Shameful Secret, Shotgun Wedding (Mills & Boon Modern) [Paperback]

Cassie has come to London from Cornwall to work in a large exclusive department store to gain experience as she hopes to return to her village and take over as manageress at the gift shop she works in. It is near to christmas and Cassie is in charge of the scented candles when in walks the most delicious and sexiest man she has ever seen he literally takes her breath away. Giancarlo Vellutini has come into the store to buy Christmas presents,but as soon as he spots Cassie all thoughts of gifts leave his head he is struck by her beauty, he invites her out to dinner but she declines, after he leaves the store she discovers he has left his purchases. She telephones him as he had given her his card. She arranges to return the items he bought and to have dinner with him the following evening. Dinner as she discovers in in his home, she is so overwhelmed by his presence she is unable to resist his advances and they soon end up in bed. The story moves along after that the author has a lovely writing style instilling the characters with very believable personalities. Giancarlo is a complicated man full of secrets and contradictions passionate and open on minute, but like a closed book the next.Cassie is inexperienced and very open, she is much younger than Giancarlo, and at times feels out of her depth. This is a roller coaster ride of a book, that keeps the reader turning the pages. Highly recommend.

Shameful Secret, Shotgun Wedding was one extremely intense and shamefully sexy romance by the very talented and extraordinary Sharon Kendrick.

Cassandra Summers was a very young and innocent shop girl working in a London high end retail store. She was a sweet girl from Cornwall and although she adored her recently widowed mother she felt in order to succeed she needed to learn more about the retail business and what better way than to do it in London, during the Christmas season. It was there she met the very handsome Italian millionaire Giancarlo Vellutini and it was also there that she was fired because of this sexy and arrogant man! He had purchased some candles for his staff but left them behind. It was the perfect time to deliver them to him, because she was meeting him for dinner at his home. However, Giancarlo forgot to pay for them and a nasty and jealous employee told the security team that Cassie had stolen them.

Had Giancarlo Vellutini made a mistake by inviting Cassandra to his home for dinner? She was a beautiful young woman with violet eyes and she enchanted him. So much so, he couldn't keep his hands off of her and he stole her virginity. The next day, back to work for both of them. However, what he didn't count on was getting a hysterical call from her and what he also didn't count on was inviting her to stay with him for the Christmas holidays as his mistress so that she wouldn't have to return home as a failure. Three weeks of happiness and bliss for Cassie and for him a young woman who worshipped him, a young woman I was sure was going to receive a broken heart when the affair ended, and she did, when he took her to Paris and they parted with simmering emotions between them. Cassie was so unlike the women he usually dated, she was wholesome, fourteen years younger, inexperienced in the world. However, he told her things about himself he had really never shared before and she wanted nothing materialistic from him, she only wanted to please him.

And then Cassandra for one last time, made love with Giancarlo and returned home to her mother, friends and job in Cornwall, sad and lonely and a few weeks later, pregnant! Something had changed for her when she found out she was expecting her lover's child. She became fierce and she called him to tell him he was going to be a father but not before they argued and she told him she didn't want anything from him, she would raise the child on her own. However, Mr. Italian alpha had other ideas and he railroaded her into marriage, a loveless one and not wanting to reveal to anyone they were expecting a child before they made their marriage binding and a legal one.

As I mentioned before, Giancarlo told Cassie a few things about himself, how his parents had died, that he and his twin brother had been raised in Tuscany, while in college he studied law and his twin Raul, business. They had constantly competed in life, so much so that the woman Giancarlo had fallen in love with, married his brother because as Italian law would have it, when they turned 21, Raul being the older by mere minutes, inherited his family's entire fortune. So you can well imagine how shocked I was that he would take Cassandra to Italy on their honeymoon to meet his estranged brother, lover and niece. And trust me, it all ended in a mess! Her new sister-in-law was a witch with a capital "W", it was all very upsetting for Cassie. The older woman was mean, spiteful and went so far as saying she wanted Giancarlo for herself. She made Cassie feel out of her league and pointed out the differences between Cassie and her husband, noting that Cassie hadn't even met his friends.

When they returned home, everything seemed to go downhill. Cassie wanted to make a home for her husband, wanted to cook for him, wanted to have a dinner party and meet his friends. It seemed that everything she wanted, he didn't and she was so emotional and sweet and one could tell they had communication problems. She felt she was just an incubator, a vessel to carry his child and she so desired to be his equal. Then a chain of events happened, so emotional I had to stop reading because their relationship was so painful for them both and I so wanted Giancarlo to fall in love with his wife. First, a disaster dinner party for his friends and then a rush to the hospital because they believed they were loosing their baby. Could this relationship take anymore hits?

Shameful Secret, Shotgun Wedding had the most amazing ending, but why would it not, thanks to the amazing Sharon Kendrick! An out pouring of love so beautiful and perfect because Giancarlo finally realized to love did not bring pain nor bitterness and his loving and generous wife forgave and believed him!

This was enjoyable to read, and had a good story. Could not put book down until I had finished, so it made a very snowy winters afternoon like a summer's day. Would recommend and would buy other titles by this author