Tycoon's Forbidden Cinderella

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  An illicit temptation...

  A desire too strong to resist!

  Love is a weakness that billionaire Lucien Fox refuses to indulge in. But delectable Audrey Merrington tests his formidable control! With their families united by marriage, Audrey has always been utterly off-limits, yet her shy innocence holds an enticing appeal for cynical Lucien. When a scandal forces them together, Lucien proposes a temporary solution to their inconvenient craving—total, delicious surrender!

  Lucien brushed his thumb over her lower lip, his eyes still searching hers. “Are you sure?”

  Audrey stretched up on tiptoe and linked her arms around his neck. “I don’t want a wedding ring from you, Lucien. But I do want you to make love to me.”

  His hands cupped her bottom and drew her closer to his hard heat. “A couple of days ago I had a long list of reasons why I thought making love to you would be a really bad idea.”

  “And now?”

  His eyes glinted and his mouth came down to just above hers. “Can’t think of a single one of them.”

  And then his mouth covered hers.

  Melanie Milburne read her first Harlequin novel at the age of seventeen, in between studying for her final exams. After completing a master’s degree in education, she decided to write a novel, and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and a keen dog lover and trainer. She enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the HOLT Medallion, a prestigious award honoring outstanding literary talent.

  Books by Melanie Milburne

  Harlequin Presents

  Blackmailed into the Marriage Bed

  A Virgin for a Vow

  The Tycoon’s Marriage Deal

  The Temporary Mrs. Marchetti

  Unwrapping His Convenient Fiancée

  His Mistress for a Week

  One Night With Consequences

  A Ring for the Greek’s Baby

  Wedlocked!

  Wedding Night with Her Enemy

  The Ravensdale Scandals

  Ravensdale’s Defiant Captive

  Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress

  Engaged to Her Ravensdale Enemy

  The Most Scandalous Ravensdale

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  MELANIE MILBURNE

  Tycoon’s Forbidden Cinderella

  To my dear friend Julie Greenwood. We have been friends since the seventh grade and I can’t imagine how different life would be if I hadn’t met you. I have so many fun memories of us horse riding, and sitting in the mulberry tree at my parents’ farm with purpled stained fingers and mouths. You are one of a kind. Love always. Xxxx

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM BOUND TO HER DESERT CAPTOR BY MICHELLE CONDER

  CHAPTER ONE

  AUDREY EYED HER mother’s wedding invitation as if it were a cockroach next to her breakfast teacup and toast plate. ‘I would do anything to get out of this wedding party and I mean anything.’

  Rosie, her flatmate, slipped into the seat opposite and pinched a slice of toast off Audrey’s plate and began munching. ‘Three times a bridesmaid, huh? Go you.’

  Audrey sighed. ‘Yes, well, being a bridesmaid three times would be bad enough but they’re my mother’s marriages and all to Harlan Fox. I thought she’d learned her lesson by now.’

  ‘I guess that does complicate things a bit...’ Rosie twisted her mouth in a glad-it’s-you-and-not-me manner.

  ‘I don’t know why my mother hasn’t learnt from her past two mistakes.’ Audrey stirred her tea until it created a whirlpool similar to the one she was feeling in her stomach. ‘Who marries the same man three times? I can’t bear another one of my mother’s marriages. I can’t bear another one of my mother’s divorces. None of them were civilised and private. They were nasty and horribly public.’ Her teaspoon fell against the saucer with a clatter. ‘That’s the problem with having a soap opera star for a parent. Nothing they do ever escapes public attention. Nothing. Good or bad or just plain dead embarrassing, it’s all splashed over the gossip magazines and the net for millions to read.’

  ‘Yeah, I kind of figured that after that spread about your mother’s affair with one of the young cameramen on set,’ Rosie said. ‘Amazing she has a daughter of twenty-five and yet she can still pull guys like a barman pulls beers.’

  ‘Yes, well, if that wasn’t bad enough, Harlan Fox is even more famous than my mother.’ Audrey frowned and pushed her cup and saucer away as if it had mortally offended her. ‘What can she possibly see in an aging rock star of a heavy metal band?’

  ‘Maybe it’s because Harlan and his band mates are in the process of reforming to go back on the tour?’ Rosie had clearly been reading the gossip pages rather avidly.

  Audrey rolled her eyes. ‘A process somewhat stalled by the fact that two of its members are still in rehab for drug and alcohol issues.’

  Rosie licked a droplet of raspberry jam off her finger and asked, ‘Is Harlan’s hot-looking son Lucien going to be best man again?’

  Audrey sprang up from the table as if her chair had suddenly exploded. The mere mention of Lucien Fox’s name was enough to make her grind her teeth until her molars rolled over and begged for mercy. She scooped her teacup off the table and poured the contents in the sink, wishing she were throwing it in Lucien’s impossibly handsome face. ‘Yes.’ She spat out the word like a lemon pip.

  ‘Funny how you two have never hit it off,’ Rosie said. ‘I mean, you’d think you’d have heaps in common. You’ve both lived in the shadow of a celebrity parent. And you’ve been step-siblings on and off for the last...how long’s it been now?’

