Her Latin Lover
2/5
()
About this ebook
Escape from danger with 'Her Latin Lover'
When Mary Delaney is offered an all expenses paid, luxury holiday in South America with her journalist boyfriend, the last thing she expects to happen is to find herself stuck in the middle of nowhere with no boyfriend, no money and no way of getting back to London. When an irresistibly sexy landowner, Don Paulo de Castile, tells her that he has just won her in a game of poker, should she believe him, or try to find out what has happened to her missing boyfriend?
Paulo didn’t realise at the beginning of his poker game that he was playing to win Mary, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to a person he once loved. However, it takes more than a game of cards to win Mary’s heart and Paulo isn’t the only local man interested in her. As well as battling for Mary’s affection, he has to fight off the attentions of the local mafia in a fight that can have only one outcome . . .
Katheryn Lane
I’m a wife, teacher, author and mother of two boisterous boys, so most of my days are taken up with finding lost school shoes, getting stuck in traffic and wondering why I always join the queue that doesn’t move in the supermarket. However, I try to forget these daily problems (and the fact that I burnt the toast again this morning) by losing myself in a good book and writing novels that give readers a break from everyday life.Open one of my books and escape on an adventure to an exotic location, because it’s easier to buy a book than it is to book an air ticket.Have a break, read a book!
Read more from Katheryn Lane
Trapped by the Sheikh Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Kidnapped By The Sheikh (Book 1 of The Desert Sheikh) (Sheikh Romance Trilogy) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Desert Sheikh (Books 1, 2 and 3 of The Desert Sheikh Romance Trilogy) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Treasured By The Sheikh (Book 2 of The Sheikh's Beloved) Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Sheikh's Beloved (Books 1 and 2 of The Sheikh's Beloved series) Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Sheikh's Son (Book 3 of The Desert Sheikh) (Sheikh Romance Trilogy) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Married To The Sheikh (Book 2 of The Desert Sheikh) (Sheikh Romance Trilogy) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adored By The Sheikh (Book 1 of The Sheikh's Beloved) Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Royal Sheikh Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Her Latin Lover
Related ebooks
His Ex's Well-Kept Secret Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oilman's Baby Bargain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSnowed In With A Billionaire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Duke's Revenge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Marriage Bargain: A Love So Sweet Novel, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFirst Comes Marriage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYOU Owe Me Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTaming The Texas Tycoon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClaiming the Rancher's Heir: A Winter Romance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sheikh's Bought Wife Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Blame It On The Blackout Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTexan's Wedding-Night Wager Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Moment On The Lips Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSweet Revenge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Bride for the Lost King: An Uplifting International Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHer Desert Knight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIt Started with a Kiss: McKenzie Brothers, #12 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaddy's Baby Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGino's Arranged Bride Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Unforgettable Weekend Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Billionaire Prince’s Pregnant Fiancée: Undercover Princes, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHigh-Society Secret Pregnancy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sheikh's Contract Bride Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sheikh's Captive Lover Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Caroselli's Baby Chase Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Surprise Baby Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMobster's Vendetta Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prince Charming and the Little Glass Bra - A Sexy Billionaire Romance Novelette from Steam Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeir to a Dark Inheritance: A Secret Baby Romance Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Daring her Captor: Daring Desires, #4 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Contemporary Romance For You
Animal Farm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5November 9: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hopeless Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Icebreaker: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart Bones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ugly Love: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Cinderella: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Starts with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confess: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Your Perfects: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The True Love Experiment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe Someday Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beautiful Disaster: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wildfire: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Without Merit: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Point of Retreat: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ruin Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slammed: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Before We Were Strangers: A Love Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beautiful Bastard Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe Now: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Something Borrowed: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spanish Love Deception: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The American Roommate Experiment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Perfect: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dirty Thirty Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One Italian Summer: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Her Latin Lover
2 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Her Latin Lover - Katheryn Lane
Praise for HER LATIN LOVER
Katheryn Lane does it again!
- Christy English, author of The Queen's Pawn
There was such great chemistry between Mary and the sexy Paulo, I couldn't stop reading
- Sarah Elle Emm, author of Marrying Missy
Great entertainment . . . You will fall in love with the spirited damsel in distress that doesn't fear anyone
- Readers Favorite
Lots of flat-out chemistry
- Regina Puckett, author of Waiting for Mary Elizabeth
Escape from danger with HER LATIN LOVER
When Mary Delaney is offered an all expenses paid, luxury holiday in South America with her journalist boyfriend, the last thing she expects to happen is to find herself stuck in the middle of nowhere with no boyfriend, no money and no way of getting back to London. When an irresistibly sexy landowner, Don Paulo de Castile, tells her that he has just won her in a game of poker, should she believe him, or try to find out what has happened to her missing boyfriend?
