One Husband Required!

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing 100th book! Many of these books are available as e books for the first time.From secretary…Shy secretary Ursula O’Neil found the right man long ago. But her brooding boss’s marriage and lovely daughter putadvertising magnate Ross Sheridan firmly out of bounds.To stand in mum…When she discovers Ross is actually a single dad in desperate need of her help, Ursula is more than happy to become a stand-in-mum to the young girl she adores.To wife?But with the attraction overwhelming them both, was innocent Ursula ready to become Ross’s new bride?Don’t miss the linked books One Bridegroom Required and One Wedding Required by Sharon Kendrick!

One Husband Required! Sharon Kendrick

talented Presents^® author Sharon Kendrick. On a bride’s special day, there’s nothing more important to her than a beautiful wedding dress—apart from the perfect bridegroom! Meet three women who are about to find both....

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100^th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

One Husband Required!

Sharon Kendrick

It was sleek, stark and stunning—the perfect gown to make a beautiful bride. Ursula’s mother had bought it for her daughters for just that reason, but Ursula knew in her heart that she would never wear the dress.

Ursula O’Neil was a practical woman who usually ran on automatic pilot until at least midday. But this one question was enough to make her hand hover over the telephone. She looked up at her boss in amazement

It was the ‘um’ as much as the question itself that made Ursula sit up and take notice.

Six years of working for a man meant you got to know him pretty well. He could be distracted when he was working, irritable on a deadline, and soft as butter with his daughter—but Ross Sheridan hesitating? Never!

Words were his business, his stock-in-trade. What Ross couldn’t do with a few words wasn’t worth knowing... He could make you weep, or giggle, or rush out to buy a certain brand of dog food—even if you didn’t own a dog! These days he was Chairman of the agency, true, but at heart he was still a simple copywriter.

Ursula forgot all about the telephone call she had been about to make. ‘Would you mind repeating what you just said, Ross?’

Ross studied the pencil which was positioned between his long fingers like a spear. Then he looked up and smiled, and Ursula was caught in the crossfire of eyes so dark they were almost black. Inky, brilliant and unforgettable.

But the eyes were obscured by a frown. ‘I said, are you doing anything on Saturday?’

Well, he wasn’t asking her for a date, that was for sure. But Ursula allowed herself the brief and guilty fantasy that he was before she said, ‘Well, no, I’m not, as it happens. Why?’

‘Oh. I see.’ But she didn’t. Ross and his wife had held parties before and never bothered sending her an invitation. So why the sudden change in behaviour?

Ursula continued to gaze at Ross, as if seeking clues for the invitation in a face which was much too interesting to be described as merely handsome. But it came pretty close...

‘Me?’ she squeaked, realising as she said it that she sounded like some latter-day Cinderella!

‘Yes, you,’ he agreed, frowning even more. ‘For pity’s sake, Ursula—I’ve never seen you so lost for words before! What do you think’s going to happen? I’m not planning to cosh you over the head and sell you off to the highest bidder!’

‘Not shocked,’ she corrected primly. ‘I think it would take a little more than that to shock me, Ross! Bemused might be a better description. I mean, in all the years I’ve worked with you—’

‘I won’t.’ Years which had just blurred and flown. The reality of just how many should have disturbed Ursula far more than it seemed to disturb Ross—but then she never let herself stop to think about it.

And she didn’t want to change. For who in their right mind would ever change the perfect job and the perfect boss?

‘Ever since I first entered the mad, mixed-up world of advertising...’ she smiled ‘...and you plucked me from the obscurity of the general office to become your personal assistant—’

‘And?’ he cut in impatiently, as he was in the habit of doing if he thought something was irrelevant. ‘What’s that got to do with me asking you to a party?’

‘That’s because you once told me quite emphatically that you didn’t like to mix business with pleasure!’

Ursula thought about this for a moment. ‘That’s true,’ she admitted. Well, true that she had said it, not that she had meant it, of course. Not deep down. It had been a survival technique to protect herself from the buckets of charm her boss possessed. She could have quite happily spent every evening in Ross’s company if the truth were known. Every lunchtime. Every breakfast. Every waking hour if she was being embarrassingly and brutally honest, and only one thing stopped her.

And even if he wasn’t married—even if he wasn’t—there was no way he would look twice at her. Men like Ross Sheridan were never attracted to women with unfashionably curved bodies of softly cushioned hips, and breasts which looked like overripe melons. They liked their women slim. No. Skinny. With plenty of bones showing, like sleek racehorses. Classy women.

