The Virgin's Choice. Jennie Lucas

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      JENNIE LUCAS grew up dreaming about faraway lands. At fifteen, hungry for experience beyond the borders of her small Idaho city, she went to a Connecticut boarding school on scholarship. She took her first solo trip to Europe at sixteen, then put off college and travelled around the US, supporting herself with jobs as diverse as gas station cashier and newspaper advertising assistant.

      At twenty-two she met the man who would be her husband. After their marriage, she graduated from Kent State with a degree in English. Seven years after she started writing, she got the magical call from London that turned her into a published author. Since then life has been hectic, with a new writing career and a sexy husband and two small children, but she’s having a wonderful (albeit sleepless) time. She loves immersing herself in dramatic, glamorous, passionate stories. Maybe she can’t physically travel to Morocco or Spain right now, but for a few hours a day, while her children are sleeping, she can be there in her books.

      Jennie loves to hear from her readers. You can visit her website at www.jennielucas.com, or drop her a note at [email protected]

       Recent titles by the same author:

      SENSIBLE HOUSEKEEPER, SCANDALOUSLY PREGNANT

      TAMED: THE BARBARIAN KING^*

      BOUGHT: THE GREEK’S BABY

      ^*part of the Dark-Hearted Desert Men series

       To my wonderful agent, Jennifer Schober, with gratitude.

      Chapter One

       IT WAS a fairy tale come true.

      Three months ago, Rose Linden had been struggling to pay her bills. Today, she no longer worked two jobs in San Francisco, scraping frozen rain off the window of the broken-down car she jump-started each night. As of an hour ago, she’d become a baroness, with the world at her manicured fingertips.

      And Lars Växborg was her husband.

      Rose glanced at her new husband across the enormous gilded ballroom of his castle in northern Sweden. The slender, blond baron looked sleek in his tuxedo, sipping champagne as he was deep in discussion with several young women.

      She was his wife now. She should have been ecstatic. And yet, staring at Lars across the room, she suddenly found she couldn’t breathe.

      “Very fancy wedding, Baroness,” her father teased, then frowned. “But why are you so skinny these days, peanut? You been sick or something?”

      Her mother elbowed him in the ribs. “It’s her wedding day,” she hissed. “Rose looks beautiful!”

      He looked her up and down accusingly. “She’s skin and bone!”

      Her mother patted her own full cheeks. “I dieted before my wedding to you, Albert. But of course—” she sighed “—that was five children ago. For heaven’s sake, let Rose enjoy being thin, because it won’t last!”

      But Rose didn’t laugh, as she normally would have while being teased by her large, loving family. Nor did she tell them that she hadn’t lost weight on purpose. She just never felt like she could relax around Lars, even though—or perhaps because—he constantly assured her she was perfect in every way.

      She’d told herself it was wedding day jitters, but though she’d already spoken her vows she was still feeling queasier by the minute. Was it because she hadn’t eaten since yesterday? Or because the corset boning of the bodice of her wedding gown was laced too tightly, causing her breasts to spill over the top?

      She should have felt like the perfect Cinderella bride, in full white skirts and with a diamond tiara sparkling above her long lace veil. But she still felt small and out-of-place in the castle. And her mother was a bloodhound where her children’s emotions were concerned. She could already see Vera starting to frown. In a minute, she’d ask questions, questions Rose couldn’t answer—not even to herself.

      Trembling, Rose set down her crystal flute on the tray of a passing waiter. “I’m going out for some fresh air.”

      “We’ll come with you.”

      “No. Please, I just need a minute. Alone—”

      Turning, she fled the ballroom. She ran through the empty hallways of the castle and out into the dark winter’s night. Once she was outside, she fell back heavily against the medieval door. It scraped against the stone before finally slamming shut with a sonorous bang that echoed into the white, ghostlike garden.

      Rose closed her eyes, taking a deep breath that burned her lungs in the frozen February air.

      She was married now.

      She’d thought she would feel…different.

      At twenty-nine, she’d long been an object of pity to her friends and siblings, all of whom were married except her youngest brother. Every time they’d said, “You’re too picky” or “Who are you waiting for, Rose—Prince Charming?” Rose had cried in private, in her lonely single apartment, but she’d still kept faith. She was determined not to settle. She would wait for true love, even if it took forever.

      Then Lars had walked into the San Francisco diner where she worked the morning shift. He’d sat down at the counter and ordered coffee and the breakfast plate special.

      San Francisco was a cosmopolitan, colorful city, far more populated than the tiny coastal village to the south where Rose had grown up; but even for San Francisco, a man like Lars was unusual. He was a wealthy, handsome aristocrat who’d gone to Oxford, who had his own ancestral castle in Sweden. From the moment they’d met, he’d pursued Rose with reckless abandon.

      Men had pursued her before, and she’d never been interested. But Lars’s incredibly romantic, complimentary charm had swept her off her feet. A week ago, he’d proposed marriage. “Let’s elope today,” he’d begged. “I can’t wait to have you as my wife.” After she’d accepted, he’d only grudgingly agreed to wait a week, long enough for her family to be able to attend. When she’d asked for a small wedding in her hometown, he’d arranged instead for her entire family—her grandmother, parents and her five siblings and their families—to fly to northern Sweden.

      They’d had a magical wedding. And tonight, they’d make love for the first time.

      Was that why Rose felt this sinking feeling inside, like the cratering of her soul? She was nervous. That had to be the reason she felt so ill. She had nothing to be scared about, she told herself fiercely. Nothing.

      Still,