Stranded With The Secret Billionaire
Rescued by a brooding stranger…Jilted heiress Penny Hindmarsh-Firth has set her broken heart on escaping high society city life. But she’s trapped by floods in the Outback, and a handsome stranger on horseback comes to her rescue!After a betrayal shattered his life Matt Fraser withdrew from the world—but he can’t deny Penny refuge. This secret billionaire is reluctantly intrigued as the society princess begins proving there’s more to her than meets the eye…
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Rescued by a brooding stranger...
Jilted heiress Penny Hindmarsh-Firth sets her broken heart on escaping high-society city life. Instead, she’s trapped by floods in the Outback and a handsome stranger on horseback comes to her rescue!
After a betrayal shattered his life, Matt Fraser withdrew from the world—but he can’t deny Penny a refuge. The secret billionaire is reluctantly intrigued as the society princess starts proving there’s more to her than meets the eye...
“We need to go in now because if we stay out here one moment longer, I’ll be forced to kiss you.”
And there it was, out in the open. This thing...
“And you don’t want to?” It was a whisper, so low Matt thought he’d misheard. But he hadn’t. Penny’s whisper seemed to echo. Even the owls above their heads seemed to pause to listen.
Did he want to?
This was such a bad idea. This woman was his employee. She was trapped here for the next four days, or longer if she took him up on his offer to extend.
What was he doing? Standing in the dark talking of kissing a woman?
Did he want to?
“Yes,” he said, because there was nothing else to say.
“Then what’s stopping you?”
“Penny...”
“Just shut up, Matt Fraser, and kiss me.”
And what was a man to say to that?
Matt took Penny into his arms and he kissed her.
MARION LENNOX has written more than a hundred romances and is published in over a hundred countries and thirty languages. Her multiple awards include the prestigious RITA® Award (twice) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for “a body of work which makes us laugh and teaches us about love.”
Marion adores her family, her kayak, her dog and lying on the beach with a book someone else has written. Heaven!
This book is dedicated to the memory of Grace,
the warmest, most generous mother-in-law a woman could wish for—and the baker of the world’s best ginger fluff sponge!
Contents
THE IMPECCABLE ENGLISH ACCENT had directed Penelope Hindmarsh-Firth twelve hundred kilometres across two states without a problem. From ‘Take the third exit after the Harbour Tunnel’, as Penny had navigated her way out of Sydney, to ‘Continue for two hundred kilometres until you reach the next turn’, as she’d crossed South Australia’s vast inland farming country, the cultured voice hadn’t faltered.
True, the last turn had made Penny uneasy. The accent had told her to proceed for thirty kilometres along the Innawarra Track, but it had hesitated over the pronunciation of Innawarra. Penny had hesitated too. The country around them was beautiful, lush and green from recent rains and dotted with vast stands of river red gums. The road she’d been on had been narrow, but solid and well used.
In contrast, the Innawarra Track looked hardly used. It was rough and deeply rutted.
Penny’s car wasn’t built for rough. She was driving her gorgeous little sports car. Pink. The car had been her father’s engagement gift to her, a joyful signal to the world that Penny had done something he approved of.
That hadn’t lasted. Of course not—when had pleasing her father lasted? Right now she seemed to be doing a whole lot wrong.
She was facing a creek crossing. It had been raining hard up north. She’d heard reports of it on the radio but hadn’t taken much notice. Now, what looked to be a usually dry creek bed was running. She got out of the car, took off her pink sandals and walked across, testing the depth.
Samson was doing no testing. Her little white poodle stood in the back seat and whined, and Penny felt a bit like whining too.
‘It’s okay,’ she told Samson. ‘Look, it only comes up to my ankles, and the nice lady on the satnav says this is the quickest way to Malley’s Corner.’
Samson still whined, but Penny climbed back behind the wheel and steered her little car determinedly through the water. There were stones underneath. It felt solid and the water barely reached the centre of her tyres. So far so good.
Her qualms were growing by the minute.
She’d estimated it’d take her two hours tops to reach Malley’s, but it was already four in the afternoon and the road ahead looked like an obstacle course.
‘If worst comes to worst we can sleep in the car,’ she told Samson. ‘And we’re getting used to worst, right?’
Samson whined again but Penny didn’t. The time for whining was over.
‘Malley’s Corner, here I come,’ she muttered. ‘Floods or not, I’m never turning back.’
* * *
Matt Fraser was a man in control. He didn’t depend on luck. Early in life, luck had played him a sour hand and he hadn’t trusted in it since.
When he was twelve, Matt’s mother had taken a job as a farmer’s housekeeper. For Matt, who’d spent his young life tugged from one emotional disaster to another, the farm had seemed heaven and farming had been his life ever since. With only one—admittedly major—hiccup to impede his progress he’d done spectacularly well, but here was another hiccup and it was a big one. He was staring out from his veranda at his massive shearing shed. It was set up for a five a.m. start. His team of crack shearers was ready but his planning had let him down.
