Surrender to the Past

Carole Mortimer

The return of Ethan Black – the most magnificent man she’s ever met… Mia Burton thinks she’s seen the last of Ethan Black – the man who haunts her heart. She’s wanted to forget him – but can you really dismiss from your mind the most magnificent man you’ve ever met? He’s a painful reminder of her troubled past and she needs him to stay just a memory…But Ethan’s returned in all his very real glory – unyielding in his bid to resolve the history between them. Mia wonders what his real motive can be – because it’s clear he’ll do whatever it takes to win her back!

‘How did you find me, Ethan?’

He looked at her from between narrowed lids. ‘When your father failed to do so in five years of searching?’ he taunted.

‘If that’s how long he looked, yes.’

Ethan grimaced. ‘We really should go somewhere more private to discuss this, Mia.’

Her mouth thinned. ‘I said no.’

Irritation darkened his brow. ‘We are going to talk, Mia.’

‘Whether I like it or not?’

‘Yes.’

About the Author

CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Mills & Boon

. Carole has six sons: Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Surrender

to the Past

Carole Mortimer

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

To Peter

CHAPTER ONE

‘MIND if I join you?’

‘Please do. I’m finished here, anyway.’ The warmly polite words had already been spoken before Mia looked up, but the friendly smile curving her lips froze in place as she instantly recognised the man standing beside her booth in the crowded coffee shop.

How could she not recognise Ethan Black?

Big. Dark. Forceful. Arrogant. Magnetically attractive. Still …

Mia drew in a deep breath, chin tilting in challenge as she took in everything about him. It had been five years since she last saw Ethan, and his hair was still as dark as night, although it was styled much shorter than it used to be. Expertly so. His face was just as male-model handsome: wide, intelligent brow, penetrating grey eyes, sculptured cheekbones either side of a long straight nose, and a wickedly sinful mouth above a square and determined jaw. Although his mouth was unsmiling at the moment …

The same, and yet not the same.

Ethan would be thirty-one now, to Mia’s twenty-five, and that maturity showed in the cynical depths of his eyes that at the moment had all the colour and warmth of a bleak winter sky. His cheeks were thinner too, more hollow, and there were lines beside his eyes and mouth that hadn’t been there before either.

He was dressed in a black—obviously expensively tailored designer-label suit, with a black cashmere overcoat that reached mid-calf and drew attention to the handmade Italian shoes in soft black leather.

And he was nearly a foot taller than Mia’s own five feet four inches—she was getting a crick in her neck just from looking up at him!

‘Ethan.’ She nodded tersely, knowing her initial reaction would have been too obvious for her to even attempt to act as if she hadn’t recognised him.

Or realised that his presence at this particular coffee shop—the coffee shop Mia both owned and ran—couldn’t simply be a coincidence …

There was, Mia realised warily, a hardness about Ethan as he looked down at her—an unsmiling, haughty demeanour totally in keeping with those other changes she had noted in his appearance. A powerful arrogance that so reminded Mia of the man Ethan worked for. Mia’s father …

She raised her brows. ‘You’re supposed to buy the coffee and a cookie from the counter before you sit down.’

He shrugged, unconcerned. ‘And if I don’t want coffee or a cookie?’

Mia smiled ruefully. ‘Then yo