The Husband She Never Knew

Kate Hewitt

Литагент HarperCollins EUR

What he wants, he takes!Cruelly discarded on her wedding night, Noelle Ducasse buries the shame of being an untouched bride – creating a new, glamorous life to mask the relentless ache of loneliness. Until Ammar returns… The image of Noelle’s guileless eyes lingers with Ammar still. Noelle can refuse him all she likes, but this time the ruthless Ammar will not be denied.He’ll spend each moment of each night proving that – no matter how much her mind denies it – she will melt under her husband’s exquisite touch…“Kate Hewitt captures the essence of overcoming a forbidden love.” – Kiru, 36, Author

‘I almost didn’t recognise you.’

Noelle froze. She didn’t have to turn around to know who was speaking to her. She hadn’t heard that low, rumbling growl of a voice in ten years.

Slowly she turned and faced her former husband. The first sight of him in the shadowy foyer jolted her to the core. His hair was cut close, almost a buzz-cut. A long, livid scar of puckered reddened flesh bisected his right cheek, starting at his hairline and snaking all the way down to his jaw.

‘And I almost didn’t recognise you,’ she said, keeping her voice crisp even though her knees were near to buckling just at the sight of him.

He seemed taller and darker and bigger than before, although that was surely an illusion. She’d just forgotten the effect his presence had on her, the way he held himself so still and yet with such authority. The man she’d fallen in love with.

She gave him as level a look as she could. ‘What do you want, Ammar?’

‘You.’

About the Author

KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon

romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling and learning to knit.

After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years, and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog.

Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website: www.kate-hewitt.com

Recent titles by the same author:

THE DARKEST OF SECRETS

KHOLODOV’S LAST MISTRESS MR AND MISCHIEF (The Powerful and the Pure) BOUND TO THE GREEK

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Husband

She Never Knew

Kate Hewitt

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

CHAPTER ONE

AMMAR TANNOUS scanned the crowded ballroom of the Parisian hotel with a coldly dispassionate air, his mouth a compressed line. Somewhere amidst this glittering throng his wife waited. Although waited, he acknowledged, was the wrong word; Noelle had no idea he was here. She might not even know he was alive.

He narrowed his eyes as he shouldered his way through the crowd, noting the way conversations sputtered into silence, followed by the hiss of surprised speculation. The newspapers, he knew, had carried the story of his miraculous escape from a helicopter crash two months ago, although he hadn’t been front page news. He never was. Ammar always kept a low profile; working for Tannous Enterprises required he maintain an intense privacy. Still, some here recognised him.

‘Mr Tannous …’ A thin, nervous man approached him, looking, Ammar saw, not just nervous but scared out of his wits. Ammar tried to place the face, but he had done business with too many people to recall every frightened underling who had experienced the punishing power of Tannous Enterprises’s fist. ‘I was going to make an appointment …’