Jane, who was tall and creative and possessed the kind of qualities which readers of teenage magazines were always aspiring to. Jane who could throw on a tatty old dress bought from the thrift shop and look like a million dollars in it.

Swallowing down whatever stupid emotion it was which had caused her throat to constrict, Ursula stared at her boss. ‘So what’s it in aid of—this party?’

For the first time in all the time she had known him Ursula saw Ross’s face grow slightly uncomfortable, as if he couldn’t quite make up his mind how to answer. So. First hesitation. Now tension. And all in the space of a single conversation. How very odd.

‘We promised Katy that she could have a birthday party,’ he drawled. ‘And Jane thought it might be a good idea to swell the numbers. Invite a few adults. And I immediately thought of you.’

Katy was Ross’s daughter and Ursula loved her to bits. Sometimes he brought her into the office with him during the school holidays, when Jane was extra busy. Katy liked to trot round after Ursula like a little dog, and Ursula genuinely enjoyed her company.

She had taught Katy how to use the computer, and to play gin rummy, and in return Katy kept her up to date on the current fashions and music scene! It only seemed five minutes since the last birthday, when—come to think of it—Ursula had accompanied Katy and Ross on a trip to London Zoo. She screwed her nose up as she tried to remember. Now where had Jane been that day?

‘I can’t believe her birthday has come around again!’ she told him. ‘She’ll be eleven, won’t she?’

He shook his dark head. ‘Ten.’ He twirled the pencil like a drum majorette’s baton, in the way he always did when something was on his mind. ‘She just looks older.’

‘Acts older too,’ observed Ursula thoughtfully as she thought about Katy’s remarkable self-possession. ‘She’s a very grown-up young lady, and she knows more about fractions and base numbers than I ever will!’

‘Well, that doesn’t say very much,’ mused Ross, a glint of mischief lightening his dark eyes, ‘since you are the most mathematically challenged person I know!’

‘If that means I hate anything to do with figures, then you’re right!’ Ursula observed the twirling movement he was continuing to make with his fingers. ‘Is something wrong, Ross?’

His fingers stilled and his eyes narrowed warily. ‘Wrong?’ he repeated suspiciously. ‘What makes you ask that?’

If she admitted to studying his body language, and detecting an edginess simply by looking at his hands—then wouldn’t that make her look a bit sad? ‘You just seem a little preoccupied this morning,’ she told him truthfully. ‘You have done all week, to be honest.’ Indeed, all month if she was being brutally honest.

‘You know me too well, Ursula,’ he said quietly, only it sounded more like an accusation than a compliment.

‘Well?’ She ignored the warning look in his eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Then delegate!’ she told him sternly. ‘You’re the Chairman of the agency, for heaven’s sake!’

That was the trouble—the client always did want him. ‘Well, the client may not be able to have you!’ she glowered. ‘They may have to use Oliver instead, or one of the many creative whizkids you pay huge salaries to!’

‘We’ll see.’ He gave a dismissive shrug, then turned on his lazy smile. ‘So will you come, Ursula? Katy would love you to be there.’

Ursula only pretended to think about it. She had always refused to attend social events when they were connected with work, but this was the first time he had ever invited her to his house. She told herself that it was simply a genuine desire to help Katy celebrate her birthday which had her itching to attend. And it was. But deep down she was dying for a glimpse into his home life. Would he be as messy as he was in the office? Would Jane be clucking round the kitchen like a mother hen? ‘Thanks very much. I’d love to come.’

‘About six o’clock? We promised Katy that she could have an early-evening party.’

There it was again, the ‘we’ word, reminding Ursula—if she had needed any reminding—that Ross was already spoken for.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that! If you’re very good, I’ll see if I can organise chocolate cake!’ He grinned back and began to draw funny little shapes onto the large sheet of paper in front of him, which told Ursula that he was about to go into creative mode.

Unusually—and lucratively—Ross Sheridan managed to combine the twin accomplishments of being artistic and yet having a strong head for business. In the competitive world of advertising he was already a bit of a legend—and he was still only thirty-two! As a copywriter, he was second to none—his the dizzy success story which others aspired to. As people said—any campaign with Ross Sheridan’s name on it was Midas-kissed!

His rise had seemed effortless—but Ursula knew how hard he had worked to get to where he was today. He had started out at Wickens, one of London’s biggest agencies, where he had quickly established himself as one to watch. Early on he had produced two brilliantly successful ads which had gone on to win national awards. That was where he had met Ursula, who had been temping because the money had been better and she had needed as much as she’d been able to get her hands on.

In Ursula, Ross had recognised talents which complemented his own. She was punctual, efficient and sensible. She didn’t spend hours on the phone to her boyfriend or come back from lunch all giggly with wine.

