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A Rich Man's Whim (A Bride for a Billionaire Book 1), by Lynne Graham
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A month with the ruthless Russian…
Kat Marshall has sacrificed everything for her younger sisters. And with money tighter than ever, she's in desperate need of help. Innocent Kat has hidden her dreams away until she meets enigmatic Russian, Mikhail Kusnirovich, whose outrageous offer could make them all come true….
Billionaire Mikhail doesn't have dreams. He has money, lots of it, and he always gets what he wants. Bedding Kat should be easy, but the tempting redhead is impossible to seduce! So Mikhail offers to pay off her debts—in exchange for a month on his yacht, and in his cabin, virginity included!
- Sales Rank: #245419 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-05-01
- Released on: 2013-05-01
- Format: Kindle eBook
About the Author
Lynne Graham lives in Northern Ireland and has been a keen romance reader since her teens. Happily married, Lynne has five children. Her eldest is her only natural child. Her other children, who are every bit as dear to her heart, are adopted. The family has a variety of pets, and Lynne loves gardening, cooking, collecting allsorts and is crazy about every aspect of Christmas.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Mikhail Kusnirovich, Russian oil oligarch and much feared business magnate, relaxed his big body back into his leather office chair and surveyed his best friend, Luka Volkov, with astonishment. 'Hiking…seriously? That's truly how you want to spend your stag weekend away?'
'Well, we've already had the party and that was a little high octane for me,' Luka confided, his good-natured face tightening with distaste at the memory. Of medium height and stocky build, he was a university lecturer and the much admired author of a recent book on quantum physics.
'You can blame your future brother-in-law for that,' Mikhail reminded him drily, thinking of the lap and pole dancers hired by Peter Gregory for the occasion, women so far removed from his shy academic friend's experience that the arrival of a group of terrorists at the festivities would have been more welcome.
'Peter meant it for the best,' Luka proclaimed, instantly springing to the defence of his bride's obnoxious banker brother.
Mikhail's brow raised, his lean, darkly handsome face grim. 'Even though I warned him that you wouldn't like it?'
Luka reddened. 'He does try; he just doesn't always get it right.'
Mikhail said nothing because he was thinking with regret of how much Luka had changed since he had got engaged to Suzie Gregory. Although the two men had little in common except their Russian heritage, they had been friends since they met at Cambridge University. In those days, Luka would have had no problem declaring that a man as crude, boring and boastful as Peter Gregory was a waste of space. But now Luka could no longer call a spade a spade and always paid subservient regard to his fiancée's feelings. An alpha male to the core, Mikhail gritted his even white teeth in disgust. He would never marry. He was never going to change who and what he was to please some woman. The very idea was a challenge for a male raised by a man whose favourite saying had been, 'a chicken is not a bird and a woman is not a person'. The late Leonid Kusnirovich had been fond of reeling that off to inflame the sensibilities of the refined English nanny he had hired to take care of his only son. Sexist, brutal and always insensitive, Leonid had been outraged by the nanny's gentle approach to child rearing and had been afraid that she might turn his son into a wimp. But at the age of thirty there was nothing remotely wimpy about Mikhail's six-foot-five-inch powerfully built frame, his ruthless drive to succeed or his famous appetite for a large and varied diet of women.
'You'd like the Lake District…it's beautiful,' Luka declared.
Mikhail made a massive effort not to look as pained as he felt. 'You want to go hiking in the Lake District? I assumed you were thinking of Siberia—'
'I can't get enough time off work and I'm not sure I'd be up to the challenge of the elements there,' Luka admitted, patting his slight paunch in apology. 'I'm not half as fit as you are. England in the spring and a gentle workout is more my style. But could you get by without your limo, luxury lifestyle and your fleet of minders for a couple of days?'
Mikhail went nowhere without a team of security guards. He frowned, not at the prospect of existing without the luxuries, but at having to convince his protection team that he didn't need them for forty eight hours. Stas, his highly protective head of security, had been taking care of Mikhail since he was a little boy. 'Of course, I can do it,' he responded with innate assurance. 'And a little deprivation will do me good.'
'You'll have to leave your collection of cell phones behind as well,' Luka dared.
Mikhail stiffened in dismay. 'But why?'
'You won't stop cutting deals if you still have the phones in tow,' Luka pointed out, well aware of his friend's workaholic ways. 'I don't fancy standing on top of a mountain somewhere shivering while you consider share prices. I know what you're like.'
'If that's really what you want, I'll consider it,' Mikhail conceded grudgingly, knowing he would sooner cut off his right arm than remove himself, even temporarily, from his vast business empire. Even so, although he rarely took time out from work, the concept of even a small physical challenge had considerable appeal for him.
