Recluse Millionaire, Reluctant Bride
Is his reluctant bride a business risk or a personal necessity?Stan Rogers, recluse millionaire must negotiate a risky deal with Stella Ryan, exotic beauty from his past, to gain custody of his son. But how can he close the deal with his reluctant bride, the one woman who flips his switches and pegs him as the enemy?Martial artist Stella flounders in a fish net on the doorstep of Stan, the man who had shattered her heart and could still destroy her. Four years have passed since their hostile business deal, and now, the American financier is proposing holy matrimony…but she’s the reluctant bride wondering, what’s he up to?
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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2017
Copyright © Sun Chara 2017
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
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Sun Chara asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition ©December 2017
ISBN: 9780008145064
Version 2017-11-29
Table of Contents
Friday 4:00 a.m.
Stan Rogers had to bring her here, even if he had to resort to ‘unusual’ methods. He had to get the exotic beauty to agree to his terms. He rubbed the sting from his eyes and the crick from his neck.
A gust of air hurled through the half-open window of his office, bringing with it the scent of Douglas fir. He didn’t even flinch at the icy bite on his face. A wake-up call? Rolling up his sleeves, he dismissed the foolish notion and flicked the desk lamp on. The glare sliced across the shadowed room.
He had no choice. It was either her or his son. He’d asked once and she’d refused. Clamping down on the pricking of his conscience, he swiveled in his chair and paced the two burly men’s approach.
“Bring her.” He slapped his hand on the mahogany desk, his words chips of ice. “Today.”
***
Friday 10:00 a.m.
He was behind it. Stella sensed it in her gut, and that made him a dangerous adversary. Perspiration seeped from her pores and made her jogging suit stick to her skin. A moist drop slid between her breasts. The sun’s glare made her squint. Her mind catapulted.
“I asked you to bring her here,” he muttered, his words directed at her two sheepish escorts. “But not floundering in a fish net.” He bounded over the two steps of the mountain lodge and landed with ease, the gravel crunching beneath his boots.
In two strides, he bridged the distance and halted not two feet from her. His heat filtered to her … his aftershave … she wrinkled her nose. Scents of spruce blended with it, and she couldn’t place it. Couldn’t place him. A niggle nudged her brain, and then vaporized.
“You all right?” he murmured, his hawk-like gaze on her.
Stella’s knees almost buckled, and she gripped the trunk of a nearby pine. Her knuckles grazed the bark. A sliver pierced her skin, and she sucked in a breath, gritting her teeth against the sting of the abrasion.
“Take it off her at once.”
While the two bumblers fumbled to extricate her from the twine, Stella staked out her surroundings and zoned in on her captor.
He towered above her, with his legs slightly apart, and shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans; the movement stretched his sweater—of Native Indian design—taut across his chest, hinting at the muscle beneath. His casual stance bespoke of power, ownership, confidence.
Sexual energy.
Her side stitched a warning.
He looked rugged as the Canadian Rockies, and hard. Flint hard.
Autumn sunlight glinted off the gold in his hair. A shade lighter than his close-cropped beard, it brushed his shoulders. His laser-sharp eyes reminded her of an ocean storm…dark, turbulent. The oddest feeling rocked her stomach; the force of his gaze set off signals of another sort in her brain, yet unclear. Through the racket in her head, a spark of a memory flared, but she couldn’t grasp it.
“This is the ogre,” she murmured to herself. Goosebumps skittered on her skin, and not entirely caused by the November air piercing her clothes.
The flick, Shrek, flashed through her mind, and a smile struggled for a place on her mouth. She bit it away. The man looming over her didn’t appear as a benevolent green giant.
And she was no princess; just an ordinary working girl.
So what did he want with her?
“What’s going on?” Stella rubbed her uninjured hand over her arm to ward off the chill. “Explain.”
“Of course.” He stroked his chin and tilted his head. A golden earring glittered, and it was like a sledgehammer hit her brain.
