“You may kiss the bride,” he concluded with a flourish that she felt was wholly unnecessary.
Later, when she was alone, she would quiz herself over why she’d had it in her head that Lukas wouldn’t kiss her. Why a part of her had felt so ruffled by the idea of him...declining to do so. Later.
Not now.
Instead Oti watched, almost transfixed, as he lifted one hand and moved it to her cheek; then he slid it around the back of her neck in a way that any onlooker might have even considered to be romantic. She knew the truth, and yet it almost fooled her.
Then he hauled her to meet him, his eyes burning through her, wild and untamed, and stirring up sensations inside that she was sure she’d never felt before. Then he lowered his head, and as he claimed her mouth with his, her entire body seemed to self-combust in flashes of white-hot heat.
And Oti’s world as she knew it imploded.
Dear Reader,
I truly enjoyed writing about Oti and Lukas. I loved learning about them as their story seemed to play out in the best way ever...like a TV script inside my head.
Initially, I feared that Oti was too gentle and overly self-sacrificing, letting her father blackmail her. But every time I put her together with Lukas, she revealed this unexpectedly sassy, fun side, which I think surprised me as much as it unsettled him.
Lukas, by contrast, was so guarded that I think only gentle Oti could have got under this hero’s skin the way that she did.
I really hope you enjoy reading Oti and Lukas’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it!
I love hearing from my readers, so feel free to drop by my site at www.charlotte-hawkes.com or pop over to Facebook or Twitter, @chawkesuk.
I can’t wait to meet you.
Charlotte x
Tempted by Her Convenient Husband
Charlotte Hawkes
Born and raised on the Wirral Peninsula in England, Charlotte Hawkes is mom to two intrepid boys who love her to play building block games with them and who object loudly to the amount of time she spends on the computer. When she isn’t writing—or building with blocks—she is company director for a small Anglo/French construction firm. Charlotte loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her at her website, charlotte-hawkes.com.
Books by Charlotte Hawkes
Harlequin Medical Romance
The Island Clinic
Reunited with His Long-Lost Nurse
Royal Christmas at Seattle General
The Bodyguard’s Christmas Proposal
Reunited on the Front Line
Second Chance with His Army Doc
Reawakened by Her Army Major
A Summer in São Paolo
Falling for the Single Dad Surgeon
Unwrapping the Neurosurgeon’s Heart
Surprise Baby for the Billionaire
The Doctor’s One Night to Remember
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.
To Vic.
Happy birthday to the newest little wolf in your fearless pack! X
Praise for Charlotte Hawkes
“Ms. Hawkes has delivered a really good read in this book where I smiled a lot because of the growing relationship between the hero and heroine... The romance was well worth the wait because of the building sexual tension between the pair.”
—Harlequin Junkie on A Surgeon for the Single Mom
Contents
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
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM UNLOCKING THE DOCTOR’S SECRETS BY CAROL MARINELLI
CHAPTER ONE
‘HOW LONG HAS the kid been on the oxytocin drip, Oti?’
‘Two hours,’ Octavia Hendlington murmured softly. ‘Six drops per minute.’
Not turning around as her colleague joined her, Oti continued to eye the young woman perched uncomfortably on the end of the bed and being cared for by her sister. The labour ward—or what passed for the labour ward in this end of the large hospital tent in her medical camp in South Sudan—was tiny.
But they had worked so many miracles in this place over the past four years, she could only hope tonight—her last night—would be a good one.
‘Dilation?’ Amelia queried.
‘She’s been at six centimetres for the past ten hours. Her name is Kahsha; she’s eighteen, primigravida.’
‘And the baby’s head still shows no sign of descending?’ Amelia frowned.
Oti’s teeth worried at her lower lip, and she stopped herself abruptly. In a matter of days she would be back in the UK, and her father would not accept such unattractive, unladylike habits.
Five more days of being herself, and then she would be back to playing a role again.
Would her new husband be just as irritated by her as her father had always been? Oti shoved the thought from her head and focused on her colleague.
‘No sign of the baby descending at all,’ she told Amelia.
She cast her gaze around the tent and tried to swallow down the thick lump of emotion that lodged itself so uncomfortably in her throat. If it hadn’t been for the fact that it looked as if it was going to be a complicated labour, Oti might have been grateful for the distraction from her own thoughts tonight.
She had been volunteering with the medical charity HOP—Health Overseas Project—for four years, ever since her brother’s accident, and this was the only place where she’d ever felt herself. Possibly the only time in her life—certainly in the last fifteen years.
Dr Oti.
It was simple and clean, and she thought that was perhaps what she loved the most. Out here, far away from the clamour of home, it was just about helping people and making a difference.
She had value.
Surely that was as uncomplicated as it got?