A knock on the door prefaced the appearance of a tall beauty in her twenties with a mane of pale blonde hair. She settled intense bright blue eyes on her employer and said apologetically, 'Your next appointment is waiting, sir.'
'Thank you, Lara. I'll call you when I'm ready.'
Even Luka stared as the PA left the room, her slim hips swaying provocatively in her tight pencil skirt. 'That one looks like last year's Miss World. Are you—?'
Mikhail was amused and his wide sensual mouth quirked. 'Never ever in the office.'
'But she's gorgeous,' Luka commented.
Mikhail smiled. 'Is the reign of Suzie wearing thin?'
Luka flushed. 'Of course not. A man can look without being tempted.'
Mikhail relished the fact that he could still look at any woman and be tempted, a much more healthy state of affairs in his opinion than that of his friend, he reflected grimly, for Luka clearly now felt forced to stifle all his natural male inclinations in the holy cause of fidelity. Was his old friend so certain that he had found everlasting love? Or should Mikhail make use of their hiking trip to check that Luka was still as keen to make the sacrifices necessary to become a husband? Had Lu-ka's awareness of Lara's attractions been a hint that he was no longer quite so committed to his future bride? Forsaking all others…in sickness and in health? Not for the first time, Mikhail barely repressed a shudder of revulsion, convinced that it was unnatural and unmanly to want to make such promises to any woman, and as for the what's-mine-is-yours agenda that went with it—he would sooner set fire to his billions than place himself in a financially vulnerable position.
Kat tensed in dismay as the sound of the post van crunching across gravel reached her ears. Her sister, Emmie, had come home late and unexpectedly the night before and she didn't want her wakened by the doorbell. Hastily setting down the quilt she was stitching, she flexed stiff fingers and hurried to the front door. Her stomach hollowed in fear of what the postman might be delivering. It was a fear that never left her now, a fear that dominated her every waking hour. But Kat still answered the door with a ready smile on her generous mouth and a friendly word and as she signed for the recorded delivery letter with the awful tell-tale red lettering on the envelope she was proud that she kept her hand steady.
Slowly she retreated back inside the solid stone farmhouse, which she had inherited from her father. Birk-side's peaceful setting and beautiful views had struck her as paradise after the rootless, insecure existence she had endured growing up with her mother, Odette. A former top fashion model, Odette had never settled down to live an ordinary life, even after she had children. Kat's father had married her mother before she found fame and the increasingly sophisticated Odette had found the wealthy men she met on her travels far more to her taste than the quiet accountant she had married at too young an age. More than ten years had passed before Odette chose to marry a second time. That marriage had produced twin daughters, Sapphire and Emerald. Odette's final big relationship had been with a South American polo player, who had fathered Kat's youngest sister, Topaz. When Kat was twenty-three years old, her mother had put her three younger daughters into care, pleading that the twins in particular were out of control and at risk. Touched by the girls' distress, Kat had taken on sole responsibility for raising her half-sisters and had set up home with them in the Lake District.
Looking back to those first halcyon days when she had had such high hopes for their fresh start in life now left a bitter taste in Kat's mouth. A deep abiding sense of failure gripped her; she had been so determined to give the girls the secure home and love that she herself had never known as a child. She tore open the letter and read it. Yet another to stuff in the drawer with its equally scary predecessors, she reflected wretchedly. The building society was going to repossess the house while the debt collection agency would send in the bailiffs to recoup what funds they could from the sale of her possessions. She was so deep in debt that she stood to lose absolutely everything right down to the roof over her head. It didn't matter how many hours a day she worked making hand stitched patchwork quilts, only a miracle would dig her out of the deep financial hole she was in.
She had borrowed a small fortune to turn the old farmhouse into a bed and breakfast business. Putting in en suite bathrooms and extending the kitchen and dining area had been unavoidable. The steady stream of guests in the early years had raised Kat's hopes high and she had foolishly taken on more debt, determined to do the very best she could by every one of her sisters. Gradually, however, the flow of guests had died down to a trickle and she had realised too late that the market had changed; many people preferred a cheap hotel or a cosy pub to a B&B. In addition, the house was situated down a long single-track road and too far from civilisation to appeal to many. She had still hoped to get passing trade from day trippers and hill walkers but most of the walkers, she met went home at the end of the day or slept in a tent. The recent recession had made bookings as scarce as hens' teeth.
A tall beautiful blonde in a ratty old robe slowly descended the stairs smothering a yawn. 'That postman makes so much noise,' Emmie complained tartly. 'I suppose you've been up for ages. You always were an early riser.'
