Tempted by Trouble. Liz FieldingЧитать онлайн книгу.

       Praise for Liz Fielding

      ‘Alongside the humour, this story contains

       a large sprinkling of emotion, synonymous with

       every Liz Fielding story, that will have the reader

       reaching for the tissues while swallowing the lump in

       her throat. This is one story you don’t want to miss!’

      —romancereviewed.blogspot.com on

      The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella

      ‘Fielding’s deft handling is a triumph. The characters are

       fabulous, the relationship between them complex and

       nuanced … and keep a tissue handy at the end!’

      —RT Book Reviews on

      SOS: Convenient Husband Required

      ‘… a magnificent setting, a feisty heroine,

       and a sexy hero—a definite page-turner.

       Who could ask for anything more?’

      —Still Moments eZine on

      A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge

      About the Author

      LIZ FIELDING was born with itchy feet. She made it to Zambia before her twenty-first birthday and, gathering her own special hero and a couple of children on the way, lived in Botswana, Kenya and Bahrain—with pauses for sightseeing pretty much everywhere in between. She finally came to a full stop in a tiny Welsh village cradled by misty hills, and these days mostly leaves her pen to do the travelling.

      When she’s not sorting out the lives and loves of her characters, she potters in the garden, reads her favourite authors, and spends a lot of time wondering ‘What if …?’

      For news of upcoming books—and to sign up for her occasional newsletter—visit Liz’s website at www.lizfielding.com

       Also by Liz Fielding

      Mistletoe and the Lost Stiletto

      SOS: Convenient Husband Required

       A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge

      Her Desert Dream

      Christmas Angel for the Billionaire

      Secret Baby, Surprise Parents

      Wedded in a Whirlwind

       Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

       Tempted by Trouble

      Liz Fielding

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CHAPTER ONE

       Life is like ice cream: you have to take it one lick at a time.

      —Rosie’s Diary

      ‘LOVAGE AMERY?’

      If ever there had been a moment to follow Gran’s example and check her reflection in the mirror before she opened the front door, Elle decided, this was it.

      On her knees and up to her rubber gloves in soapy water when the doorbell rang, she hadn’t bothered to stop and fix hair sliding out of its elastic band. And there wasn’t much she could have done about a face pink and shiny from a day spent catching up with the housework while everyone was out, culminating in scrubbing the kitchen floor.

      It was the complete Cinderella workout.

      She couldn’t afford a fancy gym membership and, as she was always telling her sisters, cleaning was a lot more productive than pounding a treadmill. Not that they’d ever been sufficiently impressed by the argument to join in.

      Lucky them.

      Even sweaty Lycra had to be a better look than an ancient shirt tied around the waist with an equally geriatric psychedelic tie. Sexier than the jeans bagging damply around her knees.

      It wouldn’t normally have bothered her and, to be fair, the man standing on the doorstep hadn’t made much of an effort, either. His thick dark hair was sticking up in a just-got-out-of-bed look and his chin was darkened with what might be designer stubble but was more likely to be a disinclination to shave on Saturday, when he didn’t have to go into the office.

      Always assuming that he had an office to go to. Or a job.

      Like her, he was wearing ancient jeans, in his case topped with a T-shirt that should have been banished to the duster box. The difference was that on him it looked mouth-wateringly good. So good that she barely noticed that he’d made free with a name she’d been trying to keep to herself since she’d started kindergarten.

      Swiftly peeling off the yellow rubber gloves she’d kept on as a ‘Sorry, can’t stop’ defence against one of the neighbours dropping by with some excuse to have a nose around, entertain the post office queue with insider gossip on just how bad things were at Gable End, she tossed them carelessly over her shoulder.

      ‘Who wants to know?’ she asked.

      Her hormones might be ready to throw caution to the wind—they were Amery hormones, after all—but while they might have escaped into the yard for a little exercise, she wasn’t about to let them go ‘walkies'.

      ‘Sean McElroy.’

      His voice matched the looks. Low, sexy, soft as Irish mist. And her hormones flung themselves at the gate like a half-grown puppy in a let-me-at-him response as he offered his hand.

      Cool, a little rough, reassuringly large, it swallowed hers up as she took it without thinking, said, ‘How d’you do?’ in a voice perilously close to the one her grandmother used when she met a good-looking man. With that hint of breathiness that spelled trouble.

      ‘I’m doing just fine,’ he replied, his slow smile obliterating all memory of the way she looked. Her hair, the lack of make-up and damp knees. It made crinkles around those mesmerisingly blue eyes and they fanned out comfortably in a way that suggested they felt right at home there.

      Elle had begun to believe that she’d bypassed the gene that reduced all Amery women to putty in the presence of a good looking man.

      Caught off guard, she discovered that she’d been fooling herself.

      The only reason she’d escaped so far, it seemed, was because until this moment she hadn’t met a man with eyes of that particularly intense shade of blue.

      A man with shoulders wide enough to carry the troubles of the world and tall enough not to make her feel awkward about her height, which had been giving her a hard time since she’d hit a growth spurt somewhere around her twelfth birthday. With a voice that seemed to whisper right through her bones until it reached her toes.

      Even now they were curling inside her old trainers in pure ecstasy.

      He epitomised the casual, devil-may-care, bad-boy look of the travelling men who, for centuries, had arrived on the village common in the first week of June with the annual fair and departed a few days later, leaving a trail of broken hearts and the occasional fatherless baby in their wake.

      Trouble.

      But, riveted to the spot, her hand still in his, all it needed was for fairground waltzer music to start up in the background and she’d have been twirling away on a fluffy pink cloud without a thought in her head.

      The realisation was enough to bring her crashing back to her senses and, finally letting go of his hand, she took half a step