Paulo didn’t realise at the beginning of his poker game that he was playing to win Mary, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to a person he once loved. However, it takes more than a game of cards to win Mary’s heart and Paulo isn’t the only local man interested in her. As well as battling for Mary’s affection, he has to fight off the attentions of the local mafia in a fight that can have only one outcome . . .
HER LATIN LOVER
by
Katheryn Lane
Smashwords Edition
Published by
Katheryn Lane
Her Latin Lover
Copyright © 2012 by Katheryn Lane
All rights reserved
Cover art by Judy Bullard at www.customebookcovers.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
* * * * *
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
* * * * *
Katheryn Lane works full-time as a teacher, mother and wife, but somehow also finds time to be a part-time writer as well! She loves to write contemporary romances set in exotic locations. Her acclaimed first romance, THE ROYAL SHEIKH, was inspired by her experience of living in the Middle East and her second novel, HER LATIN LOVER, takes readers to the treacherous towns and countryside of South America. In her free time (on the rare occasion that she has any!) she likes to lose herself in a good book.
http://katheryn-lane.blogspot.com
Chapter 1
Nick had promised her a luxury, all expenses paid holiday with him, so why was she lying alone on a flea-ridden bed in a dingy hotel room? Mary stared up at the dusty ceiling fan that creaked above her. It did nothing to relieve the clammy, tropical heat in the room. She flung aside the damp bed sheet and tried to ignore the faint yellowish stains on it. They certainly were not from any love-making that she had had with Nick. They had not had sex since the first night they had arrived in Latin America. Since then, Nick had spent every evening drinking late into the night with whoever would join him. He told Mary that it was a necessary part of his job, as it would help him to get leads for his story – the story that would make his name in journalism. Mary thought that the only name Nick was making for himself was as a drunken foreigner in a strange country.
She slipped out of bed and threw off the T-shirt that she had worn in the night, more to keep a distance between herself and the musty bed sheets, than out of any sense of modesty. The carpet felt sticky under her bare feet as she strode across the room towards the bathroom. Once in there, she pulled the mildewed shower curtain aside and stepped into the cubicle. Turning on the large rusty tap produced only the smallest trickle of lukewarm water from the corroded shower head above her. She did her best to wash her body and shampoo her short, golden brown hair. She had a well-toned body, which could be described as either skinny or as slender, depending on one’s preference.
She wished that she was back in the five-star hotel in the capital, La Puesta, where she and Nick had stayed for a couple of days when they first arrived in South America. With its huge swimming pool and spa, it had been bliss. Now, they were in the best room of the best hotel that the small town of Corazon had to offer. It was grim. Although her flat in London was small – perhaps cramped
was a more accurate description – and in a rather insalubrious location (An up and coming neighbourhood,
the estate agent had said), it was all luxury compared to this. Mary could not even get properly dried here. The towel was damp, like everything else, and as soon as she had finished using it, she was sweating again so much that damp patches quickly formed on her blue T-shirt and her trousers stuck uncomfortably to her thighs. She opened the large sash windows in the bedroom and stood out on the balcony in search of a cooling breeze. However, the air on the balcony was as still and as heavy as the stale air in the bedroom.
Below her, Mary could see the town plaza. It looked like a stage set out of a Zoro movie. In fact, Mary would not have been surprised if a masked man suddenly rode across the square, pulled out his sword and cut a large Z into something. Sadly, it was more likely that she would see a real-life bandit drive through in a truck, pull out a gun and shoot someone. Violence was rife. Nick had explained to her how poverty, drug barons, corruption, the government and coffee cartels all clashed against each other to produce a deadly cocktail in which more people were murdered every day than killed on the roads, and no small number of people were killed in traffic accidents every year.
However, now everything seemed tranquil as Mary gazed down on the scene before her. Two fat women were walking up the steps to the entrance of the local church in which there was a huge altarpiece said to have been made out of Aztec gold. On the other side of the square, a group of old men sat outside a café next to the old courthouse, smoking and drinking coffee; at least Mary presumed it was coffee. The local café also doubled up as the local bar and it was quite possible that the old men were drinking brandy even though it was only nine o’clock in the morning. It was also quite possible that Nick was still in there. She had left him last night playing poker in one of the back rooms with a group of mean-looking, local men. They had seemed like the type of men that would rather pull out a gun than debate whether someone was cheating at poker. Mary did not want to spend her evening getting drunk with local bandits and had left Nick to it. He was probably either asleep under a table or still drinking. Both were quite possible with him. Mary just hoped that he had not tried cheating at cards.