Kat resisted the urge to point out that for a long time she had had little choice with three siblings to get off to school every morning and overnight guests to feed; she was too grateful that Emmie seemed chattier than she had been the night before when the taxi dropped her off and she declared that she was too exhausted to do anything other than go straight to bed. During the night, Kat had burned with helpless curiosity because six months earlier Emmie had gone to live with their mother, Odette, in London, determined to get to know the woman she had barely seen since she was twelve years old. Kat had chosen not to interfere. Emmie was, after all, twenty-three years of age. Even so, Kat had still worried a lot about her, knowing that her sister would ultimately discover that the most important person in Odette's life was always Odette and that the older woman had none of the warmth and affection that every child longed to find in a parent.
'Do you want any breakfast?' Kat asked prosaically.
'I'm not hungry,' Emmie replied, sinking down at the kitchen table with a heavy sigh. 'But I wouldn't say no to a cup of tea.'
'I missed you,' Kat confided as she switched on the kettle.
Emmie smiled, long blonde hair tumbling round her lovely face as she sat forward. 'I missed you but I didn't miss my deadend job at the library or the dreary social life round here. I'm sorry I didn't phone more often though.'
'That's all right.' Kat's emerald green eyes glimmered with fondness, her long russet spiralling curls brushing her cheekbones in stark contrast to her fair skin as she stretched up to a cupboard to extract two beakers. More than ten years older than her sister, Kat was a tall slender woman with beautiful skin, clear eyes and a wide full mouth. 'I guessed you were busy and hoped you were enjoying yourself.'
Without warning, Emmie compressed her mouth and pulled a face. 'Living with Odette was a nightmare,' she admitted abruptly.
'I'm sorry,' Kat remarked gently as she poured the tea.
'You knew it would be like that, didn't you?' Emmie prompted as she accepted the beaker. 'Why on earth didn't you warn me?'
'I thought that as she got older Mum might have mellowed and I didn't want to influence you before you got to know her on your own account,' Kat explained ruefully. 'After all, she could have treated you very differently.'
Emmie snorted and reeled off several incidents that illustrated what she had viewed as her mother's colossal selfishness and Kat made soothing sounds of understanding.
'Well, I'm home to stay for good this time,' her half-sister assured her squarely. 'And I ought to warn you… I'm pregnant—'
''Pregnant?' Kat gasped, appalled at that unexpected announcement. 'Please tell me you're joking.'
'I'm pregnant,' Emmie repeated, settling violet-blue eyes on her sister's shocked face. 'I'm sorry but there it is and there's not much I can do about it now—'
'The father?' Kat pressed tautly.
Emmie's face darkened as if Kat had thrown a light switch. 'That's over and I don't want to talk about it.'
Kat struggled to swallow back the many questions brimming on her lips, frightened of saying something that would offend. In truth she had always been more of a mother to her sisters than another sibling and after that announcement she was already wondering painfully where she had gone wrong. 'OK, I can accept that for the moment—'
'But I still want this baby,' Emmie proclaimed a touch defiantly.
Still feeling light-headed with shock, Kat sat down opposite her. 'Have you thought about how you're going to manage?'
'Of course, I have. I'll live here with you and help you with the business,' Emmie told her calmly.
'Right now there isn't a business for you to help me with,' Kat admitted awkwardly, knowing she had to give as much of the truth as possible when Emmie was basing her future plans on the guest house doing a healthy trade. 'I haven't had a customer in over a month—'
'It's the wrong time of year—business is sure to pick up by Easter,' Emmie said merrily.
'I doubt it. I'm also in debt to my eyeballs,' Kat confessed reluctantly.
Her sister studied her in astonishment. 'Since when?'
'For ages now. I mean, you must've noticed before you went away that business wasn't exactly brisk,' Kat responded.
'Of course, you borrowed a lot of money to do up the house when we first came here,' Emmie recalled abstractedly.
Most helpful customer reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating change of pace
By Kate McMurry
Kat Marshall is a 35-year-old virgin who has spent the past 12 years raising the younger half-sisters that her callous, flighty mother has abandoned. Currently the bank is on the verge of foreclosing on Kat's bed-and-breakfast, which has been the only means of supporting her and her sisters all these years. In addition, Kat's 23-year-old sister is pregnant by a man she won't name and has come to live with Kat because she has nowhere else to go. Then suddenly, in the middle of a blizzard, three men show up on Kat's doorstep seeking shelter at her bed-and-breakfast, one of them with a sprained ankle from a hiking accident.
Thirty-year-old Mikhail Kusnirovich is the only son of a deceased Russian oil oligarch. Mikhail's workaholic approach to business has massively extended the fortune he inherited into the billionaire range. He is a gorgeous alpha male who can (and has) had any woman he wanted since puberty--until Kat. The moment he sets eyes on the flame-haired beauty, he's determined to make her his lover, but Kat has no intention of being another notch on the Russian tycoon's bedpost.
