Twice In A Lifetime. Kierney Scott
id="u89a326ad-348e-59c7-8159-dda0f3999a92">
A second chance at redemption
A lifetime ago, Sarah and Liam were childhood sweethearts in a dingy Edinburgh block, dreaming of making it in the big wide world.
But reality called. Sarah stayed to make a difference in her community, while Liam forged a career in international finance and never looked back.
Ten years on, a friend in crisis brings Sarah and Liam together in Dubai. There’s no trace of the boy she once loved – the man Liam has become is hard, mercenary, infuriating…and arousing. In an opulent desert city far away from everything she knows, can Sarah take the heat?
Twice in a Lifetime
Kierney Scott
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2013
Copyright © Kierney Scott 2013
Kierney Scott asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2013 ISBN: 9781472018199
Version date: 2018-07-23
KIERNEY SCOTT is originally from California, but moved to Scotland to enrol in the PhD programme in Educational Research at the University of Edinburgh. Four days after she arrived, she met her husband, who persuaded her it would be more fun to get married than to write a thesis. After the birth of her daughter she decided it was time to go back to school, but soon she discovered all she wanted to write was romance novels. She admitted her literary proclivities to her husband, who promptly bought her a laptop and told her to start writing her book.
When she is not writing, you will probably find her at a spinning class or baking (read eating) cupcakes. Her butter-cream icing is legendary, if only in her mind. If you want her recipe, or you just want to chat, you can contact her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at Kierney Scott @Kierney_S
This book is for all the people who have endured my unedited work: Gloria Maxwell, Marguerite Kaye, Lindsay J Pryor, Mavis Graham, Laura Borthwick, Flo Nicoll, Fiona Wilson, Nathan Chan, and Alistair. Especially Alistair…
And thanks to Dr Monika Rashid for answering all my questions and explaining how I could suitably torture a man without killing him, a useful skill.
Contents
Chapter One
Sarah Campbell tapped her fingers on the massive marble desk that separated her from the most unhelpful secretary in Dubai, and quite possibly the free world. Sarah could feel a very strongly worded letter coming in the secretary’s direction when she got back to Edinburgh, a letter with a lot of exclamation marks. She added ‘write nasty letter of complaint’ to her to do list. Second on her list would be to stop biting her nails and third might be to put on a bit of make-up, because she looked like a vagrant next to the perfectly groomed creature in front of her. To be any more flawless, the woman would need to be shellacked. There was no denying the secretary was beautiful—perhaps that was the requisite quality for employment here, because friendliness certainly wasn’t.
“As I said before, Mr McPherson is not free to speak to you. If you would like to leave a message, I will pass it along,” the woman ground out through a smile that bore more than a passing resemblance to a grimace.
Sarah took a deep breath and pushed her annoyance as far down as she could, until she could feel the familiar knot in her stomach tighten. Why did things have to be so difficult? She had spent seven hours on a flight that she could not afford, to a country hotter than the surface of the sun. The clothes that were perfect for the Baltic Scottish