by India Grey
THE BALFOUR BRIDES
A proud, powerful dynasty…
Scandal has rocked the core of the infamous Balfour family…
Its glittering, gorgeous daughters are in disgrace.
Banished from the Balfour mansion, they’re sent to the boldest, most magnificent men in the world to be wedded, bedded…and tamed!
And so begins a scandalous saga of dazzling glamour and passionate surrender.
Each month, Harlequin Presents ® is delighted to bring you an exciting new installment from THE BALFOUR BRIDES. You won’t want to miss out!
MIA AND THE POWERFUL GREEK—Michelle Reid
KAT AND THE DARE-DEVIL SPANIARD—Sharon Kendrick
EMILY AND THE NOTORIOUS PRINCE—India Grey
SOPHIE AND THE SCORCHING SICILIAN—Kim Lawrence
ZOE AND THE TORMENTED TYCOON—Kate Hewitt
ANNIE AND THE RED-HOT ITALIAN—Carole Mortimer
BELLA AND THE MERCILESS SHEIKH—Sarah Morgan
OLIVIA AND THE BILLIONAIRE CATTLE KING—Margaret Way
Eight volumes to collect and treasure!
Emily had the sensation of standing on a track in the path of a speeding train, knowing that the moment of impact was almost upon her. He wouldn’t recognize her, she reassured herself desperately. Why would he? They’d only met once—and then only for a couple of minutes in a situation that was a world away from this. He must meet thousands of women…kiss thousands of women…
Someone was speaking. “This is one of the valuable volunteers who bring new experiences into the lives of our young people. Miss Jones is a graduate of the Royal School of Ballet…”
Like an automaton Emily bent her head and sank down in a curtsy. From an etiquette point of view it was the right thing to do, but more importantly it also gave her a great chance to avoid looking up at the man she’d last seen in the garden at Balfour, when he’d drawn her into the shadow of the trees and kissed her with an arrogance and an expertise that shocked and thrilled and horrified her.
Call me when you grow up…
She steeled herself, and looked up.
The express train hit. For a moment the breath was knocked out of her and it was like falling. Like skydiving into the sunset. And then realizing that you didn’t have a parachute.
Luis Cordoba raised one fine eyebrow a fraction. Beneath it his eyes were a hard, dull gold. “Really, Miss Jones? ”
India Grey
EMILY AND THE NOTORIOUS PRINCE
All about the author…
India Grey
A self-confessed romance junkie, INDIA GREY was just thirteen years old when she first sent off for the Harlequin® writers’ guidelines. She can still recall the thrill of getting the large brown envelope with its distinctive logo through the letterbox, and subsequently whiled away many a dull school day staring out of the window and dreaming of the perfect hero. She kept these guidelines with her for the next ten years, tucking them carefully inside the cover of each new diary in January, and beginning every list of New Year’s resolutions with the words Start Novel. In the meantime she gained a degree in English Literature and Language from Manchester University, and in a stroke of genius on the part of the Gods of Romance, met her gorgeous future husband on the very last night of their three years there. The past fifteen years have been spent blissfully buried in domesticity, and heaps of pink washing generated by three small daughters, but she has never really stopped daydreaming about romance. She’s just profoundly grateful to have finally got an excuse to do it legitimately!
For the Elmhurst Olympics crowd, and for Louise in particular; much-loved keeper of the family flame.
xx
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
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
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PROLOGUE
‘CALL me when you grow up!’
As Emily ducked beneath the ghostly, blossom-shrouded trees and emerged onto the twilit lawn his voice followed her: mocking, amused and, with its faintly exotic accent, horribly sexy.
She quickened her pace, thinking only of putting as much distance as possible between herself and the man in the shadows. Head bent, oblivious to the curious stares of the guests scattered across the velvet lawns of Balfour Manor, she hurried towards the house, pressing her teeth down into a lip that still tingled and throbbed from where he had kissed her.
The 99th Balfour Charity Ball was in full swing and the sound of laughter, conversation and clinking glasses drifted above the music coming from the marquee. Ahead of her the majestic house shimmered with light from every window, its honey-coloured stone glowing in the dusk like old gold. Behind her the darkness of the garden pressed at her back, spreading goose bumps over her skin. Her heart was beating so hard she could feel it all through her body, a rapid, throbbing pulse that intensified as she ran lightly up the shallow stone steps to the house.
He had ruined everything.
She’d looked forward to this party for so long—all those years at boarding school, when she’d been reduced to picking over the edited details of the annual Balfour Ball in celebrity magazines and piecing together snatches of gossip from her older sisters. This year, with ballet school all but finished, her time had finally come.
She blinked as she stepped into the brightness of the hallway. Heading straight for the stairs she gathered up the long skirt of her dress, trying not to think of the excitement with which she’d put it on only a couple of hours earlier. She had felt so grown up and sophisticated…
Until the moment those knowing, gold-flecked eyes had wandered lazily over her, and then she had felt something different altogether.