Mikhail has never been told, "No," by a woman in his life, but rather than being discouraged, he is more determined than ever to have Kat. The problem is how best to accomplish his sensual goal. He has never paid a woman for sex in his life. It is abhorrent to him. But when he has Kat's background checked and discovers her terrible financial situation, he decides, with much misgiving at this violation of his principles, to make her a financial offer she can't refuse. He buys up the mortgage on her property and tells her if she will spend a month with him on his yacht as his hostess, he will sign over her property to her, free and clear. He salves his pride, and Kat's, by assuring her that nothing sexual will happen between them unless it's her idea. But he's confident that with her conveniently pinned to his side, day and night, her seduction is inevitable.
There is no other Harlequin Presents author that I read but Lynne Graham. The requirements for this line are so narrow, it takes real brilliance to write essentially the same story again and again, year after year, and virtually every book, make the old, new once more. Lynne Graham has that gift. It also takes major talent to write romance-novel sex scenes that are not a boring list of body parts swelling and heaving. I almost always skim them these days, because I've read so many across decades as a big romance fan, rarely does it feel like anything to me but, "Ho hum." Not so with Lynne Graham. She does what not enough romance authors manage to achieve--bring so much intensity to the interactions between her protagonists both outside and inside the bedroom that the sex scenes are filled with drama and emotional fire. Sex is never for its own sake, it serves to reveal new facets of the protagonists' personalities as it both brings the lovers together and pushes them apart, at the same time.
I was also delighted to see in this story a Harlequin Presents with a cougar plot, which I have never encountered in this particular short-contemporary line. In a bit of comic relief in the midst of a very dramatic story, when Kat learns Mikhail is five years younger than her, she recoils from being a cougar having a fling with a "boy toy." Mikhail's extreme offense at the term in reference to him is hilarious.
Because the heroine is not in her early 20's and utterly naive, she is a worthy opponent for the hero, meeting him toe to toe in every scene, unlike so many beggar-maid plots in Harlequin Presents where there are enormous emotional as well as financial disparities between the hero and heroine.
I am also happy to report that there is no unplanned pregnancy resulting in a secret baby in this story, in spite of the requisite, "I forgot the condom" scene. The hero does not blackmail the heroine for sex in any way, and though the inevitable Cinderella makeover occurs, there is a comic twist on it that is quite original.
In short, fans of Lynne Graham will be delighted with this book.
I rate this book as follows:
Heroine: 5 stars
Hero: 5 stars
Romance Plot: 5 stars
Writing: 5 stars
Overall: 5 stars
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Well done
By happy endings
This is a change of pace for Harlequin, and Lynne Graham. The heroine isn't an ingenue and the hero isn't unnecessarily cruel or thoughtless. Mikhail is a 30-year-old businessman who finds himself attracted to Kat, a 35-year-old virgin (this is actually believable) who isn't impressed with him. Kat retrieved her sisters from foster care when she was barely 20 years old and has spent her life to seeing to their needs. She's facing bankruptcy because she keeps borrowing money to take care of them, and the bed and breakfast that she's running isn't doing well. Mikhail arrives one stormy night after a friend sprains an ankle, and they need a place out of the storm. There's an undeniable attraction, but Kat refuses to fall over him. Mikhail can't take the rejection. The ensuing courtship is sweet, poignant and funny. It's filled with missteps by Mikhail and a developing sense of self-awareness for Kat.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
One of my favorites from Lynne
By Olga
Although I am surprised by some of the things in this one, I actually loved it. It was different from the type of story she usually writes, and I'm mainly referring to their ages. I also have to admit that this one wasn't as painful to read as some of her other ones. Lynne is my favorite Harlequin writer, but even I have to admit that some scenes in her other ones just break my heart. This one had that, in a very nice way. I loved it!
My favorites from her have been The Italian's Inexperienced Mistress,The Trophy Husband, and The Spanish Groom.
*Spoilers*
This one was definitely up there with those. The hero was like most of her other hero's, but I think he wasn't as much of a jerk. At least he explains a bit why he treats women the way he does. Right from the moment he sees her, it's obvious he loves her. He doesn't say it, and he claims he's just attracted to her. But he goes of of his way to make her come to him. I had to give her props to. The girl in this one was able to say no to hero. I really liked that too. He made her suffer a bit, but hardly anything to complain about. He was dominant (like of most of Lynne Graham's leads) but he cared for her. Other of her hero's have to much fun insulting and degrading the female leads. That part bothers me. I also loved that the hero was not moved AT ALL by any other girl by her. He just wanted her.
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