Anne Winston – Billionaire Bachelors: Stone (страница 1)
“I Need A Wife.”
Faith stared at him, apparently sure she hadn’t heard him correctly. He couldn’t blame her. As soon as the words were out, he’d decided he was crazy.
“You need what?”
“A wife.” Stone could hear the impatience in his tone, and he forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. Calming breaths.
She spread her hands in confusion, and her smooth brow wrinkled in bewilderment. “But how can I help you with that? I doubt I know anyone who—”
“Faith.” His deep voice stopped her tumbling words. “I’d like you to be my wife.”
Her eyes widened. Her mouth formed a perfect “O” of surprise. She put a hand up and pointed at herself as if she needed confirmation that she hadn’t lost her mind, and her lips soundlessly formed the word “Me?”
He nodded. “Yes. You.”
Dear Reader,
Celebrate the rites of spring with six new passionate, powerful and provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire!
Reader favorite Anne Marie Winston’s Billionaire Bachelors: Stone, our March MAN OF THE MONTH, is a classic marriage-of-convenience story, in which an overpowering attraction threatens a platonic arrangement. And don’t miss the third title in Desire’s glamorous in-line continuity DYNASTIES: THE CONNELLYS, The Sheikh Takes a Bride by Caroline Cross, as sparks fly between a sexy-as-sin sheikh and a feisty princess.
In Wild About a Texan by Jan Hudson, the heroine falls for a playboy millionaire with a dark secret. Her Lone Star Protector by Peggy Moreland continues the TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB: THE LAST BACHELOR series, as an unlikely love blossoms between a florist and a jaded private eye.
A night of passion produces major complications for a doctor and the social worker now carrying his child in Dr. Destiny, the final title in Kristi Gold’s miniseries MARRYING AN M.D. And an ex-marine who discovers he’s heir to a royal throne must choose between his kingdom and the woman he loves in Kathryn Jensen’s The Secret Prince.
Kick back, relax and treat yourself to all six of these sexy new Desire romances!
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Billionaire Bachelors: Stone
Anne Marie Winston
ANNE MARIE WINSTON
RITA Award finalist and bestselling author Anne Marie Winston loves babies she can give back when they cry, animals in all shapes and sizes and just about anything that blooms. When she’s not writing, she’s chauffeuring children to various activities, trying not to eat chocolate or reading anything she can find. She will dance at the slightest provocation and weeds her gardens when she can’t see the sun for the weeds anymore. You can learn more about Anne Marie’s novels by visiting her Web site at www.annemariewinston.com.
To all the nurses at the Waynesboro Hospital who have shared my midnight vigils. My thanks do not begin to express my appreciation for your kindnesses.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Prologue
“Smythe Corp. will be yours…on one condition.” Eliza Smythe’s eyes narrowed as she studied her only son.
Stone Lachlan stood with one arm negligently braced on the mantel above the marble fireplace in his mother’s Park Avenue apartment in New York City. Not even the flicker of an eyelash betrayed any emotion. He wasn’t about to let his mother know what her offer meant to him. Not until it was his and she couldn’t take it away.
“And what might that condition be?” He lifted the crystal highball glass to his lips and drank, keeping the movement slow and lazy. Disinterested.
“You get married—”
“Married!” Stone nearly choked on the fine Scotch malt whiskey.
“And settle down,” his mother added. “I want grandchildren one of these days while I’m still young enough to enjoy them.”
He set his glass on a nearby marble-topped table with a snap. It took him a moment to push away the hurtful memories of a small boy whose mother had been too busy to bother with him. His mouth twisted cynically. “If you plan to devote yourself to grandchildren as totally as you did me, why are you planning to retire? It doesn’t take much time to give a nanny instructions once a week or so.”
