Alana overhears a private conversation on the beach and jumps right in with both feet to try and solve her problems and that of Ares Sarris.

The Greek billionaire needs a wife to claim his inheritance and Alana needs money to clear the debt that her late father left her with. Neither of them quite appreciate what they’re getting into with each other.

Alana, however, knows what she wants and she wants him.

Ares is secretive and detached.

Attraction drives a coach and horses through the contract they sign.

I love writing diverse characters and particularly enjoyed this one.

UPDATE (Aug 2023): Alana and Ares’s story will be called “The Maid’s Pregnancy Bombshell“.

Excerpts From the Book

Where are you?

That was the text from Ares four days after Alana had left Italy.

Alana rolled her eyes as she emptied rubbish from a bin and wheeled her trolley back down the corridor. It was seven in the evening. Alana worked a permanent nightshift and the very wealthy clientele she served on the upper floors of the exclusive hotel often arrived and departed at unconventional times. The Blackthorn Hotel offered twenty-four-seven service to their guests.

Working. Busy.

She texted the triple-word response with pleasure, thinking it served him right when he had blown her off in Italy. Doubtless he wanted that NDA signed, she reflected ruefully, her punishment for having listened to a private conversation when she should have revealed her presence.

That brief text response made Ares grind his teeth together. She was a hotel maid, not a neurosurgeon. She could have spared him a little more information.

And I don’t even have to live with you

‘I’m offering you that job you said you wanted,’ Ares intoned. ‘That’s why I had the background check done.’

Her green eyes widened, and her soft pink lips parted in surprise. ‘Oh, well…er…what does it entail?’

‘We go through a legal ceremony, because I need a wife for legal reasons,’ Ares advanced. ‘It will last from a few months to, at most, a year. The signing of a contract will be required. If you break the terms included it will be punitive, I warn you. For the period of time that you are pretending to be my wife, you will conduct yourself as though you truly are my wife and will engage in nothing that could cause me embarrassment. You will dress well and behave well and that is pretty much it.’

‘And I don’t even have to live with you?’ Alana checked anxiously.

‘No. I like my privacy but, for the sake of appearances, I will occasionally visit whichever property you are using.’

He began to view her as his wife

His wife…and wasn’t it strange how the moment he’d left her, he began to view her as his wife? And his wife, it seemed, had no problems playing the tourist. There she was, driving an SUV and trying to climb dunes in the desert—far too dangerous, he had warned her security team, furious they hadn’t prevented that. She was also happily getting friendly with Saluki hounds, having her hands and feet painted with henna designs and dressing up in traditional Arabic dress for a photographer. She was having a terrific time without him and she was thoroughly enjoying herself. And hadn’t he planned those activities for her amusement? Hadn’t he instructed a private tour operator to satisfy her every wish?