When Ross had left Wickens he had taken Ursula with him—to the buzzy ‘hotshop’ agency where all the brightest talents had converged, and where Ross had met Oliver Blackman. And when Oliver and Ross had formed Sheridan-Blackman—their own breakaway agency—Ursula had been their first full-time member of staff.

She’d been with Ross so long that sometimes she felt like part of the wallpaper—while at others it seemed that her life with him had sped by in a flash. And the one great constant was his charisma. That never dimmed, just kept drawing you to him, like a moth to the flame.

Like all creative personalities, he had his flaws. He could be irritable and exacting, short-tempered and impatient. But he compensated with his enthusiasm, his brilliance and the occasional smile which could make grown women swoon.

Every day was dress-down day at Sheridan-Blackman, and today Ross was wearing trousers which made his legs look spectacularly long. He wore these with an open-neck shirt which couldn’t disguise those lumberjack shoulders or the lean body which every woman in the building dreamed of.

He topped six feet in his bare feet—which everyone knew because he often kicked his shoes off after arriving at the office! His hair was lighter than black but darker than brown—wavy, thick and usually in need of a trim.

Ursula sighed. It wasn’t easy working for a man who looked as if he should be starring in a jeans commercial!

Forcing herself to concentrate on something else, Ursula rose to her feet. ‘Do you want some coffee?’ she asked him.

She turned round, noticing blue-black shadows beneath his eyes, and thinking that he looked as if he needed a good night’s sleep. ‘Yes, Ross?’

When he turned those big dark eyes on her like an abandoned puppy, there was every chance that she would grind the chalk to make the tablets herself!

‘Hangover?’ she quizzed sweetly. ‘Or some ongoing complaint I should know about?’

He scowled. ‘I just asked you for a couple of pills—I didn’t expect to have you carry out a full medical on me!’

Unwanted, X-rated thoughts went sizzling across her mind, but Ursula didn’t miss a beat. ‘Yes, boss,’ she said crisply. ‘You just carry on sitting there quietly relaxing while I run around and fetch for you.’

‘Thanks,’ he replied absently, scribbling on a notepad and not seeming to notice the sarcasm in her voice.

In the office’s adjoining kitchen, Ursula ground some coffee beans, then plugged the kettle in. She looked out of the window at the London skyscape as she waited for it to boil, reflecting on how lucky she was to work slap-bang in the centre of London, and in such a stunning suite of offices. For a girl with just a clutch of typing certificates to her name she hadn’t done too badly!

Like the rest of the building, the kitchen had been designed with the kind of flair you would expect from an advertising agency. Glossy and slick. As Ross had informed her on her first day at Wickens, ‘Image is everything in this business.’ Ursula remembered that he had said it in a very cynical, jaded kind of way, and she recalled wondering whether he was happy or not.

She remembered the day she had discovered that he was married, with a young daughter, and the great stabbing feeling of disappointment she had felt. Which had been utterly ridiculous when she had thought about it afterwards. Surely she hadn’t been expecting that a dreamy hot-shot like Ross would be interested in a plump Irish orphan like her?

But having her hopes dashed—however futile they had been—had meant that she had gone on to develop a strong working relationship with her boss, one that wasn’t based on false expectations of having him clasp her in his arms one day! That wasn’t to say that she didn’t still sometimes have the occasional little fantasy about him—but she wasn’t alone in that. So did every other woman in the building!

‘What’s happened to the coffee?’ came a low growl from the office. ‘Are you boarding a plane for Colombia to harvest the beans yourself?’

Ursula smiled as she popped two aspirin out of their foil container, poured him a glass of water and carried them through to him.

‘Well, don’t frown,’ she told him sweetly. ‘It’ll give you lines,’ and went back out to the delectable smell wafting from the kitchen before he had time to come up with a smart reply.

Pinned on one of the walls of the kitchen was a framed still of one of Ross’s most successful campaigns, featuring a glossy young blonde with bee-stung lips, sipping from a glass of iced cocoa. The blonde had been sitting on a beach, clad in the skimpiest of bikinis, and Ross’s copyline had read, ‘Not Just For Bedtime...’.

The campaign had exploded the myth that cocoa was only drunk by fuddy-duddies. It had also started a hot and angry debate in the women’s pages in newspapers about whether it wasn’t time to stop using sexist images to sell products. Ross had refused to comment.

Sales had shot through the ceiling, and Ross had become the hottest property in town—and in more than just a commercial sense. With his creative genius, a body that was lean and hard—and eyes which could sometimes resemble hell’s fire—Ross Sheridan was the man whom everybody wanted to be seen out with.

