The Return of Her Past Read online

  Once is a mistake. Twice is a habit!

  Housekeeper’s daughter Mia Gardiner knew her feelings for multimillionaire Carlos O’Connor were foolish. Until the day she caught the ruthless playboy’s eye. Now Mia is older and wiser, but she has never forgotten the feel of his touch. Then, like a whirlwind, Carlos returns.…

  The girl he once knew is now a poised and sophisticated woman. Carlos is determined to rekindle their passionate past, but Mia’s reluctance fires his blood. Refusing to be denied, he has one last trick up his sleeve: he’ll save her ailing business in exchange for endless nights in his bed!

  “Surely I can do this,” Mia whispered. “I’ve come so far since those days—surely I can do this?”

  She closed her eyes but nothing could stop those memories as she allowed herself the luxury of picturing Carlos O’Connor in her mind’s eye. Luxury? Or was it a torment?

  Whatever. How could she forget that night-dark hair that sometimes fell in his eyes? That olive skin his Spanish mother had bequeathed yet gray eyes that came from his Irish father and that could be as cool as the North Sea or so penetrating his glance made you mentally sit up in a flurry and hope like mad you had your wits about you.

  How could she forget the satanic edge to his looks that was so intriguing—irresistible but at the same time capable of making you feel you were playing with fire?

  Or not remember the way he laughed sometimes and that wicked sense of humor?

  Or the times when no one would have suspected he was at the helm of a multinational construction company. Times when he exchanged his suits for jeans and T-shirt and indulged his favorite pastimes, sailing, riding, flying. In fact he was rarely formal when she thought about it.

  But above all, how could she ever forget lying in Carlos O’Connor’s arms?

  All about the author…Lindsay Armstrong

  LINDSAY ARMSTRONG was born in South Africa but now lives in Australia with her New Zealand–born husband and their five children. They have lived in nearly every state of Australia and have tried their hand at some unusual—for them—occupations, such as farming and horse training—all grist to the mill for a writer! Lindsay started writing romances when their youngest child began school and she was left feeling at a loose end. She is still doing it and loving it.

  Other titles by Lindsay Armstrong available in ebook:

  Harlequin Presents®

  WHEN ONLY DIAMONDS WILL DO

  THE GIRL HE NEVER NOTICED

  THE SOCIALITE AND THE CATTLE KING

  ONE-NIGHT PREGNANCY

  Lindsay Armstrong

  The Return of Her Past

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EXCERPT

  PROLOGUE

  MIA GARDINER WAS home alone and preparing dinner for her mother when the storm hit with very little warning.

  One minute she was rolling pastry, the next she was racing around the big old house known as West Windward and home to the wealthy O’Connor family, closing windows and doors as raindrops hammered down on the roof like bullets.

  It was when she came to close the front door that a dark, damp figure loomed through the outside gloom and staggered towards her.

  For a moment her heart leapt into her throat in fright, then she recognised the figure.

  ‘Carlos! It’s you. What are you doing—Carlos, are you all right?’ She stared up at him, taking in the fact that he had blood pouring down his temple from a nasty-looking cut. ‘What happened?’ she breathed and clutched him as he swayed where he stood.

  ‘A branch came down as I was crossing from the garage to the house. Hit me on the head,’ he said indistinctly. ‘That’s quite a storm,’ he added.

  ‘You’re not wrong.’ Mia put her hand on his arm. ‘Come with me. I’ll fix your head.’

  ‘What I need is a strong drink!’ But he swayed again as he said it.

  ‘Come,’ she said, and led him through the house to the housekeeper’s sitting room. It opened off the kitchen and was small but comfortable.

  Mia cleared her mother’s knitting off the settee and Carlos O’Connor collapsed gratefully onto it. In fact he lay down and groaned and closed his eyes.

  Mia was galvanised into action. Half an hour later she had cleaned and dressed the cut on his head whilst not only rain but hail teemed down outside.