Reaching her bedroom she slammed the door and leaned against it for a moment, breathing hard. The room was filled with violet shadows which blurred the edges of everything, making the familiar objects seem suddenly strange and unrecognizable. She didn’t turn on the light though. Instead she found herself drawn towards the window.
Spread out before her the garden glittered with tiny lights. It was like a picture from a child’s storybook—an enchanted kingdom, the butterfly ball. And that’s what she’d wanted, she thought with a sob, leaning her burning forehead against the pane. She’d wanted it to be like a fairy tale, with the handsome prince just waiting to fall in love with her.
Her eyes were drawn beyond the delicate strings of fairy lights and the glittering crystal chandeliers that stood on the tables across the lawn; deeper, into the darkness itself, where inky shadows moved beneath the trees.
That’s where he was.
Emily pressed her hands to the glass, suddenly pierced by a shaft of longing so pure and painful that she couldn’t breathe. His cool, clean taste was still on her lips and she ran her tongue over them, remembering the moment when he had stepped out in front of her beneath the trees and pulled her to him—languidly, unhurriedly, as if it had been the most natural thing in the world…
And kissed her.
She had been too shocked to resist. It was as if some powerful tidal wave had been unleashed inside her and she was helpless to do anything as it sucked her down, into warm, secret whirlpools of unfathomable sensation, obliterating logic. His mouth moved over hers, slowly and expertly, and his fingers caressed the back of her neck, the hollow beneath her jaw, sending ripples of intense, shuddering pleasure down her spin
e, until she felt taut and fragile enough to shatter.
And then he lifted his head and in that moment she caught the gleam of his wicked gold eyes in the darkness. The spell was broken and she surfaced again, gasping and fighting for breath, speechless and horrified at her own unrecognisable behaviour. Terrified of the ease with which he had made her act like that.
Because Prince Luis Cordoba of Santosa was handsome, of that there was no doubt. But he wasn’t interested in love, and behind the designer suit and dazzling smile he was no harmless, fairy-tale Prince Charming.
Dangerous, compelling, beguiling…
He was the wolf.
CHAPTER ONE
One year later
BALFOUR MANOR —golden and majestic and glowing like topaz in a bed of emerald velvet. Every detail was as familiar to Emily as the back of her own hand. And yet it was the last thing she expected to see in the grimy, diesel-scented chill of the underground station.
It was rush hour. Carried along in the flow of harassed and preoccupied commuters, blinking in the sudden gloom after the brightness of the May evening outside, Emily’s first thought was that she was imagining it. That, after two months of self-imposed exile in a bedsit that added a whole new dimension to the word grim , her homesickness had finally got the better of her and she was hallucinating.
Behind her a man cannoned into her as she stopped in her tracks, and swore disgustedly. Muttering apologies Emily ducked her head and pushed against the stream of people, back in the direction of the news stand. She must have been mistaken. It was a picture of Buckingham Palace she’d seen—some story about a minor royal indiscretion or—
Illegitimacy Scandal Rocks Balfour Legacy
Light-headed with horror Emily snatched up a paper and scanned the column beneath the headline, her mind reeling. It bristled with exclamation marks and was dotted with sly ellipses, but the names jumped out at her: Olivia Balfour…Bella… Alexandra… Zoe…
Zoe?
‘Are you going to buy that paper? I’m not running a library here, you know.’
From an alternative reality the disgruntled voice of the newspaper-seller penetrated her consciousness. ‘Oh. Yes. Sorry. Of course,’ she said hastily, delving into the pocket of her cardigan for the five-pound tip given to her by a drunken businessman who had told her all about his wife and kids and then put his hand up her skirt. Mollified, the newspaper man gave her a conspiratorial wink.
‘’Ow the other ’arf live, eh? Beautiful houses in all the best spots across the world, cars, money, parties—but I ask you, is any one of them Balfours happy?’ Shaking his head, he gave an amused chuckle.
No, Emily thought numbly as she backed away, the paper clutched in her hands. I don’t think we are—not any more . She attempted to give him an answering smile, but her face was stiff, her eyes wide and unblinking as the words from the article swooped and swelled inside her head: shocking discovery…illicit affair…illegitimate…disgrace… scandal…
Just a year ago it had all been so different. As she rejoined the press of people the moment before the guests started to arrive and she had gone downstairs in her blue silk dress, feeling so grown-up.
But she hadn’t been grown up at all. Not then. She’d been stupidly, embarrassingly naive.
She rejoined the press of people crowding down into the airless tunnel, holding the newspaper with its lurid headline against her body as if that way she could keep its accusations and speculations secret from the rest of the world. As she waited on the platform she noticed with a stab of anguish that a woman to her left was holding a copy of the paper, her face bored and expressionless as she read the story beneath the headline, as if it was insignificant.
A rumble in the darkness indicated the arrival of the train. Pushing to the front of the crowd squeezing onto the train with uncharacteristic assertiveness, Emily slipped quickly into an empty seat, for the first time in her life without looking round to see if anyone else needed it. As the train jerked into the darkness of the tunnel she took a deep breath and unfolded the paper.