But soon that would all be over. And it didn’t matter which mask she would be donning this time—Oti the socialite, the It-girl, or Lady Octavia Hendlington, daughter of the Earl of Sedeshire and soon-to-be Lady Octavia Woods—it would still suffocate her, just the same.
What would Amelia and the other volunteers think if they knew she was about to marry the much-lusted-after billionaire, Lukas Woods? Or Sir Lukas Woods—given the knighthood he had received in the previous year’s New Year’s Honours list. Not the youngest recipient, but certainly one of the youngest.
Busying herself with the oxytocin drip, as though occupying her hands could also occupy her wayward mind, Oti tried to pretend that her stomach hadn’t just flip-flopped at the thought.
The man was one of the most eligible bachelors in the world right now—certainly one of the most eligible in the country—and in five days she would be marrying him. The thought was terrifying.
Lukas Woods wasn’t merely good-looking...he was practically elemental. As though there was fire, earth, wind and water...and then there was him. And that beautifully muscled exterior was rivalled only by his inner core of pure steel. Ruthless business magnate, media personality and self-made billionaire. How many other kids had written an app at the age of fifteen, and made their first million by the age of eighteen?
She might have
met him on only that one intimidating occasion five months earlier, but it had been enough to leave her with the impression that he might as well have been honed from the very magma of the planet itself.
How was she ever to endure a marriage to this man? This stranger? What if she couldn’t even stand him?
Her body prickled in protest, and she ignored the tiny voice inside taunting her that she already knew the answer to that question.
Then again, the alternative had been a forced marriage to Louis Rockman, son of the Sixth Earl of Highmount, vicious, dictatorial and cruel. Even now, fifteen years on, she could still feel the grip of his fingers biting into her arms, his weight pinning her down...
‘You’re thinking a C-section?’
Amelia’s voice dragged her mercifully back to the present.
‘Yes. But now Kahsha wants to return to her own village to seek out help from a traditional healer.’
‘Right.’ Amelia nodded grimly. ‘It’s her choice, Oti.’
Oti dipped her head. They both knew that they couldn’t stop the young girl from seeking traditional help if that was what she chose to do. HOP had long drilled it into their volunteers that they were there to offer medical advice and options, but not dictate. Some of the women they encountered had little enough autonomy over their own lives as it was. They didn’t need a group of foreigners swooping in and taking away their choices on how they wanted to give birth.
It was enough that the charity’s volunteers showed respect for the decisions the Sudanese women made about their own deliveries and their own health.
‘It just doesn’t help when it isn’t what’s medically best for them.’ Oti folded her arms over her chest, making her friend frown at her.
‘You okay? I’ve never seen you quite this on edge.’
Oti had no idea how she managed to summon what she hoped was a bright smile.
‘Of course. Just tired probably. It’s been another twenty-hour shift.’
Her colleague looked unconvinced, and Oti knew why. Shifts were always long in a camp like this, but she’d never been this down. Perhaps a version of the truth would be better. She tried ramping the smile up a little more.
‘I’m think I’m going to miss this place.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Amelia grimaced, understanding washing over her expression. ‘I forgot you were leaving tomorrow. But you’ll be back in a few months, right? You always are. What is it now, forty months out of the past four years that you’ve been out here?’
‘Something like that.’ Oti forced a laugh, as though she was any normal person looking forward to spending some time back home again. Ironically, another role that she knew how to play.
She hadn’t told anyone that this would be her last mission, any more than she’d told them that she was getting married. It would only invite too many questions that she wouldn’t know how to answer.
Or perhaps it was more that saying it aloud would somehow make it too real.
‘Go and get something to eat, and get your head down,’ her colleague advised. ‘You’ve got a five-hour drive just to the nearest airstrip.’
‘Sure.’ It felt more like an awkward jerk of her head than a nod, but at least Amelia didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.
She felt foolish. But what choice did she have, either about telling her colleagues, or about agreeing to the marriage in the first instance?
You could have said no, a voice whispered in her head, but Oti shut it down quickly.
True, Lukas Woods had asked her if she was sure she knew what she was doing, but declining him had never been a real option. Not if she wanted to save her brother. Her father had made that abundantly clear.
Her father hadn’t earned the title The Odious Earl for nothing, even if no one dared say it to his face. Not even her.
Especially not her.
Shaking her head free of the dark thoughts that threatened to overtake her, Oti watched the young mum-to-be struggle off the bed with the help of her sister and managed another smile at her colleague.
‘I think I might accompany Kahsha just a short way out of camp. You never know, the walking might help the baby to descend and we won’t need to try for a C-section after all.’
It was always possible. And, anyway, if this was to be her last trip out to Sub-Saharan Africa for a while—or ever—then she might as well absorb every last second of it.