  Then the lights went off and she clicked her tongue, mainly because she should have expected it. They had frequent power failures in the district when the weather was stormy. Fortunately her mother kept some kerosene lamps handy but in the dark she tripped around until she located them. Then she lit a couple and brought one into the sitting room.

  Carlos was lying unmoving, his eyes were closed and he looked very pale.

  She stared down at him and felt a wave of tenderness flow through her because the truth of the matter was that Carlos O’Connor was gorgeous. All the lean six foot plus length of him, the dark hair, testament to his Spanish heritage, that he often pushed out of his eyes, those grey eyes that sometimes glinted wickedly at you...

  She’d had a crush on Carlos since she was fifteen—how could you not? she sometimes wondered. How could anyone be immune to that devastatingly sexy aura? He might be ten years older than her eighteen years but surely she could catch up?

  Not that she’d seen an awful lot of him over the past five years. He didn’t live on the property but she believed he’d grown up on it; he lived in Sydney, but he did come back from time to time. Usually it was only for a couple of days but he rode, not only horses but quad bikes, and because Mia was allowed to stable her horse on the property, and because she kept a weather eye on his horses when she was home, they had a bit in common.

  She’d had some marvellous gallops with Carlos and if he’d ever divined that sometimes he made her heartbeat triple he’d never given any sign of it.

  At first her daydreams had been simple and girlish but over the last couple of years she’d graduated from alternating between telling herself to forget all about Carlos O’Connor—he was a multi-millionaire, she was only the housekeeper’s daughter—and some rather more sophisticated daydreams.

  Still, he was way out of her league. What could she offer him over the gorgeous beauties who sometimes accompanied him on his visits?

  ‘Mia?’

  She came out of her daydream with a start and saw that his eyes were open.

  ‘How do you feel?’ She knelt down beside him and put the lamp down. ‘Do you have a headache? Or double vision? Or any strange symptoms?’

  ‘Yes.’ He thought for a moment.

  She waited, then, ‘What? Tell me. I don’t think I can get a doctor to come out in this—’ she gestured up towards the cacophony on the roof above ‘—but—’

  ‘I don’t need a doctor,’ he murmured and reached for her. ‘Just this. You’ve grown up, Mia, grown up and grown gorgeous...’

  Mia gasped as his arms closed about her and somehow, she wasn’t sure how, she ended up lying beside him on the settee. ‘Carlos!’ she remonstrated and tried to sit up. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Relax,’ he murmured.

  ‘But—well, apart from anything else, you could have a fractured skull!’

  ‘If I did, quiet and warmth and comfort would be recommended, don’t you agree?’ he suggested gravely.

  ‘I...you...perhaps but—’ Mia broke off helplessly.

  ‘That’s exactly what you could provide, Miss Gardiner. So w
ould you mind not wriggling around like a trapped pilchard?’

  ‘A trapped pilchard?’ Mia repeated in outraged tones. ‘How dare you, Carlos?’

  ‘Sorry. Not the most complimentary analogy. How about a trapped siren? Yes, that’s better, don’t you agree?’ And he ran his hands down her body, then cuddled her against him. ‘Pilchard. I must be crazy!’ he murmured.

  Mia took a breath to tell him he was crazy but suddenly she was laughing. Then they were laughing together and it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to Mia.

  So much so, she lay quietly in his arms and when he started to kiss her, she didn’t resist. She was powerless to be unaffected by the amazing rapture he brought to her as he kissed her and held her. As he told her she had the most luscious mouth, skin like silk and hair like midnight.

  She was made conscious of her body in ways she’d never known before as delicious ripples of desire ran through her. She was deeply appreciative of his easy strength and his long clean lines, the width of his shoulders and the way his hands brought her so much pleasure.

  In fact she started to kiss him back and, when it was over, once again she lay quietly against him, her arms around him and she was deeply affected by everything about him. Not only that but conscious that it wasn’t impossible for him to be attracted to an eighteen-year-old—why else would he be doing this? Why else would he tell her she’d grown up and grown gorgeous?