  Audrey turned from the sink and gripped the back of the chair. ‘Six years. But it’s not going to happen again. No way. This wedding is not going to go ahead.’

  Rosie’s eyebrows lifted until they met her fringe. ‘What? You think you can talk them out of it?’

  Audrey released her stranglehold on the chair and picked up her phone from the table and checked for messages. Still no answer from her mother. Damn it. ‘I’m going to track Mum and Harlan down and give them a stern talking-to. I’ll resort to blackmail if I have to. I have to stop them marrying. I have to.’

  Rosie frowned. ‘Track them down? Why? Have they gone into hiding or something?’

  ‘They’ve both turned off their phones. Their publicists apparently have no idea where they’ve gone.’

  ‘But you do?’

  She drummed her fingers on the back of her phone. ‘No, but I have a hunch and I’m going to start there.’

  ‘Have you asked Lucien where he thinks they might be or are you still not talking since the last divorce? How many years ago was that again?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘Three,’ Audrey said. ‘For the last six years my mother and Harlan have been hooking up, getting hitched and then divorcing in a hate fest that makes headlines around the world. I’m over it. I’m not going to let it happen agai
n. They can hook up if they want to but another marriage is out. O.U.T. Out.’

  Rosie shifted her lips from side to side as if observing an unusual creature in captivity. ‘Wow. You really have a thing about weddings, don’t you? Don’t you want to get married one day?’

  ‘No. I do not.’ Audrey knew she sounded like a starchy old spinster from a nineteenth-century novel but she was beyond caring. She hated weddings. Capital H hated them. She felt like throwing up when she saw a white dress. Maybe she wouldn’t hate weddings so much if she hadn’t been dragged to so many of her mother’s. Before Harlan Fox, Sibella Merrington had had three husbands and not one of them had been Audrey’s father. Audrey had no idea who her father was and apparently neither did her mother, although Sibella had narrowed it down to three men.

  What was it with her mother and the number three?

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Rosie said. ‘Are you talking to Lucien again or not?’

  ‘Not.’

  ‘Maybe you should reconsider,’ Rosie said. ‘You never know, he might prove to be an ally in your mission to stop his dad and your mum getting married.’

  Audrey snorted. ‘The day I speak again to that arrogant, stuck-up jerk will be the day hell turns into an ice factory.’

  ‘Why do you hate him so much? What’s he ever done to you?’

  Audrey turned and snatched her coat off the hook behind the door and shrugged it on, pulling her hair out of the collar. She faced her flatmate. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I just hate him, that’s all.’

  Rosie’s brows shot up again like skyrockets and she leaned forward in her chair, eyes sparkling with intrigue. ‘Did he try it on with you?’

  Audrey’s cheeks were suddenly feeling so hot she could have cooked another round of toast on them. No way was she going to confess it was she who had done the ‘trying it on’ and been rejected.

  Mortifyingly, embarrassingly, ego-crushingly rejected.

  Not once but two times. Once when she was eighteen and again when she was twenty-one, both times at her mother’s wedding reception to his father. Another good reason to prevent such a marriage occurring again.

  No more wedding receptions.

  No more champagne.

  No more gauche flirting with Lucien Fox.

  Oh, God, why, why, why had she tried to kiss him? She had been planning to peck him on the cheek to show how sophisticated and cool she was about their respective parents getting married. But somehow her lips had moved. Or maybe his had moved. What did it matter whose had moved? Their mouths had almost touched. It was the closest a man’s mouth had ever been to hers.

  But he had jerked away as if she had poison on her lips.

  The same thing happened at their parents’ next wedding. Audrey had been determined to act as if nothing could faze her. She was going to act as if the previous almost-kiss had never happened. To show him it hadn’t had any impact on her at all. But after a few champagnes to give her the courage to get on the dance floor, she’d breezed past Lucien and hadn’t been able to stop herself from giving him a spontaneous little air kiss. Her mouth had aimed for the air between his cheek and hers but someone bumped her from behind and she had fallen against him. She’d grabbed at the front of his shirt to stop herself from falling. He’d put his hands on her hips to steady her.

  And for a moment...an infinitesimal moment when the noise of the reception faded away and it felt they were completely and utterly alone...she’d thought he was going to kiss her. So she’d...

  Oh, God, she hated thinking about it even now...

  She’d leaned up on tiptoe, closed her eyes and waited for him to kiss her. And waited. And waited.

  But of course he hadn’t.

  Even though Audrey had been tipsy on both occasions, and a part of her knew Lucien had done the honourable thing by rejecting her clumsy advances, another part of her—the female, insecure part—wondered if any man would ever be attracted to her. Would any man ever want to kiss her, much less make love to her? She was twenty-five and still a virgin. She hadn’t been on a date since she was a teenager. Not that she hadn’t been asked a few times but she’d always declined because she could never tell if guys wanted to go out with her for the right reason. Her first date at the age of sixteen had been a disaster—an ego-smashing disaster she would do anything to avoid repeating. She’d only been asked out because of who her mother was. It had nothing to do with her whether the boy liked her or not. It was about her celebrity mother.

