Hunter's Moon

Hunter's Moon
Carole Mortimer

Carole Mortimer is one of Mills & Boon’s best loved Modern Romance authors. With nearly 200 books published and a career spanning 35 years, Mills & Boon are thrilled to present her complete works available to download for the very first time! Rediscover old favourites - and find new ones! - in this fabulous collection…Marriage or scandal?Ruthless, successful—and devilishly good-looking—businessman Jonas Hunter didn't give his widowed sister-in-law Cassandra Kyle any choice. Marry him and sign over her stocks in the family company or he'd expose her family's sins to the world! With her little daughter to consider, Cassandra can only obey Jonas’s demand…Jonas has resented delectable Cassandra from the beginning, believing her to be a gold-digger who only married his brother for money. Now it is time for retribution…in his bed!Yet she soon succumbs to Jason’s insistent persuasion. However, news of her grandfather’s sudden death leaves Eden feeling guilty and—astonishingly—binds her irrevocably to the devastating Jason…!

Hunter’s Moon

Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Table of Contents

Cover (#u87086319-85f4-5e22-86fa-b91f9fe22ce3)

Title Page (#u940e2dbf-213f-55b8-991b-5fcbe3f5c8d2)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#uc1eee6d9-b7ce-545d-86fa-73dc3023da2e)

‘MUMMY…’

‘Yes, darling?’

‘Mummy, why is Uncle Jonas going to give Aunt Joy away? Don’t we want her any more?’

‘Out of the mouths of babes and innocents…’ Cassandra had found her younger sister Joy a trial to be borne for longer than she cared to think about, but actually giving her away hadn’t, she admitted ruefully, actually occurred to her!

But that wasn’t quite, she realised as she slowly put her pencil down on the desk, abandoning the design she had been working on—for the moment—what her young daughter meant now either!

Bethany had been to her grandmother’s for tea, and from this conversation Cassandra could see that the little girl had been indulging in one of her favourite pastimes—that of making herself as inconspicuous as possible while an adult conversation was taking place, and in so doing listening in on something that really was none of her business! It was the fault of the adults in question really, for forgetting Bethany was there, but nevertheless Cassandra usually gave her young daughter—a little over four years of age, and already precocious beyond belief, if equally adorable!—a sharp rebuke for the well-remembered, if less understood eavesdropping.

But this time, Cassandra had to admit, she was too interested in what Bethany had overheard to even think of the rebuke…

They were in the sitting-room that Cassandra also used as an office, part of the room given over to her drawing-board, the other kept as a cosy place for Bethany to join her and watch television or play with her toys if she wanted to. Tonight Bethany had the television on, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in front of it, but her attention wasn’t on the hectic cartoon now showing, her elbows resting on her knees, her chin resting in her hands as she looked up at Cassandra, golden-brown eyes grave with puzzlement, long black hair kept tidily in plaits for school as they reached almost down to her tiny waist, still in this style, although Bethany had changed out of her school uniform when she returned from her grandmother’s a little over an hour ago.

There was no doubting the relationship between mother and daughter, their colouring identical, Cassandra’s midnight-black hair almost as long as her daughter’s. But Bethany still maintained that childish chubbiness to her face that gave her such an endearing prettiness, whereas Cassandra was tall and reed-thin, with shadowed hollows to her cheeks and angled jaw, her beauty more hauntingly ethereal than glowingly lovely.

She smiled down at her daughter now, although inside she had stiffened defensively the moment Jonas’s name was mentioned. ‘Of course we want her, darling,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘What makes you think that we don’t?’

Bethany screwed her face up expressively as she tried to remember exactly what she had overheard earlier this evening. ‘Grandma said——’ She broke off awkwardly, wincing guiltily at Cassandra for having given herself away in this way.

‘It’s all right, Bethany,’ she smiled indulgently, too intrigued to issue any form of reprimand, even though she knew Bethany was expecting it. ‘What did Grandma say…?’

‘Well…’ Bethany sat forward, her eyes glowing excitedly at this unexpected treat of actually being invited to relate gossip. ‘While I was having tea with Grandma today she and Aunt Joy were talking and Grandma said…’ She finally had to pause for breath. ‘She said that dinner tonight was the perfect time for Aunt Joy to ask Uncle Jonas to give her away!’ Bethany looked puzzled once again.

And Cassandra’s heart sank as her worst fears were confirmed; she realised her sister Joy was going to ask Jonas to take their father’s place at the Easter wedding she and her fiancé were planning. She was also filled with outrage, as her mother must know she would be—which was obviously why she hadn’t been invited to dinner this evening too!—at the very idea of Jonas stepping into her father’s shoes in any way.

‘Has Grandma decided she doesn’t want Aunt Joy any more?’ Bethany persisted. ‘Is that why Uncle Jonas is going to give her away?’

As far as Cassandra was concerned, she felt like giving the whole Kyle family away at this moment in time! This was obviously her mother’s idea, to try and bring Jonas in as a member of the family rather than the business associate he would obviously prefer to be. And which Cassandra herself would prefer him to be too! She didn’t doubt that her mother was also trying to heal the rift that had been between the two of them almost from the moment they met nine months ago after the death of Cassandra’s husband—and Jonas’s brother—Charles.

