Harlequin Presents June 2016, Box Set 1 of 2 by Lynne Graham

Author:Lynne Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460398364
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SOUND OF a helicopter flying overhead made Elena shade her eyes and look to the skies.

She was sitting on the balcony of her cabin, exactly where she’d been for the past two hours since she’d walked away from Gabriele, before she’d given into the temptation to punch him in the face.

Never in her entire life had she hated someone. Never in her entire life had she felt so, so, so...much towards another person.

Her early childhood had been spent rallying against the injustice of being the only female in a household of males. She had come to realise the only way to get their respect was to behave like them. She might have been home educated, unlike her brothers who were sent to smart schools, and she might have been sheltered from the outside world, but within the household she had turned her anger to her advantage and become one of the boys. She had forced her brothers’ respect and at the same time gained her father’s.

Now she felt as helpless and angry as she had at the age of ten when she’d finally comprehended that the education she dreamt of, one where she could be with other girls her age, had been denied her. Even now she still struggled with other women. She just couldn’t relate to them. First kisses, first attempts at putting make-up on, everything that went with being a female adolescent had been denied her. She had learned to embrace it.

Well she wouldn’t embrace this situation. Gabriele would pay for this. She didn’t know how or when or...anything, but she would make him pay.

She couldn’t even think about what it would mean to have his child.

A child. A baby. The one thing she’d never thought she would have.

Having intended to spend her life as a Vestal Virgin, Elena had reconciled herself to never having a child of her own. Her brothers had taken too much glee in sharing salacious stories of their conquests. She’d listened to all the sordid details and heard their obvious contempt for the women who were always, without exception, referred to as whores.

By the time she’d turned fifteen Elena had known she would rather stay a virgin than be subjected to that kind of disgusting treatment. She would never allow herself to be treated as a piece of meat. Yes, there were ways to conceive a child that didn’t involve getting physical with a man, but they weren’t ways she could bring herself to consider.

A knock on the cabin door brought her out of her reverie.

She unlocked it and found Gabriele standing there, a thin document file in one hand, the case she’d taken to Nutmeg Island in the other.

‘Where did you get that?’ she asked, amazed.

‘I had it couriered to my assistant. She brought it on the helicopter.’

‘But how?’

‘A friendly police officer retrieved it.’ He smiled a secret smile. ‘Carter’s gang disabled the security monitors before you arrived. All your security team saw on their screens was the feed from the day before.

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