Exclusive! When Blue Blood Turns Bad
Last night there was only one place to see and be seen—at the Balfour Charity Ball! But despite the glitz and the glamour, all was not as it seemed.
Behind the scenes, Olivia Balfour and her scandalous twin Bella were locked in a battle over a shocking discovery—that their late mother, socialite Alexandra Balfour, had conceived their sister Zoe during an illicit affair!
Biting her lip against a whimper of distress Emily raised her head and stared blindly ahead of her as Zoe’s face swam into her mind. Beautiful, wild Zoe, with her dazzling green eyes that set her apart from her blue-eyed sisters.
She looked down at the paper again, scanning over the rest of the article as her mind whirred and her stomach churned. She was trembling, as if she was cold, and had to grip the paper tightly in both hands to hold it steady enough to read.
The Balfour name might be synonymous with glamour and style, but this is the second illegitimate family member to be outed in as many months. It seems this dynasty is rotten to its core….
Which was more or less the same accusation that she’d hurled at her father on the night of Mia’s untimely arrival at Balfour Manor. Emily stiffened as the memory of that appalling evening seized her in an icy grip. Poor Mia. She had come in search of a happy family and had instead had walked straight into a tragedy worthy of Chekhov.
The train jolted to a standstill in another station, bringing Emily roughly back to the present. She blinked, looking around her as another tide of people ebbed and flowed through the doors—anonymous faces with lives and interests and joys and heartaches she couldn’t begin to guess. And she was just another of them. Another anonymous face in the crowd. A girl on her way home from work, just like any other.
A void of loneliness opened up in front of her, and before she could do anything she felt herself hurtling into it. She squeezed her eyes shut, sucking in a breath, momentarily dizzy and disorientated with homesickness. It happened from time to time; she was getting used to it. It was just a case of holding on and waiting for it to pass. The problem was, up until two months ago, her family and her dancing had been her whole life. And now she had neither.
She looked down at the newspaper, avid for any crumbs of information about the people she loved and had turned her back on so completely. At the bottom of the front page article she read: ‘For a full report and pictures of last night’s sparkling charity ball, see pages 12–13…’
With shaking fingers she turned the pages, smoothing the paper across her knees as she came to the colourful splash of photographs. Tears leapt into her eyes, but she blinked them away impatiently. Oh, God, there was Kat, looking gorgeous in a dress of scarlet satin, and Bella and Olivia standing together, their dazzling, practised smiles not quite hiding the tension in their eyes. ‘The calm before the cat-fight,’ read the caption beneath the picture. Looking into their familiar faces Emily realised that she was smiling, even though her heart felt like it was being prised open with a pickaxe, but her smile faded as her gaze moved to a picture of her father standing next to a familiar and distinguished English actress. She was a long-time friend of the family, but noticing the way Oscar’s hand was looped lightly round her waist Emily suddenly found herself wondering if she’d ever been more than that….
The shadows gathered at the corners of her mind, the dark shapes slipping through the trees.
Hating herself for her cynicism and suspicion, hating her father for planting it in her mind, she glanced quickly away, to the next photograph.
And froze.
She tried to tear her gaze away. Really, she did. She didn’t want to keep looking helplessly into the slanting golden eyes that stared straight out at her from the page, or remember how it had felt to have them looking back at her for real. Moving over her body. Glittering with amusement and delicious wickedness…
‘Prince Luis Cordoba of Santosa arrives at the party,’ said the
text beneath the picture. ‘But will the newly reformed playboy prince be able to withstand the temptation of the wild and wayward Balfour girls?’
At that moment the train juddered to a halt and dazedly Emily realised she’d reached her stop. She sprang to her feet, bundling the paper up. For a split second she considered leaving it on the seat, but instead found herself tucking it under her arm as she got off the train.
Because she hated the thought of a stranger picking it up and poring over the sordid details of her family’s disgrace, she told herself as she walked briskly towards the stairs. Not because she wanted to read any more about Luis Cordoba, or gaze longer at the photograph of him looking brooding and beautiful in black tie, for goodness’ sake.
Of course not.
Why would she? He was dangerous, and Emily didn’t like danger. She had no interest in him whatsoever—a fact which she’d made perfectly clear at last year’s ball.
And just to prove it to herself again now, she dropped the paper into the first bin she passed at the entrance to the station. And she allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction as she walked purposefully away.
‘Where in hell’s name are we, exactly?’
Luis gazed moodily out of the blacked-out window as his car nosed its way slowly through the traffic-clogged outer reaches of London. At least he assumed they were still in London, though the dingy rows of scruffy houses bore little resemblance to the elegant city he was familiar with.
His private secretary consulted his clipboard. ‘I believe it’s a place called Larchfield Park, sir,’ he said gravely. ‘It’s an area with a high proportion of unemployed residents, and significant problems with drug abuse, gang violence and gun and knife crime.’