Cassandra could have told her mother to save herself the bother of even trying, if her mother had consulted her; the differences between Jonas and herself were irretrievable. But she understood exactly why her mother was trying to manoeuvre the situation; it would hardly be the done thing for the matron of honour and the man giving the bride away to launch into one of their verbal battles in the middle of the wedding planned for four months’ time!

‘Why are you smiling, Mummy?’ Bethany had deserted the television completely now, having crossed the room to stand in front of Cassandra, one star-fish-shaped hand resting on one of her mother’s denim-clad knees. ‘It isn’t funny… is it?’

Cassandra was smiling, with irony, an emotion Bethany was too young to appreciate just yet, because if she didn’t smile she would cry! Her mother had arranged this so well, Christmas being exactly two weeks away, the last possible time of year for Cassandra to even think of creating difficulties between herself and the rest of her family, not for her own sake but for Bethany’s. At almost any other time Cassandra wouldn’t have hesitated about ringing her mother to tell her exactly what she thought of the idea of Jonas giving Joy away at the Easter wedding, and withdrawing as matron of honour if he was asked. But two weeks before Christmas, when she so wanted everything to go as smoothly as possible for Bethany during this, her first Christmas since Charles had died, was not the time to create such awkwardness with the rest of the family.

It was very unfair of her mother, and Joy, who also knew exactly how she felt, to even be thinking of asking Jonas such a thing. Especially now. And while Cassandra appreciated that she couldn’t make a scene over this now she could at least try to get her mother to delay asking Jonas until after the holiday period. Although, knowing her mother, she would realise exactly why Cassandra wanted her to delay, and go ahead and ask him anyway!

Her only consolation—if it could be called that!—was that she knew Jonas would hate being asked almost as much as she resented it! But he couldn’t possibly hate it as much!

She deliberately turned her attention back to her beloved daughter now, for whom she would do anything—even grit her teeth and suffer through Jonas’s visits here, which she did regularly, as he and Bethany had formed a bond as strong as the rift between him and Cassandra!—smiling down at her warmly. ‘No, darling, it isn’t funny,’ she acknowledged ruefully, smoothing back the black fringe that framed the cherubic beauty of her daughter’s face.

God, how Cassandra wished she had someone she could turn to now, someone to tell her what was the right thing to do in the tangled mess everything had become. This last ten months of being on her own with Bethany hadn’t been the easiest of times for her, and some of the decisions she had made had turned out disastrously, both personally and professionally. Sometimes she just longed for someone to give her a hug, or her arm a squeeze, as they told her she was doing all right— even if she knew the latter wasn’t strictly true. And there was no one—her mother and Joy were her only family now, and after her mother’s initial invitation for both her and Bethany to move in with them, an invitation Cassandra had had to refuse, and which, she knew, her mother had taken as rejection, her sister and mother, apart from the occasional invitation for Bethany to join them for tea after school or an outing at the weekends, had become wrapped up in their own lives once again, rarely seeming to give a thought to Cassandra, Bethany’s mother, widowed at only twenty-four. Perhaps that was her own fault; maybe she could have handled her refusal of her mother’s offer in a different way, but neverthe less——

God, she was starting to sound self-pitying now, she realised with a defensive straightening of her spine, and that would never do—even if her world did seem to be crashing down about her ears. And she didn’t doubt that at the first sign of vulnerability on her part Jonas would attack, as he had in the past, with all the razor-sharp ferocity of which he was capable!

She could still recall—with complete clarity—the first time she had met Jonas; it had also been the first occasion he had made her aware of just how contemptuous he was of her. There had been many occasions since, but that one stood out in her mind for its sheer cruelty!

Jonas hadn’t returned to England for Charles’s funeral, having lived in America for the last twelve years, and claiming on his return that he hadn’t been informed in time to attend the service, and so had seen no reason to come to England after the event. Except that a month after Charles’s death the solicitors had called the family together to read the will, and Jonas’s presence had been requested for that. It was noticeable that he made the effort to come back to England on that occasion!

Cassandra had still been numb from the shock of Charles’s death and the consequences that had followed, had barely been aware of the fact when Charles’s solicitor told her they had written to Jonas asking for him to be present. That numbness had fled with a vengeance when Jonas was shown into her lounge that day, Mr Harcourt believing this would be the best place for the reading of the will.

She had been alone in the room, none of the rest of the family having arrived yet, standing up slowly to greet the half-brother Charles had never had the chance to introduce her to. His appearance alone had come as something of a shock to her; she had expected him to look like Charles, she supposed, had even been guarding herself for the meeting, and instead she had found herself looking at a harshly dark man who bore no resemblance to Charles whatsoever.

Charles had been tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed, charming to both young and old in his desire to be liked. Apart from his equally impressive height, Jonas was the exact opposite of his half-brother: skin tanned darkly teak, saturnine almost, his hair as black as a moonless night, eyes equally black, lines of cynical hardness etched beside his nose and unsmiling mouth, giving him the appearance of being older than the thirty-five Cassandra knew him to be.

That hard black gaze had raked over her disparagingly as he took in the black sheath of a dress she wore, the starkness of the colour giving her pale skin a slightly sallow appearance. ‘The grieving widow, I presume?’ he drawled tauntingly once the door had closed behind the housekeeper as she left after showing him in.