The Alcolar Family: The Twelve-Month Mistress / The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife / Bound by Blackmail

The Alcolar Family: The Twelve-Month Mistress / The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife / Bound by Blackmail
Kate Walker

Back by popular demand! These great value titles feature stories from Mills & Boon fans' favourite authors. The Twelve-Month Mistress Joaquin Alcolar has a rule: never to keep a mistress for more than twelve months! Cassie knows that her time is nearly up, and to save her pride – and her heart – she decides to jump before she’s pushed! But then Joaquin has an accident…The Spaniard’s Inconvenient Wife Ramón Dario desperately wants the Medrano Company. But the deal has an outrageous condition – marriage to the notorious Estrella Medrano! Ramón won’t be forced into anything, but a marriage of convenience – and desire – might be a good deal…Bound by Blackmail Jake Taverner has never wanted a woman as he wants Mercedes Alcolar. So when she rejects him, Jake’s hurt pride demands revenge! He traps Mercedes into a fake engagement and he embarks on a skilful seduction. She’ll share his bed for one passionate month…

The Alcolar Family

Passion is their birthright!

Three sizzling, sensational novels froma bestselling Mills & Boon

Modern™author!

Kate Walker was born in Nottinghamshire, but as she grew up in Yorkshire she has always felt that her roots were there. She met her husband at university and she originally worked as a children’s librarian, but after the birth of her son she returned to her old childhood love of writing. When she’s not working, she divides her time between her family, their three cats, and her interests of embroidery, antiques, film and theatre, and, of course, reading.

You can visit Kate at http://www.kate-walker.com.

If you want to read more about the Alcolars, Alex’s story, Wife for Real is available as a free online read at www.millsandboon.co.uk

Don’t miss Kate Walker’s exciting new novel,Bedded by the Greek Billionaire,available inSeptember from Mills & Boon

Modern™.

The Alcolar Family

by

Kate Walker

THE TWELVE-MONTH MISTRESS

THE SPANIARD’S INCONVENIENT WIFE

BOUND BY BLACKMAIL

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

THE TWELVE-MONTH MISTRESS

by

Kate Walker

CHAPTER ONE

THE calendar hung in the middle of the wall, right where Cassie couldn’t avoid seeing it.

No matter which way she looked, it was always there, clear and obvious. In fact it almost seemed to be getting bigger, more obvious with each second that passed, the photograph of a fiesta scene instantly attracting attention with its brilliant colours, its vibrant life.

And beneath it, the dates in bold black print.

Particularly the date she didn’t want to see.

Or most longed to see. She didn’t know which way she felt right now.

Because the importance of that date wasn’t in her hands. It was in Joaquin’s control. And only his. She could do nothing about it.

Not if she wanted to avoid pushing things in a direction she didn’t want them to go.

But was it worth staying in a situation that was just not making her happy?

‘Oh, stop it!’ she told herself sharply, pushing back a strand of golden blonde hair that had fallen forward over her face, and tucking it behind her ear. ‘Leave it! You’re just going round in circles!’

As she had been doing for the last three weeks, she admitted, arching brows drawing sharply together over concerned blue eyes. Ever since the calendar had been turned to reveal the month of June and right there, in the middle of the third week, the all-important anniversary.

The anniversary that she had no idea whether Joaquin would remember and, if he did, whether he would mark it in the way that he had done with all his other previous relationships.

By leaving.

Or, rather, telling her to leave, seeing as it was his house that they lived in.

No woman had ever lasted more than twelve months with him. After a year, sometimes even to the day, he said good-bye and walked away without a backwards glance, it seemed. And at the end of this week she would have been living with him for a year.

‘Oh, Joaquin, what are you thinking? What are you feeling?’

Would she ever be more than just a mistress to him, or was she destined to go the same way as all his other women—out of his life for good?

The sound of a key being inserted in a lock downstairs pulled her out of her thoughts and into the present moment again. Somehow she had missed the sound of the car pulling up outside and now here he was, Joaquin himself, unexpectedly early, and she would have to get herself into the right mood to greet him.

‘Cassandra!

The sound of her name, pronounced as only Joaquin could speak it, with the lilting emphasis, the faint roll of the R, floated up the stairs to her waiting ears. Ears that were straining to hear whether there was anything different about the way he used it, anything that would give her a clue as to just what sort of mood he was in. Whether he was feeling as he usually did, or if some unwanted distance, a newfound coldness had crept into his tone.

Anything that might give her warning of what was to come. Anything that would give her a couple of much-needed seconds to adjust her own mood, her own response, prepare herself if necessary.

‘Cassie!’

Oh, there was no mistaking that tone, she told herself wryly.

Even on the single word, the darker emphasis, the undercurrent of impatience was pure Joaquin. And, unlike most people who used the shortened version of her name as a form of affection and warmth, Joaquin Alcolar employed it as a sound of reproof, an indication that she had somehow fallen short of his expectations.

Obviously he had expected that she would have rushed to greet him, to kiss him, as he came through the door. On any other day she would have fulfilled those expectations with alacrity. But today her troubled thoughts had made her unusually slow to react.

‘Cassie! Where are you?’

‘Up here!’

She was moving as she spoke. There had been a note in his voice that had her up and out of her chair before she even had time to think. A note that went beyond his usual, ingrained belief that he had only to speak and he would be obeyed.

He was right, of course. As the eldest son of Juan Ramón Alcolar, the Spanish aristocrat who also owned and ran the Alcolar Corporation, Joaquin had been used to respect and obedience to his command, the fulfilment of every whim, from the day of his birth. And now, as owner and managing director of his own highly successful vineyard, he had increased both his status and his personal fortune two-hundredfold, so demanding even more respect than ever before.