Paradise Nights. Kelly Hunter

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       TAKEN BY THE BAD BOY

      Kelly Hunter

       Praise for Kelly Hunter

      “Hunter’s emotionally rich tale will make readers

      laugh and cry along with the characters.

      A truly fantastic read.”

      —RT BOOKreviews on Revealed: A Prince and a Pregnancy

      “This story starts out on a light, fun and flirty

      note and spins into an emotional and heartfelt

      tale about coming to terms with the past

      and embracing the future.”

      —RT BOOKreviews on Playboy Boss, Live-In Mistress

      About the Author

      Accidentally educated in the sciences, KELLY HUNTER has always had a weakness for fairytales, fantasy worlds, and losing herself in a good book. Husband … yes. Children … two boys. Cooking and cleaning … sigh. Sports … no, not really—in spite of the best efforts of her family. Gardening … yes. Roses, of course. Kelly was born in Australia and has travelled extensively. Although she enjoys living and working in different parts of the world, she still calls Australia home. Visit Kelly online at www.kellyhunter.net

      Kelly’s novel Sleeping Partner was a 2008 finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA® award, in the Best Contemporary Series Romance category!

      CHAPTER ONE

      THERE was a lot to be said for spending a day sitting beneath a striped blue and white beach umbrella on a little Greek island. Serena Comino, however, had been sitting beneath this particular beach umbrella every day for five months now—renting fifty cc motorbikes to tourists— and there wasn’t a lot to be said about it any more.

      The view never changed, as glorious as it was. The faces of the tourists changed with each docking ferry but their desires stayed the same. Get wet, lie on a beach, rent a Vespa, eat … Nothing ever changed.

      Five months. Only one more month to go until she returned to Australia and the Greek-Australian arm of the family, or better yet didn’t return home to the family bosom at all. Serena leaned back in the rickety director’s chair until the front two legs left the ground, her eyes shaded by sunglasses, her head tilted towards the vivid blue sky beyond the umbrella. Maybe it had grown somewhat more interesting in the last five minutes. A passing cloud, a bird, a plane.

      Superman.

      Nope.

      ‘Who suggested this?’ she muttered.

      ‘Your father,’ said an amused voice from the direction of the goat track behind her. The track started at the edge of the village and meandered up the hillside, past her grandparents’ rambling whitewashed cottage, and on to the road above, where Serena and the Vespas spent the better part of the day.

      ‘Sad, but true.’ She turned her head, a minimal movement, and offered up a smile for Nico, her cousin on her father’s side, which meant the Greek side. The details weren’t important, they were related. And it was their turn to pull carer duty for their eighty-two-year-old grandparents, not that they needed nursing care, for they were in remarkably good health. No, truth was, she and Nico were here to run the business enterprises Pappou refused to surrender. Nico’s working day started at four a.m. on the fishing trawler and finished around lunchtime. Serena’s started at nine, finished at five or six, and didn’t involve fish. She still thought she had the better deal. ‘Lunchtime already?’

      ‘If you wore a watch you’d know.’

      ‘I can’t wear a watch any more,’ she countered. ‘Once upon a time when I had places to go and things to do I wore a watch. Now it’s just too depressing. What’s for lunch?’

      ‘Greek salad, calamari, and Gigia’s pistachio baklava.’

      Okay, so there were some advantages to small Greek islands after all. She sat up, the front two legs of her chair hitting the dirt with a thud, and looked around to see why Nico hadn’t taken his usual seat in the chair beside her.

      He wasn’t alone. A tall black-haired man stood beside him with the body of a god and a smile guaranteed to make any woman look twice. Serena only looked once but made up for it by taking her time. Not Superman, she decided finally. Superman was square of jaw and neat as a pin. Wholesome.

      This man was what happened when Superman took a walk on the wild side.

      ‘Do you fly?’ she asked him.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I knew it. Women can sense these things.’

      ‘What’s she talking about?’ he said to Nico. He had a great voice. Deep. Dreamy. Amused. Australian.

      ‘Does it matter?’ she countered. ‘Are we caring about that?’ She sent him a smile she knew damn well could make a man tremble. He countered by removing his aviator sunglasses to reveal eyes as bright and blue as the sky above. Impressive. She stared at him over the top of her sunglasses to see if the tint was making them brighter than they actually were.

      Nope.

      ‘Rena, this is Pete Bennett. Pete, my cousin Serena. Her heart is pure. Much to the family’s dismay, the rest of her is pure sin.’

      ‘Serena.’ Pete Bennett’s smile was lazy, very lazy, his eyes appreciative without being bold. Superman-for-bad-girls knew women. Knew how to woo them, knew exactly how to play them. Always a bonus. ‘That’s quite a combination.’

      Serena felt her smile widen. ‘So I’m told.’

      Sighing,