Except that he was seen out with nobody because he had a wife and daughter at home!

And Ursula admired him for that. Over the years, the man had had enough temptation put in his path to have tempted the holiest of saints. She had seen models and actresses coming on to him like nobody’s business. But Ross hadn’t just resisted—he had shown absolutely no interest.

Which only added to his appeal. The irresistible man who was beyond temptation. Moody, spiky, brilliant and erratic.

She carried the tray of coffee through, added a plate of his favourite biscuits. She had poured them both a cup and settled back down at her desk when his deep voice punctured the silence.

Ursula blinked. Again, the uncharacteristic use of the word ‘um’. ‘But you know how old I am!’

His mouth assumed a stubborn little-boy curve. ‘Not exactly, I don’t,’ he hedged obstinately.

‘How exact do you want? Down to the nearest minute? Are you plotting my horoscope for me?’

The velvet sensuality which underpinned his words had the undesirable effect of making Ursula’s cheeks grow scarlet.

‘That was not coyness!’ she returned. ‘It was a perfectly natural wish to keep something of myself back!’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. You keep plenty of yourself back,’ he remarked obscurely, and took a sip of his coffee before catching her in the inky crossfire of his eyes. ‘So are you going to tell me?’

Ursula found herself wondering briefly whether there was ever an age that a woman was happy to admit to! ‘I’m twenty-seven—twenty-eight soon.’ She stared across the room at him. ‘Why do you want to know?’

Ursula shrugged, and the upward movement caused her long dark hair to catch the light in a blue-black gleam. She wore her hair loose and flowing around her shoulders—not a terribly practical style for work, but at least it diminished the width of her unfashionably round face. Or so she thought. ‘Of course there needs to be a reason!’ she told him. ‘I’ve worked with you for the past six years and you’ve never bothered asking me before!’

He laughed, but it was a slightly uneasy laugh. ‘You’re right,’ he sighed. ‘I have been late a lot recently.’

Ursula quickly straightened the papers on her desk into a neat line. She wasn’t going to ask why. Didn’t need to. Married men who kept turning up late in the morning usually had a very legitimate reason for doing soy—presumably because they had been distracted by the womanly wiles of their wives.

And that was an area of Ross’s life which Ursula determinedly kept her nose out of. She was glad that Ross was happily married—she just didn’t want it rammed down her throat every five minutes.

‘So why the sudden interest in my age?’ she quizzed. ‘Have you decided that I’m due a pay rise as a reward for long service? Or maybe just for being long-suffering?’

Ignoring her question, Ross picked up a pencil and with three swift, hard strokes on a sheet of scrap paper managed to produce an uncanny likeness of a philandering Cabinet Minister who had been in the news all week. ‘It’s disturbing,’ he said, after a minute, ‘to think of you getting on for thirty.’

‘It is very disturbing,’ Ursula agreed equably, ‘when you put it like that. Because I’m not! Now who’s the mathematically challenged one? I happen to be more than two years off thirty! I’m not exactly queuing up for my pension just yet! And, besides,’ she added defensively, because taking a resolute attitude helped diminish the fear of a lonely old age, ‘thirty isn’t very old, not these days.’

‘No. You’re right. It isn’t.’ His voice was thoughtful as he fixed luminous dark eyes on her. ‘And is there a man on the scene?’

Ursula blinked with surprise. What on earth was the matter with Ross today? First inviting her to Katy’s party. And now this. He had never asked her about her love life before. ‘Y-you mean...a boyfriend?’ she asked breathlessly.

Ross gave an odd kind of smile. ‘Do you only go out with boys, then, Ursula?’

But no one knew, not even her sister, though Ursula suspected that Amber must have guessed her embarrassing secret. That she had reached the grand old age of twenty-seven and had only ever had one serious boyfriend. And even he hadn’t been that serious; not if you judged the relationship in the way everyone else did—in terms of sex. Because—shame of all shames—in a liberal world where experience was everything, Ursula O’Neil remained an out-of-touch virgin.

‘No, there isn’t a boyfriend,’ she told him, hoping she didn’t sound too defensive. ‘I’m quite busy enough with my line-dancing and my French Appreciation lessons. And I read a lot. I don’t need a man to justify my existence, you know!’ She frowned at him suspiciously. ‘And why have you suddenly started taking an interest in my personal life?’

‘No reason,’ said Ross innocently. He absently took a bite from his biscuit and then looked at it in surprise before finishing it, like someone who hadn’t realised how hungry they were before they started eating. He popped the rest of it in his mouth and crunched it.

