No Place For Love

No Place For Love
SUSANNE MCCARTHY

FORBIDDEN! His father's mistress…Lacey Tyrell's relationship with Sir Clive Parrish was entirely innocent. The only people who didn't believe that were Clive's sexy stepson, Jon, and the journalists who were after Lacey's blood… Jon Parrish was determined to save his stepfather from further scandal no matter what it took.He had stolen Lacey away to his remote hideaway to keep her out of trouble. But there was just one problem. Jon had taken one look at blond, doe-eyed and beautiful Lacey and decided she was certainly mistress material - his own!"A long simmering love story that explodes in a blaze of glory… " - Romantic Times

“I haven’t come here to exchange pleasantries, Miss Tyrell.” (#u78532cac-86d4-5653-b9bf-7790abb36eb0)About the Author (#ubde6291a-5c14-59b5-94ce-a53750a813cc)Books by Susanne McCarthy (#uc1465123-39bf-5e96-a3ca-4b453827029f)Title Page (#u690f8edd-64a8-5d42-90f2-65e25b6d88dd)CHAPTER ONE (#ucf173afb-12b4-5a17-8bf1-8546c73d629d)CHAPTER TWO (#u9f50b99d-52fb-5d07-8409-ae9483de5462)CHAPTER THREE (#u1a9b5e0e-c708-525a-b9d6-6340ebb7a595)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)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)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“I haven’t come here to exchange pleasantries, Miss Tyrell.”

Jon continued. “And I warn you now that you’ll be wasting your time trying to play off your tricks. My taste has never run to overendowed blondes, and even if it did, I’m a bit too awake to the time of day to be taken in by a cheap little gold digger like you.”

“How dare you speak to me like that?” Lacey protested.

Again that indifferent regard swept down over her. “I knew what you were before I came here, and nothing I’ve seen so far would make me revise that opinion,” he asserted with cool derision.

SUSANNE McCARTHY grew up in South London but she always wanted to live in the country, and shortly after her marriage she moved to Shropshire, England, with her husband. They live with lots of dogs and cats in a house on a hill. She loves to travel—but she loves to come home. As well as her writing, she still enjoys her career as a teacher in adult education, though she only works part-time now.

Books by Susanne McCarthy

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No Place for Love

Susanne McCarthy

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

CHAPTER ONE

‘ROSES?’ Hugo, sprawled in the threadbare armchair in his sister’s dressing-room, glanced up as Fred, the ageing major-domo who guarded the stage door as if it were the entrance to some sacred temple, appeared in the doorway with a huge cellophane-wrapped bouquet. ‘Red ones, too. Who’s your secret admirer, sis?’

Lacey laughed merrily, taking the bouquet and making Fred blush by reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. ‘No, it’s just Clive—to wish me luck,’ she responded, glancing at the card. ‘Bless him—how thoughtful.’

Hugo snorted in derision. ‘Just Clive, indeed! I’ll tell you what, if you’re not careful you’ll find yourself splashed all over the Sunday papers—“Government minister in affair with actress.” A married government minister at that. And a blonde actress, practically young enough to be his granddaughter. They’d just love it.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Lacey chided, her soft violet-blue eyes dancing as she smiled down at her handsome twin. ‘I’m not having an affair with him.’

‘I know that, and you know that,’ Hugo countered sagely. ‘But you can bet your sweet life the papers could make it look as though you were.’

‘Well, I’m not going to stop being friends with him just because some nasty reporters have got smutty minds,’ she declared forcefully. ‘He’s a very nice, very sweet man—I feel sorry for him. His wife hates living in London, and he has to be here while Parliament’s sitting. He gets lonely.’

‘Lonely my foot! He’s nothing but a dirty old man. You certainly do pick ’em!’

‘If you’re talking about Ted Gardiner, you know that wasn’t my fault,’ Lacey protested, moving aside some of the clutter of make-up on the dressing-table to make room to lay down the bouquet. ‘He seemed so nice—how was I supposed to know he was lying when he said he wasn’t married?’

‘That’s your trouble,’ her brother insisted. ‘You think everyone’s nice. If I weren’t around to watch out for you, I don’t know where you’d be.’

‘Yes, and your idea of taking care of me nearly lost me this part!’ she retorted indignantly. ‘You can’t speak to a producer like that.’

‘I can when he’s pestering my sister.’

‘He wasn’t pestering me—he just took me out to dinner a few times. And he was a perfect gentleman.’

‘Except that he was married,’ Hugo pointed out with a touch of asperity. ‘And don’t pretend that you don’t know what he was leading up to—even you’re not that naive.’

Lacey conceded a wry smile. ‘No—well, I suppose you’re right. But it isn’t the same thing at all with Clive. For one thing, he’s almost sixty! And besides, if you annoy him, he might stop backing the play, and it isn’t easy to find “angels” to put up the money these days.’

Hugo yawned, stretching lazily. ‘Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Oh, there’s no harm in him,’ she averred, running her hairbrush through the bright golden curls that tumbled around her shoulders. ‘Besides, if he isn’t worried about the papers getting hold of it, why should I be?’

‘Because, my sweet, trusting little sister, you would be forever typecast thereafter as a career-wrecking, marriage-wrecking bimbo.’

Lacey gurgled with laughter. ‘Well, I’m typecast already,’ she pointed out without rancour, striking a pose in her stage costume—a low-cut, skin-tight red jersey and a black leather mini-skirt short enough to reveal an interesting inch of black stocking-top whenever she moved. ‘Blonde hair and big boobs equals dumb—period. I could have a fantastic career if I didn’t mind taking my clothes off in public.’

Hugo flashed her a wicked grin. ‘Lucky one of us doesn’t mind, then, isn’t it?’ he teased. ‘Someone has to pay the rent.’

‘I pay my share,’ she countered indignantly. ‘You don’t have to be a Sauvage if you don’t want to. Anyway, I thought you’d give it up once you’d got your degree.’

He shrugged wide, well-muscled shoulders, tanned to a deep, healthy bronze and shown off to striking effect by the sleeveless black T-shirt he was wearing. ‘Why should I?’ he queried laconically. ‘It’s great, getting paid to have hundreds of girls screaming for my body.’

‘Prancing around on stage wearing nothing but a couple of bits of leather and a few chains?’ she chided, shaking her head. ‘I do wish you’d get a proper job.’

‘Oh, I will, one day,’ he conceded with a yawn. ‘I told you, once I’ve saved up enough money to start my own business, I’ll—’

‘Two minutes to curtain, Miss Tyrell,’ the assistant stage manager called from the corridor.

‘Oh, lord! Do I look all right, Hughie?’ Lacey begged, casting an anxious glance at her reflection in the huge, brightly lit mirror over the dressing-table and dabbing her nose with a little more powder.

‘Well,’ he mused, surveying her with sardonic amusement, ‘it’s a good job you’re not planning to walk down the street in that outfit—you could cause a traffic accident.’

‘I know,’ she sighed wryly, wriggling to adjust the clinging jersey so that it didn’t skim quite so low over the lush curves of her breasts. ‘It was bought in for Vanessa, and she hasn’t got quite as much up top as me.’

‘Well, just be careful you don’t bend over too far in it,’ he advised. ‘You’re likely to pop out.’

Lacey giggled. ‘That’d make sure we got a full house for the rest of the week, wouldn’t it?’ she remarked, checking her appearance one last time before skipping out to take her place in the wings and await her cue.

She was under no illusions that understudying the role of French au pair in a rather weak comedy being produced in a converted West London bus station was going to prove her big break. She only had the part for a few days anyway, while the actress who was supposed to be playing it recovered from a bout of flu.