Claimed by a devastating, wealthy bachelor!
Millionaire’s Woman
Three intense, luxurious romances from three beloved Mills & Boon authors!
Millionaire’s Woman
Helen Brooks
Catherine George
Angie Ray
The Millionaire’s Prospective Wife
By
Helen Brooks was born and educated in Northampton. She met her husband at the age of sixteen and thirty five years later the magic is still there. They have three lovely children and three beautiful grandchildren.
Helen began writing in 1990 as she approached that milestone of a birthday—forty! She realised her two teenage ambitions (writing a novel and learning to drive) had been lost amid babies and family life, so set about resurrecting them. Her first novel was accepted after one rewrite, and she passed her driving test (the former was a joy and the latter an unmitigated nightmare).
Being a committed Christian and fervent animal lover Helen finds time is always at a premium, but walks in the countryside with her husband and their Irish terrier, meals out followed by the cinema or theatre, reading, swimming, and visiting with friends are all fitted in somehow. She also enjoys sitting in her wonderfully therapeutic, rambling old garden in the sun with a glass of red wine, (under the guise of resting while thinking, of course!).
Since becoming a full-time writer Helen has found her occupation one of pure joy. She loves exploring what makes people tick and finds the old adage “truth is stranger than fiction” to be absolutely true.
CHAPTER ONE
THE moment Cory let Rufus off the lead she knew it was a big mistake. The powerful Labrador cross golden retriever shot across Hyde Park like a bat out of hell, mothers whisking toddlers up into their arms at his approach and elderly couples leaping out of his way with a nimbleness they probably thought had been lost to them years before. Even the group of young people who had been ambling towards them clad in strategically slashed jeans and with piercings in seemingly every nook and cranny lost their cool aplomb, scattering with shrieks and cries which—on the whole, Cory was thankful to note—were good-humoured.
For the first minute or so of following in the dog’s wake Cory shouted apologies to all and sundry, then, when Rufus showed no signs of slowing down, she kept her breath for running.
Why hadn’t she listened to her aunt? Cory silently berated herself as she panted after the dog, wasting valuable breath every twenty yards or so by screeching his name. But Rufus had been so docile and obliging on the walk down Bayswater Road from her aunt’s house, sitting at all the right times without being told and keeping to heel like an old pro. And the deep brown eyes had been so imploring once they’d entered the park, the doggy expression of longing as he’d watched other canines chasing balls and playing making her feel like the wicked witch of the west.
‘Keep him on the lead, Cory,’ Aunt Joan had warned as she’d seen them off at the door, her left leg encased in plaster due to a nasty fall a couple of weeks before. ‘I can just about trust him to come back now but I don’t know how he would react with someone else. He’s perfectly friendly, of course, and just adores children and other dogs, but the original owners kept him confined all the time as well as neglecting him in other ways, as you know. The poor darling.’
‘The poor darling’ was not the phrase she’d choose to describe the dog right at this moment, Cory thought grimly. Her lungs felt as though they were going to burst and her throat and chest were on fire. There were various choice names which sprang to mind but poor and darling didn’t feature in any of them.
Rufus having made a couple of lightning stops to sniff the certain part of other canines’ anatomies which dogs found so interesting, Cory now found herself closer to him than at any time since the undignified chase had begun. Summoning all her strength, she bellowed, ‘Rufus! Stay!’ just as the animal prepared to take off from socialising with a French poodle. The golden head turned, brown eyes considering her with a faintly amazed expression as though he couldn’t understand why she wasn’t entering wholeheartedly into this wonderful game he’d organised. Seizing the opportunity, Cory growled, ‘Come here. Heel, Rufus.’
There was still a good fifty yards between them but she couldn’t run any more, the stitch in her side excruciating. Whether it was her ferocious voice or the fact that she had slowed down to a walk, Cory didn’t know, but the big dog suddenly seemed to realise all was not well. After one more moment of hesitation he took off again, but this time headed straight for her, determined to impress her by the speed with which he obeyed. It was doubtful he even noticed the tall, well-dressed figure about to cross his path. There was one endless moment when man and dog met and then five or six stone of sheer canine muscle sent the unfortunate figure hurtling into the air.
A very nice leather briefcase went one way, the suit jacket which had been slung over one shirt-clad arm another, and all Cory could do was to look in unmitigated horror. The man landed on his back with earth-shaking force and even Rufus realised he’d committed a faux pas. He was slinking obsequiously around the prostrate figure on the grass when Cory reached them, his ears flat to his face and his floppy jowls shaking as though he was about to burst into tears.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.’ Cory went down on to her knees in a flurry of blue denim jeans, pink shirt and tumbled hair the colour of rich dark chocolate. ‘Are you all right?’
The man remained perfectly still for another moment and then drew air into his body with something of a tortured groan. It probably wasn’t the moment to notice it was an exceptionally fit body—tall, lean and muscled with an aggressive masculinity that was rawly sexy—or that the jetblack hair topped a face that was out-and-out dynamite.
Cory swallowed. Pierce Brosnan, Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt—eat your hearts out. She had to swallow again before she could say, ‘Have you broken anything?’
A pair of very blue eyes met hers. In spite of his prone position and the fact he’d had all the air knocked out of him—or maybe because of it—they were lethal, the one rapier sharp glance saying more than mere words could ever have done. When Cory went to help him as he sat up he motioned her hands away with a cutting action that was savage. It was unfortunate Rufus chose that moment to make his apology by means of a long slobbery lick across one chiselled cheekbone. The man froze for a second but still didn’t say a word before he rose to his feet.
He was tall. Cory found herself looking up some distance as she too stood up. Very tall. And angry. Very, very angry.
‘Is it yours?’
‘I’m sorry.’ She was still frozen by the icy eyes and the way the set of his hard mouth gave the handsome face a harsh cast, and her brain wasn’t working properly.
‘That.’ He gestured furiously in Rufus’s direction. ‘Is it—? Hell!’ The original sentence was cut off. ‘What’s he eating?’
Oh, no. Please, no. This couldn’t be happening. She took the mobile phone out of Rufus’s wet jaws but the damage was already done. Neither of them had noticed the dog snuffling in the discarded jacket. ‘Was…was it expensive?’ she asked in a small voice whilst already knowing the answer. It was a state of the art, super dooper technological miracle of a phone. What else? But it hadn’t been designed to withstand the power of those big jaws.
He ignored the outstretched hand with the chewed phone and took a deep breath, retrieving his briefcase and jacket and wincing slightly as he