‘The way you practically bit your fingers off? That gave me just a tiny clue!’

He smiled as he licked a stray crumb off his finger with the tip of his tongue. ‘You know, you’re bright, funny and extremely tolerant, Ursula.’ There was a pause as he looked across his desk at her. ‘Do you ever think about changing your job?’

Ursula might have felt insecure about her looks and lack of attraction to the opposite sex, but she was supremely confident about her work, and it didn’t occur to her that Ross might be hinting at her to leave. She assumed an expression of mock shock. ‘You really want me to answer that? On a Monday morning, when you’ve got a headache? What’s up, Ross—worried that I’ll walk out and leave you in the lurch?’

‘Well, so am I.’ She blinked at him, dark, feathery lashes shading her unusually deep blue eyes. Her best feature, or so her mother always used to say. ‘I presume that wasn’t a prelude to “letting me go”, or whatever horrible euphemism it is they use these days when someone wants to sack you! Was it?’

‘Sack you?’ He gave a gritty smile. ‘I can’t imagine the place without you, if you must know.’

Which sounded like a compliment, but left her with a rather disturbing thought. ‘Do you think I’m stuck in a rut, then, Ross?’

‘The question rather implies that other people do,’ he observed. ‘Anyone in particular?’

‘She doesn’t really model very much these days—not since she got herself involved with Finn Fitzgerald—’

Ursula bit her lip, wishing that they’d never started this wretched conversation. Life was so much easier if you just drifted along without asking too many questions along the way. ‘She thinks six years in one place is a long time.’

Ursula looked up in alarm. Maybe she had misjudged things. Him. Maybe subconsciously he did want her out.

Ross saw the wide-eyed look of fear on her face and shook his head. ‘Now what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?’

‘Well, that’s purely subjective, and I happen to think you are—exceedingly.’ He saw her blush, and smiled. ‘In fact, if I go so far as to be objective—then I’d describe those enormous eyes as sapphires set in a complexion as dewy and as fresh as creamy-pink roses left out in the rain—’

‘Now you’re letting your copywriting skills run away with you!’ she interrupted drily. ‘Just what are you trying to say to me, Ross? That our working partnership has grown stale? That there’s some hungry new female champing at the bit to replace me, and you do want me to go?’

Ross sighed. ‘No, I don’t want you to go. Right now, all I want is to resist the temptation to make any comments about female logic. Or the lack of it,’ he added in a dark undertone. ‘But I am interested in hearing your sister’s objections to you working for me. Particularly since I’ve met her on very few occasions. She hardly knows me!’ he finished indignantly.

She didn’t dare tell him her sister’s real reason for urging her to leave Sheridan-Blackman. That Amber thought Ursula was being unrealistic. Wasting her life by pining for a man who could never be hers. Except that I’m not pining! Ursula thought defiantly. Or being unrealistic.

Just because she happened to like Ross as a man, and enjoyed working with him—it didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to start ripping his clothes off! ‘She thinks that a change of scene would do me good.’

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ he put in impatiently. ‘Other than that it might be an idea to consider any other offers which may come your way.’

Other offers? Ursula stared at him in confusion. ‘But they’re not likely to, are they? Not if I’m not actively seeking employment. I’m a personal assistant, not an account executive, and I’m hardly a prime target for head-hunters!’

‘I guess not,’ he answered tersely. ‘Do you have a lot of work to do, Ursula?’

‘Not particularly.’ She tried to answer lightly, but it wasn’t easy now that he had sown seeds of doubt in her mind. Somehow she had gone from complacency to insecurity in the space of about half an hour. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting swopping idle chit-chat with you.’

She didn’t miss a beat—but then she was used to bizarre requests by now. ‘How many?’

‘For looking at. I need inspiration! There’s a new juice campaign coming up—and Oliver’s pitching for the account. So we need to compose the perfect catchphrase which will have people ransacking their supermarkets for Jerry’s Juice. So. Any brilliant ideas?’

Ursula knitted her brows together in concentration. What did she like best about orange juice? ‘Everyone always emphasises how sweet it is...’

Ursula shrugged. ‘Oh, the possibilities are endless—sharpens the appetite, that kind of thing. You know! You’re the copywriter, Ross!’

‘Mmm, I am,’ murmured Ross slowly. ‘But maybe you should be, too. You’re in the wrong job, you know, Ursula.’

‘No, I’m in the right job!’ Ursula unlocked the petty-cash tin and took a ten-pound note out. ‘Just because I happen to have a fertile imagination and an active mind doesn’t mean I want to be a copywriter!’

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