Mary left the clammy confines of the hotel room to head off to the café. She told herself it was because their coffee was better than the hotel’s, but she knew that the real reason was that she wanted to find Nick. She hated the idea of acting like the nagging girlfriend, asking questions like, What time do you call this?
and Where have you been all night?
but what else was she meant to do? Stay in the hotel room all day waiting for him to turn up? Also, the coffee at the café really was better than the hotel’s. It was served hot for a start.
Mary walked through the dark reception area and was just about to push open the heavy wooden door and step out into the main square, where she heard someone call out, Señora!
She did not think anyone would be calling out to her, but since she hadn’t seen anyone else in the hotel lobby, and partly out of pure curiosity, she turned round to look.
The hotel proprietor was standing behind the reception desk. He must have seen her from the back room as she walked past. The proprietor, Señor Marcos, was a tall, bony man with thick oily hair and dirty clothes. He rested his knobbly elbows on the worn leather top of the desk.
Señora, por favor?
he called out. His voice was unnaturally high-pitched. Mary wondered if he’d been castrated like the young boys of Renaissance Italy, the castrati, who had part of their genitals removed so that their voices could continue to resonate through the cathedrals with a pure sound. Mary giggled at the ridiculous thought of the greasy Señor Marcos singing in a church choir with a white starched ruff around his neck.
Si?
Mary said, a broad smile across her face.
Cuantas noches . . .
Señor Marcos began squeaking.
Sorry, I don’t understand. No Spanish.
Mary explained.
She had done French at school, which wasn’t much use out here. In the capital most people had spoken at least some English, but here in the middle of nowhere, people not only spoke very little English, they didn’t speak very standard Spanish either. Even Nick, who had studied Spanish extensively at school, seemed to struggle to understand the strange local dialect, not that he would admit it to her. However, she could tell he found it difficult from the intense look he sometimes had on his face when he was listening to what the local people were saying. However, he certainly understood enough to get by, so Mary left him to deal with everything, though she had learnt how to order two beers in Spanish.
The hotel owner tried again. Credit card? Money?
Oh, I see. Nick, Señor Kingsley has the credit card. He will pay you.
Actually, the newspaper he worked for was paying for the trip and it was the newspaper’s credit card that Nick was using and rather extensively too, but she didn’t think it was necessary to go into all the details with the greasy hotel owner. She was about to turn around and head out the door, when the owner called out to her again.
No Señora. Señor Kingsley, he go La Puesta. Bus. Six o’clock.
The hotel owner made a bus noise and lifted six of his nicotine-stained fingers up in front of her to illustrate the point. Señor Kinglsey pay finished. Now, you pay. You stay one night? One week?
Two weeks,
Mary replied automatically. They were meant to be in the town for three weeks while Nick worked on his story and one of those weeks had already passed. Mary was not sure what was going on. She guessed that Nick had gone into La Puesta to follow up on some lead for his story.
Two weeks. $160 one night,
the hotel owner said. He brought out an over-sized calculator from underneath the desk. He punched in a few figures. $2,240!
he said, showing her the sum on the large screen. Mary noticed that the plastic screen was cracked.
Now you pay $500,
he announced, his voice higher than ever. You pay more later.
No, you don’t understand. Señor Kingsley is paying. Señor Kingsley has the credit card.
Mary was getting irritated. The owner was vastly over-charging them for the room. Nick had been a fool to agree to the ridiculous rate that he’d been quoted, and now the hotel proprietor was asking her for $500. She wished the horrible man would stop annoying her. She wanted her coffee and some breakfast.
No, Señor Kingsley, he go,
the man insisted. You pay!
He stabbed his finger at her. It was close enough to her face that she could smell the stale tobacco on it.
I don’t have any money. No money,
Mary repeated. It was true. Nick had said that he would cover everything as a sort of gift to make up for some of his recent behaviour in London. Mary had only brought with her a tiny bit of spending money, of which she had about $20 left in local currency. As a newly qualified, twenty-four-year-old primary teacher, she barely earned enough money to survive. She