Maharaja's Mistress. Susan Stephens

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      About the Author

      SUSAN STEPHENS was a professional singer before meeting her husband on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. In true Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance style they met on Monday, became engaged on Friday, and were married three months after that. Almost thirty years and three children later, they are still in love. (Susan does not advise her children to return home one day with a similar story, as she may not take the news with the same fortitude as her own mother!)

      Susan had written several non-fiction books when fate took a hand. At a charity costume ball there was an afterdinner auction. One of the lots, ‘Spend a Day with an Author’, had been donated by Mills & Boon author Penny Jordan. Susan’s husband bought this lot, and Penny was to become not just a great friend but a wonderful mentor, who encouraged Susan to write romance.

      Susan loves her family, her pets, her friends and her writing. She enjoys entertaining, travel, and going to the theatre. She reads, cooks, and plays the piano to relax, and can occasionally be found throwing herself off mountains on a pair of skis or galloping through the countryside. Visit Susan’s website: www.susanstephens.net—she loves to hear from her readers all around the world!

       Recent books by the same author:

       Mills & Boon® Modern Heat™

      RULING SHEIKH, UNRULY MISTRESS

      SHEIKH BOSS, HOT DESERT NIGHTS

       Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance

      MASTER OF THE DESERT

      Chapter One

      SHE had to steel herself to place the call. Hard to believe she had once taken Ram on as easily as any tomboy took on her older brother’s best friend, but a lot of water had passed under the bridge since then and these days Ram was a royal playboy.

      While Mia had issues…

      Scars and issues, as well as a desire to race cars again that refused to be repressed.

       Get real, Mia. At least, don’t lie to yourself. This is a chance in a million to see Ram again.

      She hadn’t spoken to Ram for…too long, anyway, Mia reflected as she waited for the call to connect. From what she’d read about him in the press she expected Ram to be as changed as she was. Ram had announced he would shortly be quitting his playboy life to serve his people in the independent state of Ramprakesh, but before that he was to enjoy one last indulgence—a timed rally car race across Europe in his super-car.

      As soon as the newsflash came on, saying Ram’s co-driver had been taken ill, Mia knew it was her chance to step in. Ram had to find someone in order to complete the last leg of the rally, which would take place in the winding streets of Monte Carlo—the same glittering locale where Mia had made a new life after an accident in a rally car had nearly blinded her.

      She had believed she would never race again, and this was a chance in a million to compete at the highest level, but first there was a little hurdle to overcome: she had to convince Ram to take her on. To do that she would have to be as determined and as pushy as she had been as a child. There could be no allowances made for the years that had passed—when and if he answered the phone she would have to launch straight in as if she were that same tomboy who had never flinched from baiting him…

      Heat curled inside her as she remembered wicked eyes, and a man who had filled her early years with the hottest of fantasies—made all the safer for knowing Ram would never look at her that way. But she had to put all that to one side now. Raking her dark, cropped hair, Mia fixed her gaze on the bold print headline that had fired this crazy idea in the first place. The Maharaja’s Back in Town! screamed the headline. Ram, or the Maharaja, as Ram was more popularly known thanks to his heritage, his unbelievable good looks and his money—not to mention his raw and dangerous sex appeal—was still her brother’s closest friend, and had been Mia’s…

      Childhood crush?

      Trying to force the lid down on that box proved impossible. Ram meant so much more to her than that—and was still as far out of her league as he always had been. The English edition of the Monte Carlo Times pulled no punches where celebrity was concerned and Ram Varindha needed no introduction, either to this playground for the rich and famous, or to the world. When a man was too good-looking or too rich, or he originated from an exotic land with which he shared an equally exotic reputation—and Ram filled all these criteria admirably—the glamorous principality of Monte Carlo was only too eager to welcome him home.

      Mia’s heart cannoned into her throat as a familiar black velvet voice growled a suspicious greeting.

      ‘Ram?’ She played it cool—authoritative and cool. ‘Ram, it’s me…’

       Silence.

      ‘Ram, it’s Mia…’

      ‘Mia?’

      More silence as Ram no doubt trawled the telephone directory in his mind, running down the list of Mias until he came to one who lived in Monte Carlo.

      ‘Give me a clue.’

      So there were a thousand Mias in his life.

      ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know me.’ Her voice might sound confident, but beads of sweat were breaking on her brow—this was so much harder than she had imagined.

       But not insurmountable.

      Her life consisted of kicking down doors…

      And licking wounds…

      But she wouldn’t think about those now, Mia determined, unconsciously adjusting the position of her jewelled eyepatch.

      As I slipped under the anaesthetic I dreamed I was trying to stick an ice pick into Ram’s cold, unfeeling heart, but his heart was a stone that bounced away from me, and when I woke up I was blind—She’d been having that nightmare a lot since the accident, and this was her chance to break free from it—a chance to put an end to the sense of desolation that had overwhelmed her when Ram had walked out of her life.

      That had been years ago and she should be over it now. This was the best chance she was ever going to get to prove she wasn’t over-faced by Ram, by life, by anything—and she wasn’t going to waste it. ‘Surely you remember me beating the heck out of you on your best stallion when you were careless enough to choose my parents to stable your horses with?’

      ‘Mia Spencer-Dayly?’

      Result—but could he sound any less enthusiastic?

      ‘That’s the one,’ Mia confirmed, keeping up the bright act.

      In fairness, she had never been the girl to whom boys’ eyes