It Started at a Wedding...

It Started at a Wedding...
Kate Hardy

One kiss is never enough!Claire Stewart thought her day couldn’t get any worse – but she was wrong! As if losing her best friend’s wedding dress wasn’t enough, she’s faced with the ultra-handsome, ultra-successful brother of the bride, Sean Farrell…Oh, and she’s had a crush on him for years!Sean might have turned his back on romance a long time ago, but somehow Claire manages to slip inside his heart. The trouble is, Sean knows that when it comes to Claire, one scorching, unforgettable kiss at a wedding just isn’t enough…

Oh, help, Claire thought. She’d been here before.

She could still remember the first night she’d kissed Sean Farrell.

The way his mouth had felt against hers before he’d pulled away and given her a total dressing-down about being seventeen years old and in a state in which an unscrupulous man might have taken advantage of her.

Right now it would be all too easy to let her hands drift up over his shoulders, curl round the nape of his neck and draw his mouth down to hers. Particularly as they were no longer on the dance floor, in full view of the rest of the guests. At some point while they’d been dancing together they’d moved away from the temporary dance floor. Now they were in a secluded area of the garden. Just the two of them in the twilight.

‘Claire …’ His voice was a whisper.

And she knew he was going to kiss her again.

It Started at a Wedding …

Kate Hardy

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

Award-winning author KATE HARDY lives in Norwich with her husband, two children, one spaniel and too many books to count! She’s a fan of the theatre, ballroom dancing, posh chocolate and anything Italian. She’s a history and science geek, plays the guitar and piano, and makes great cookies (which is why she also has to go to the gym five days a week …).

To the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance authors, with much love and thanks for being such brilliant colleagues and friends—and for letting me bounce mad ideas off them!

Contents

Cover (#u97e6e8b8-01b8-57a2-9fb1-8ea67a96e2f6)

Introduction (#uc69e26f9-2951-5a0f-b1a3-a5c6471db8c6)

Title Page (#uf35e9908-6d13-547c-a647-2f19ae0b3aee)

About the Author (#u88719127-f181-50ba-8840-7003ad5724d0)

Dedication (#uf6955dd9-017c-5666-bc36-4aa6aa546dec)

CHAPTER ONE (#uf2fd4e00-236b-5e5a-8d7e-ea5e0c7477c2)

CHAPTER TWO (#u37694eaf-96e3-5ecc-b74e-cd60f34cc2ae)

CHAPTER THREE (#uee9f3df1-3302-5ec8-9c7a-81628c3fcb54)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u86609920-9975-5814-8804-2b40e302089a)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_dd5767e3-1cfd-5a03-9eec-0bf7dbe97d41)

NO.

This couldn’t be happening.

The box had to be there.

It had to be.

But the luggage carousel was empty. It had even stopped going round, now the last case had been taken off it. And Claire was the only one standing there, waiting with a small suitcase and a dress box—and a heart full of panic.

Where was her best friend’s wedding dress?

‘Get a grip, Claire Stewart. Standing gawping at the carousel isn’t going to make the dress magically appear. Go and talk to someone,’ she told herself sharply. She gathered up her case and the box containing the bridesmaid’s dress, and went in search of someone who might be able to find out where the wedding dress was. Maybe the box had accidentally been put in the wrong flight’s luggage and it was sitting somewhere else, waiting to be claimed.

Half an hour of muddling through in a mixture of English and holidaymakers’ Italian got her the bad news. Somewhere between London and Naples, the dress had vanished.

The dress Claire had spent hours working on, hand-stitching the tiny pearls on the bodice and the edge of the veil.

The dress Claire’s best friend was supposed to be wearing at her wedding in Capri in two days’ time.

Maybe this was a nightmare and she’d wake up from it in a second. Surreptitiously, Claire pinched herself. It hurt. Not good, because that meant this was really happening. She was in Naples with her luggage, her own bridesmaid’s dress...and no wedding dress.

There was nothing else for it. She grabbed her mobile phone, found a quiet corner in the airport and called Ashleigh.

Whose phone was switched through to voicemail.

This definitely wasn’t the kind of news Claire could leave on voicemail; that would be totally unfair. She tried calling Luke, Ashleigh’s fiancé, but his phone was also switched through to voicemail. She glanced at her watch. It was still so early that they were probably in the middle of breakfast and they’d probably left their phones in their room. OK. Who else could she call? She didn’t have a number for Tom, Luke’s best man. Sammy, her other best friend, who was photographing the wedding, wasn’t flying to Italy until tomorrow, after she’d finished a photo-shoot in New York. The rest of the wedding guests were due to arrive on the morning of the wedding.