The Platinum Collection: A Convenient Proposal: His Diamond of Convenience / The Highest Price to Pay / His Ring Is Not Enough
His latest acquisition Dmitri Markin is a man who likes to win. Beautiful Victoria Calder might have initially shocked him with her proposition, but there’s more than one advantage to the deal she’s proposing… If this dedicated bachelor is going to marry, it certainly won’t be in name only!When Ella’s failing business comes wrapped up as part of Blaise Chevalier’s recent takeover, he plans to discard it. But then he meets Ella! Cast from the same fiery mould as he is, she makes an intriguing adversary. Perhaps he could have a little fun with his new acquisition…Ajax Kouros has a plan – and being jilted at the altar is not part of it. His company’s future depends on marrying a Holt, so when Leah Holt steps up to the altar… will he say no? Saying ‘I do’ is the beginning, and Leah soon realises that Ajax is far more complex and distracting than the boy of her childhood fantasies…
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The Platinum Collection: A Convenient Proposal
His Diamond of Convenience
The Highest Price to Pay
His Ring is Not Enough
Maisey Yates
MAISEY YATES is a USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty romance novels. She has a coffee habit she has no interest in kicking, and a slight Pinterest addiction. She lives with her husband and children in the Pacific Northwest. When Maisey isn’t writing, she can be found singing in the grocery store, shopping for shoes online, and probably not doing dishes. Check out her website, www.maiseyyates.com.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Maisey Yates
For Pippa, because you loved Victoria since she first appeared. Thank you for all of your support, now and always.
VICTORIA INTENSELY DISLIKED places like this. Gyms with boxing rings, hanging punching bags and various other accoutrements. The lighting was dim, casting everything in a dull shadow. It was probably for the best, all things considered, else it might reveal the stains from dirt, blood and whatever else that undoubtedly lingered on the canvas. The air smelled of sweat, of testosterone. And she could truly think of nothing less appealing.
The entire place, and all of its inhabitants, needed to be hosed down.
If it wasn’t absolutely necessary she find Dmitri Markin, she would never have stepped foot in here.
She ran her hand over her hair, checking to see that everything was still in place, then walked forward, her high heels loud on the concrete floor as she strode through the workout area, studiously ignoring the male gazes that were following her progress through the room.
These were not the male gazes she was looking for. And therefore, she was uninterested.
Oily muscles did nothing for her. Thank you very much.
Not unless she needed a heavy box lifted. Then oily muscles could certainly serve a purpose, but not aesthetically. Not in her world.
One of the men she walked past whistled and she felt her muscles tense, starting at the base of her skull and spreading downward, her shoulders bunching up as the tension bled outward.
She didn’t give the man the satisfaction of pausing, neither did she look at him. Rather, she ratcheted her chin up a notch and forged ahead, tightening her hold on her purse and keeping her strides even.
Over the years she had become something of a challenge to men. They knew she had a reputation for keeping herself separate, for keeping herself distant. And that made her a temptation, apparently, which was just one more reason she had to disdain the gender. Which was potentially unfair of her, but she didn’t care.
In the interest of maintaining the family peace and getting back in her father’s good books, she had at one time entertained the idea of making a suitable marriage. And in her mind, and the mind of her father, a suitable marriage meant marriage to royalty. Yet it had failed spectacularly. Because when she had managed to secure herself a royal fiancé, he had gone on to fall in love with their matchmaker.
Which had put her back at square one. Focusing on her charities and on raising her family’s profile in the media.
Until she had found out that Dmitri Markin had something she wanted. And that he wanted something she had.
Now she had a whole new plan for fixing the pain she caused her family. And it would be a whole lot better than marrying a prince. Assuming she could accomplish it. And she would. Because she didn’t fail. Not anymore.
She had the chance to atone for past sins. She’d spotted this open door, so she was walking through it.
Right at the moment she was thinking of metaphorical doors, she walked through a literal door and into the back of the gym. This was a private training room, so she had been told when she had inquired about Dmitri’s haunts. And just as she had been informed, by the curvaceous redhead she had met at a party earlier in the week, Dmitri was here, grappling with another man.
They were both shirtless, in black pants, fighting as if their lives depended on it. She sniffed. Silly. Their lives certainly did not depend on it.
Men.
She recognized Dmitri immediately. He was larger than his opponent, well muscled and sporting an armful of ink. She didn’t know what the symbols were, or what they represented; she only knew that, were the tabloids to be believed, they were the sort of thing that caused a lot of women to swoon.