  Surely it couldn’t be concussion?

  * * *

  Two days later Mia drove away from the O’Connor estate and set her course, so to speak, for Queensland, where she’d been offered a university place.

  She’d said goodbye to her parents, who’d been proud but just a little sad, but she was secure in the knowledge that they loved their jobs. Her father had a great deal of respect for Frank O’Connor, who’d built his construction company into a multi-million dollar business, although he’d recently suffered a stroke and been confined to a wheelchair, leaving his son Carlos in charge.

  It was Carlos’s mother Arancha, a diminutive Spanish lady, a beauty in her earlier days but still the epitome of style, who had given her only son a Spanish name and it was she amongst the O’Connors who loved the Hunter Valley estate of West Windward passionately.

  But it was Mia’s mother who actually tended the homestead, with all its objets d’art, priceless carpets and exquisite linens and silks. And it was her father who looked after the extensive gardens.

  To some extent Mia shared both her parents’ talents. She loved to garden and the greatest compliment her father had given her was to tell her she had ‘green fingers’. She also took after her mother in her eye for decorative detail and love of fine food.

  Mia was conscious that she owed her parents a lot. They’d scrimped and saved to give her the best education at a private boarding school. That was why she always helped as much as she could when she was home with them and she knew she was fulfilling their dream by going to university.

  But as she drove away two days after the storm, her thoughts were in chaos, her head was still spinning and she didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘CARLOS O’CONNOR WILL be attending,’ Mia Gardiner’s assistant Gail announced in hushed, awed tones.

  Mia’s busy hands stilled for a moment—she was arranging a floral display. Then she carried on placing long-stemmed roses in a standard vase. ‘He is the bride’s brother,’ she said casually.

  Gail lowered the guest list and stared at her boss. ‘How do you know that? They don’t have the same surname.’

  ‘Half-brother, actually,’ Mia corrected herself. ‘Same Spanish mother, different fathers. She’s a couple of years older. I think she was about two when her father died and her mother remarried and had Carlos.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Gail demanded.

  Mia stood back, admired her handiwork but grimaced inwardly. ‘Uh—there’s not a lot that isn’t known about the O’Connors, I would have thought.’

  Gail pursed her lips but didn’t disagree and studied the guest list instead. ‘It says—it just says Carlos O’Connor and partner. It doesn’t say who the partner is. I thought I read something about him and Nina French.’ Gail paused and shrugged. ‘She’s gorgeous. And wouldn’t it be lovely to have all that money? I mean he’s got a fortune, hasn’t he? And he’s gorgeous too, Carlos O’Connor. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ Mia replied and frowned down at the tub of pink and blue hydrangeas at her feet. ‘Now, what am I going to put these in? I know, the Wedgwood soup tureen—it sounds odd but they look good in it. How are you going, Gail?’ she asked rather pointedly.

  Gail awoke from her obviously pleasurable daydream about Carlos O’Connor and sighed. ‘I’m just about to lay the tables, Mia,’ she said loftily and wafted away, pushing a cutlery trolley.

  Mia grimaced and went to find the Wedgwood tureen.

  * * *

  Several hours later, the sun went down on Mount Wilson but Mia was still working. Not arranging flowers; she was in the little office that was the headquarters of the Bellbird Estate.

  It was from this office in the grand old homestead, the main house on the estate, that she ran the reception function business, Bellbird Estate, a business that was becoming increasingly well-known.

  Not only did the old house lend its presence to functions but its contents delighted Mia. It contained lovely pieces of old furniture, vases, lamps, linen and a beautiful china collection—including the Wedgwood tureen.

  She catered for wedding receptions, iconic birthday parties—any kind of reception. The cuisine she provided was superb, the house and the gardens were lovely but perhaps the star of the show was Mount Wilson itself.

