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“So what do you think?” asked Rhys after a tiny pause.

“Um…about a goodbye kiss?”

“Yes. ”

“Well, I…I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm. I wasn’t sure Kate was entirely convinced last night. ”

“That’s what I thought. ”

Another silence, longer this time. Long enough for Thea to wonder if he could actually hear her pulse booming.

“We’d better make it look good then,” said Rhys.

It was too much for Thea. As if of their own accord, her hands lifted to his arms, slid upwards to wind around his neck and pull him toward her. Or maybe she didn’t need to pull him. Maybe Rhys was closing the distance anyway. But, however it happened, they were kissing at last, and the release from all that anticipation was so intense Thea gasped in spite of herself.

So much for cool, calm and in control.

Jessica Hart had a haphazard career before she began writing to finance a degree in history. Her experience ranged from waitress, theater production assistant and outback cook to newsdesk secretary, expedition assistant and English teacher, and she has worked in countries as different as France and Indonesia, Australia and Cameroon.

She now lives in the north of England, where her hobbies are limited to eating and drinking and traveling when she can, preferably to places where she’ll find good food or desert or tropical rain.

Books by Jessica Hart

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3797—HER BOSS’S BABY PLAN

Christmas Eve Marriage

Jessica Hart

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

NOTHING.

Thea closed the fridge with a sigh and began investigating the kitchen cupboards, but they were equally empty of anything remotely resembling breakfast.

What a great start to the holiday! A nightmare journey, an unfriendly neighbour, less than four hours’ sleep, and now nothing to eat.

‘Have a fortnight in Crete, she said,’ Thea muttered her sister’s words as she bent to peer. ‘You need a break. It’ll be beautiful. Nothing to do but read, relax…starve to death…’

‘What are you doing?’

Clara’s voice made Thea straighten and push her tangled hair away from her face. Her niece was at the bottom of the stairs, looking sleepy and tousled and very sweet in a baggy pink T-shirt. There was no doubt that it was a look that was easier to pull off after four hours’ sleep at nine, when you had peachy skin and a nice, firm little body, than at thirty-four, when peachy skin and a firm body had never figured largely among your assets in the first place.

‘Trying to find some breakfast,’ she said, yawning.

‘Oh, good. I’m hungry. ’

‘Me too,’ said Thea glumly.