyone lost out.’

‘At least she told the truth in the end,’ Tia sighed.

‘Can we please drop the subject now?’ Max murmured, his stunning heavily lashed dark eyes welded to her troubled gaze. ‘I was a boy and now I’m a man but I still don’t like remembering that hellish affair.’

Inside her chest, Tia’s heart ached for him and she reached for his hand again.

Max snaked his fingers free a second time. ‘You asked me and I told you. I don’t need or want your sympathy. It hit me hard at the time because Alice loving me felt special but afterwards I realised it had all been a giant fake. And afterwards, in front of everyone when she was trying to save face and impress Doug, she asked me how I could ever have thought that she could have had feelings for someone like me...’

‘Someone like you,’ Tia repeated with a frown, rolling over and curving another arm round him, needing to retain some kind of physical contact with him. She was outraged that, not only had the wretched girl tried to set him up, but she had also struck out at his pride with a nasty comment. ‘What was that supposed to mean?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘No, you don’t want to tell me,’ Tia translated flatly.

‘Surely I’m allowed to retain a few secrets,’ Max said very drily as he slid free yet again and sprang out of bed. ‘If Andrew is still awake I have some business to discuss with him. It slipped my mind earlier.’