  At the northern end of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, it had been surveyed in 1868 and had gradually acquired a similar reputation to an Indian ‘hill station’—English-style homes with cool-climate English gardens in alien settings, this setting being bush and rainforest.

  And anyone’s first impression of Mount Wilson had to be how beautiful it was. Yes, the road was narrow and clung to the mountainside in tortuous zigzags in places but the trees in the village—plane trees, limes, elms, beeches and liquid ambers, were, especially when starting to wear their autumnal colours, glorious. There were also native eucalypts, straight, strong and reaching for the sky, and native tree ferns everywhere.

  The glimpses of houses through impressive gateways and beyond sweeping driveways were tantalising, many old and stone with chimneys, some smothered in creepers like wisteria, others with magnificent gardens.

  All in all, she’d thought often although she kept it to herself, Mount Wilson shouted money—new money or old money but money—and the resources to have acres of garden that you opened to the public occasionally. The resources to have an estate in the Blue Mountains, a retreat from the hurly-burly of Sydney or the heat of its summers....

  And tomorrow Juanita Lombard, Carlos O’Connor’s half-sister, was marrying Damien Miller on Mount Wilson—at Bellbird, to be precise. Damien Miller, whose mother, rather than the bride or her mother, had booked the venue without mentioning who the bride was until it was too late for Mia to pull out without damaging her business reputation.

  Mia got up, stretched and rubbed her back and decided enough was enough; she’d call it a day.

  She didn’t live in the main house; she lived in the gardener’s cottage, which was in fact a lot more modern, though unusual. It had been built as an artist’s studio. The walls were rough brick, the plentiful woodwork was native timber and the floors were sandstone cobbles. It had a combustion stove for heating, a cook’s delight kitchen and a sleeping loft accessible by ladder.

  It was an interior that lent itself well to Mia’s photography hobby, her images of native wildlife and restful landscapes, enlarged and framed, graced the walls. It also suited her South American poncho draped over a rail, her terracotta tubs full of plants and her chunky crockery.

/>   It was also not far from the stables and that was where she went first, to bring her horse, Long John Silver, in from the paddock, to rug him and feed him.

  Although it was summer, there were patches of mist clinging to the tree tops and the air was chilly enough to nip at your fingers and cheeks and turn the end of your nose pink. But the sunset was magical, a streaky symphony of pink and gold and she paused for a long moment with her arms around Long John’s neck to wonder at life. Who would have thought Carlos O’Connor would cross her path again?

  She shook her head and led Long John into his stall. She mixed his feed and poured it into his wall bin, checked his water, then, with a friendly pat and a flick of his mane through her fingers, she closed him in.

  That was when she came to grief. She’d collected some wood for her stove and was taking a last look at the sunset when, seemingly from nowhere, what she’d kept at bay for hours enveloped her—the memories she’d refused to allow to surface ever since she’d known who would be at tomorrow’s wedding flooded back to haunt her.

  ‘Surely I can do this,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve come so far since those days—surely I can do this?’

  She closed her eyes but nothing could stop those memories as she allowed herself the luxury of picturing Carlos O’Connor in her mind’s eye. Luxury? Or was it a torment?

  Whatever, how could she forget that night-dark hair that sometimes fell in his eyes? That olive skin his Spanish mother had bequeathed, yet the grey eyes that came from his Irish father and could be as cool as the North Sea or so penetrating his glance made you mentally sit up in a flurry and hope like mad you had your wits about you.

  How could she forget the satanic edge to his looks that was so intriguing; irresistible but at the same time capable of making you feel you were playing with fire?

  Or not remember the way he laughed sometimes and that wicked sense of humour?

  Or the times when no one would have suspected he was at the helm of a multi-national construction company. Times when he exchanged his suit for jeans and T-shirt and indulged his favourite pastimes—sailing, riding, flying. In fact he was rarely formal when she thought about it. But above all how could she ever forget lying in Carlos O’Connor’s arms?

 
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