Because all she saw for her future were even more fences to hem her in than she’d ever had to endure before.
* * *
As the organist played a virtuosic performance of Bizet’s ‘Farandole,’ Lukas watched his bride being led up the aisle by her father. Though led might be too mild a word for it, given that the man could evidently barely restrain himself. The Odious Earl—a nickname that the man had earned for his pomposity, his gambling and his penchant for young girls barely older than his own daughter—was practically racing to deliver Lady Octavia to her fate.
Not that Lukas cared to look too closely, but he was sure that if he did he would actually be able to see pound signs imprinted in the Earl’s eyes, the older man’s podgy fingers virtually grasping for the hefty sum of money that would be his on conclusion of the ceremony.
Involuntarily, Lukas’s gaze shifted to the taller than average, slightly willowy figure walking beside him with no fewer than seven bridesmaids in tow, although she eclipsed every one of them. An observation which he chose to ignore—along with the inconvenient and somewhat galling way that his body tightened in response.
This marriage wasn’t about love, or even lust. It was about securing the controlling interest in Octavia’s late brother’s company, Sedeshire International, as the latest acquisition for Lukas’s own company, LVW Industries. Preferably before the idiot Earl ran his late son’s company into the ground, as he had been doing in the short time that he’d had his hands on it.
And if marrying the old Earl’s socialite daughter was the price he had to pay for it—along with an eye-watering sum, of course—then Lukas considered it money well spent.
The business was actually a good investment, but the fact that he’d stolen it from right under the nose of Andrew Rockman, the Sixth Earl of Highmount, had been a delicious bonus.
How fitting that this was how Lukas would finally be able to fulfil the vow he had made to himself as a twelve-year-old, the week his mother had been lowered into that black hole in the ground—that he would one day take his revenge on the Rockman family. In particular that he would take his revenge on Rockman, the man who had effectively driven her there, along with Lady Octavia’s father, the man who had helped Rockman get away with his lies.
And, by marrying him, Lady Octavia would unwittingly help him to bring her repugnant father into line.
Yet as Lukas watched their approach closely, he was sure he saw her wobble. The faintest stumble before her father lowered his head to hers and murmured something that looked tender but which Lukas imagined was anything but. His bride-to-be seemed to stiffen her resolve even as a beatific smile graced her full mouth, and her eyes flickered up to meet Lukas’s own.
And something slammed into him.
Just as it had five months ago, when he’d visited Sedeshire Hall to ensure that she knew and agreed to the marriage, only for Lady Octavia to walk—no, stride—into that conservatory at her family home, carrying herself like a queen rather than a mere lady. She’d made his entire body leap on sight, even as she’d declared confidently that, deal or not, she knew what she was doing and she was prepared to marry him.
As though the decision had been hers.
Desire had walloped him then, just as it did now. Hard. Like a punch to the gut when a fighter dropped his guard in a bout—which he never did. He’d wanted her right there and then. Like nothing he’d ever known before.
And then she’d fixed him with that inscrutable stare of hers—wi
th eyes far too intelligent and fierce and assessing than the air-headed, social-climbing creature he’d been led to believe she was.
Making him wonder at the veracity of all those rumours. Making him wonder if she really was such a vacuous socialite and making him want to piece together the fascinating puzzle that this woman suggested she was.
And that killer body that she seemed to have absolutely no idea that she possessed.
He’d known she was pretty enough. The photos of her exploits as an It-girl—clad in scraps of metallic dress or barely-there bikinis—revealed as much, though he’d believed that her personality would be as plasticky as so many socialites of his acquaintance. Perhaps that explained why he hadn’t been prepared for the almost visceral reaction he’d had to her.
In that one moment, five months ago, he’d been taken over by a desire that he’d never experienced before in his life. He had never wanted a woman so badly, with such a need that he thought he might go mad if he didn’t have her.
And yet at the same time, crazily, he’d wanted to protect her. From her father. And maybe from others. Perhaps that was the part of it which made the least sense.
He’d wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her out of that place, and if he’d had a damned horse then he’d believed he might have thrown her over that too. Rescuing her as if he was some medieval knight instead of a modern-day one, and she was his damsel in distress.
He, who had never been given to flights of fantasy in all his years.
It was the moment Lukas had realised that Lady Octavia Hendlington was the last woman on earth he should ever marry. Yet he’d done nothing to stop it, and now this vision was gliding gracefully up the aisle towards him, and she was no pretty-but-plastic girl. She appeared every inch a stunning woman with an indefinable quality that Lukas could neither put his finger on nor dismiss.
It unsettled him.
Not for the first time, he felt the tiptoeing steps of doubt creep into his brain, casting the faintest black shadow.
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