  It was always about her celebrity mother.

  Audrey picked up her keys and the overnight bag she’d packed earlier. ‘I’m heading out of town for the weekend.’

  Rosie’s eyes twinkled like they belonged on a Christmas tree. ‘Am I allowed to know where you’re going or is it a state secret?’

  It wasn’t that Audrey didn’t trust her flatmate, but even Rosie with her down-to-earth nature could at times be a little star-struck by Audrey’s mother. ‘Sorry, Rosie. I have to keep the press out of this if I can. With Mum and Harlan in hiding, the first person the paps will come looking for is me.’

  Please, God, not again. The press had followed her relentlessly after her mother had gone to ground. At Audrey’s flat. She’d stayed for three weeks and had taken three overdoses, not serious enough for hospitalisation but serious enough for Audrey to want to prevent another marriage between her mother and the hard-partying Harlan Fox.

  ‘What about Lucien?’

  ‘What about Lucien?’ Even saying his name made Audrey’s spine tighten and her scalp prickle as if a thousand ants were tugging on the roots of her hair.

  ‘What if Lucien wants to know where you are?’

  ‘He won’t. Anyway, he’s got my number.’

  Not that he’d ever used it in the last three years. Or the last six. But then, why would he? She was hardly his type. His type was tall and blonde and sophisticated, women who didn’t drink too much champagne when they were feeling nervous or insecure and out of their depth.

  ‘Gosh, how lucky are you to be on Lucien Fox’s speed dial.’ Rosie’s expression had gone all dreamy. ‘I wish I had his number. I don’t suppose you’d—?’

  Audrey shook her head. ‘It’d be a waste of time if I did. He doesn’t date boring homespun girls like us. He only dates size zero supermodels.’

  Rosie sighed. ‘Yeah, like that one he’s been dating now for weeks and weeks—Viviana Prestonward.’

  Something slipped in Audrey’s stomach. ‘H-has he?’ Her voice came out scratchy and she cleared her throat. ‘I mean, yes, yes, I know.’

  ‘Viviana’s amazingly beautiful.’ Rosie’s expression became one part wistful, three parts envious. ‘I saw a picture of them at a charity ball last month. Everyone’s saying they’re about to become engaged. Some girls have all the luck. They get the best looks and the best guys.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call Lucien Fox a prize catch.’ Audrey couldn’t keep the bitter edge from her tone. ‘He might be good-looking and rich but his personality needs a serious makeover. He’s so stiff and formal you’d think he’d been potty-trained at gunpoint.’

  Rosie tilted her head again in her studying-an-exotic-creature manner. ‘Maybe he’ll ask you to be the bridesmaid at his wedding too, I mean, since you’re going to be step-siblings again.’

  Audrey clenched her teeth hard enough to crack a coconut. ‘Not if I can help it.’

  * * *

  Audrey drove out of London and within a couple of hours pulled into the country lane that led to the secluded cottage in the Cotswolds. Her mother had bought the house when she landed her first role on television. It often amazed Audrey that her mother hadn’t sold it by now, but somehow the cottage remained even though several husbands and their houses had not.

  It was too small to be the sort of place the press would expect to find Sibella and Harlan, so it was the
first place on Audrey’s list. Her mother had left a hint in the note on her doorstep, along with the invitation:

  Gone to smell the daffodils with Harlan.

  That could only mean Bramble Cottage. At this time of year the rambling garden was full of daffodils. Along the lane, in the fields, under the trees, along the bank of the stream—the swathes of yellow had always delighted Audrey.

  Bramble Cottage was a perfect hideaway as it was on a long country lane lined with hedgerows and lots of overarching trees, creating a leafy tunnel. The lane had a rickety bridge over a trickling stream that occasionally swelled enough with rainwater to be considered a river.

  When she came down to the cottage with her mother as a child, Audrey had been fascinated by the trees along the lane because they looked as if they were reaching down to hug her. Going through that shady green tunnel had been like driving into another world, a magical world where it was just her and her mother. A safe world. A world where there were no strange men coming and going from her mother’s bedroom.

  No press lurking about for candid shots of Sibella’s painfully shy daughter.

  Audrey couldn’t see any sign of activity at the cottage when she got out of her car but she knew her mother and Harlan would have covered their tracks well. On closer inspection, however, she realised the cottage looked a little neglected. She’d thought there was a caretaker who kept an eye on things. There were often months and months or even a couple of years between her mother’s fleeting visits. The garden was overgrown but in a way that was part of the charm of the place. Audrey loved how the plants spilled over the garden beds, their blooms filling the air with the fresh and hopeful fragrance of spring.

  Audrey left her car parked in the shade of the biggest oak tree a short distance away so as to keep her car from being seen if any paparazzi happened to do a drive-by. She did a mental high-five when she saw the marks of recent tyre tracks on the pebbled area in front of the cottage. She bent down so she could inspect the tracks a little more closely. A car had come in and gone out again, which meant her mother and Harlan hopefully weren’t far away. Probably picking up supplies or something. ‘Or something’ being copious amounts of alcohol most likely.