His mother flinched. “If it’s any consolation to you, I regret the way you were raised,” she said, and he could hear pain in her voice. “If I had it to do over…”
“If you had it to do over, you’d do exactly the same thing,” Stone interrupted her. The last thing he needed was to have his mother pretending she cared. “You’d immerse yourself in your family’s company until you’d dragged it back from the brink of bankruptcy. And you’d keep on running it because you were the only one left.”
His mother bowed her head, acknowledging the truth of his words. “Perhaps.” Then she squared her shoulders and he could see her shaking off the moment of emotion. Just as she’d shaken him off so many times. “So what’s your decision? Do you accept my offer?”
“I’m thinking,” he said coolly. “You drive a hard bargain. Why the wife?”
“It’s time for you to think about heirs,” his mother said. “You’re nearly thirty years old. You’ll have responsibilities to both Smythe Corp. and Lachlan International and you should have children to follow in your footsteps.”
God, he wished she was kidding but he doubted his mother had ever seen the point of a joke in her entire life. A wife…? He didn’t want to get married. Hadn’t ever really been tempted, even. A shrink would have a field day with that sentiment, would probably pronounce him scarred by his childhood. But the truth, as Stone saw it, was simply that he didn’t want to have to answer to anyone other than himself.
Where in hell was he going to get a wife, anyway? Oh, finding a woman to marry him would be easy. There were dozens of fresh young debutantes around looking for Mr. Rich and Right. The problem would be finding one he could stand for more than five minutes, one that wouldn’t attempt to take him to the cleaners when the marriage ended. When the marriage ended…that was it! He’d make a temporary marriage, pay some willing woman a lump sum for the job of acting as his wife for a few weeks.
“Draw up the papers, Mother.” His voice was clipped. “I’ll find a wife.”
“Which is why it’s conditional.”
That got his attention. “Conditional? What—you want final approval?” Another thought occurred to him. “Or you’re giving me some time limit by which I have to tie the knot?”
Eliza shook her head. “The last thing I want you to do is rush into marriage. I’d rather you wait until you find the right woman. But at least now I know you’ll be thinking about it. The condition is that once you marry, the marriage has to last for one year—with both of you living under the same roof—before the company becomes yours.”
One year… His agile mind immediately saw the fine print. He would find a bride, all right. And the minute the ink was dry on the contract with his mother, there would be a quiet annulment. A twinge of guilt pricked at his conscience but he shrugged it off. He didn’t owe his mother anything. And it would serve her right for thinking she could manipulate his life this way.
He smiled, trying to mask his newfound satisfaction. “All right, Mother. You’ve got a deal. I find a bride, you give me your dearest possession.”
Eliza stood, her motions jerky. “I know I haven’t been much of a mother to you, Stone, but I do care. That’s why I want you to start looking for a wife. Being single might seem appealing for a while, but it gets awfully lonely.”
He shrugged negligently, letting the words hit him and bounce off. No way was he going to let her start tugging at his heartstrings after all this time. She was the one who had chosen to leave. “Whatever.”
Eliza started for the door. “At least give it some thought.” She sighed. “I never thought I’d say it, but I’m actually looking forward to having some free time.”
“I never thought you’d say it, either.” And he hadn’t. His mother lived and breathed the company that had come to her on her father’s death when she was barely twenty-five. She’d loved it far more than she had Stone or his father, as his dad had pointed out.
Smythe Corp. He’d resigned himself to waiting for years to inherit his mother’s corporation. But he’d never stopped dreaming. Now he would be able to implement the plans he’d considered for years. He’d merge Smythe Corp. with Lachlan Enterprises, the company that had been his father’s until his death eight years ago.
As his mother took her leave, he moved into his office, still thinking about finding the right woman to agree to what sounded like an insane idea. A temporary wife. Why not? Marriage, as far as he could tell, was a temporary institution anyway. One he had never planned to enter. But if marriage was what it took, then marriage was what his mother would get.
While he turned the problem over in his head, he thumbed through the day’s mail. His hand slowed as he came to a plain brown envelope. In the envelope was the report he received quarterly, giving him updates on his ward, Faith Harrell.