by Lisa Childs
Dive into Lisa Childs’s new series, Liaisons International, kicking off with a story of matchmaking, seduction and secret identities!
Billionaire Matteo Rinaldi needs a date to his sister’s gallery opening to stop her from setting him up with women only interested in money. So he accepts a matchmaker’s offer to find his supposedly perfect date. “Savannah” is everything he could want: fun, smart and their connection is off the charts. What started as a game becomes the best night of his life—until he wakes to an empty bed. And she never even told him her last name...
Because “Savannah” is Blair Snyder, a former air force pilot who flies private jets for the company she founded. She’s been burned by guys who couldn’t handle her as she is: tough and determined. Their date was too good to be true, so she left. When a client refuses to let a woman fly his plane, she shows up in disguise, planning to prove the jerk wrong—and the client turns out to be Matteo. Can she keep her hands off him? Temptation may be too much for either of them to resist...even with a mountain of secrets between them.
Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha males and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.
Ever since Lisa Childs read her first romance novel—a Harlequin story, of course—at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Harlequin, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook; through her website, lisachilds.com; or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.
If you liked Dating the Billionaire, why not try
Tempt Me by Caitlin Crews
Bad Reputation by JC Harroway
Pure Attraction by Rebecca Hunter
Also by Lisa Childs
Legal Lovers
Legal Seduction
Legal Attraction
Legal Passion
Legal Desire
Discover more at Harlequin.com
DATING THE BILLIONAIRE
LISA CHILDS
To my perfect match, Andrew Ahearne.
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
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Excerpt from Pure Attraction by Rebecca Hunter
CHAPTER ONE
“I DON’T NEED a matchmaking service,” Blair Snyder said, throwing up her hands to ward off her friend’s efforts to convince her.
Since they had been little kids, Miranda Fox had always been able to talk Blair into things that weren’t good for her...like eating the cupcakes her mother had made for her book club meeting. Or starting a pet-sitting business even though she was allergic to dogs. Or ditching school to stake out the arena where a boy band was performing.
Even today, many years since they’d been little kids, Miranda had talked her into flying, on a moment’s notice, to Milan, Italy, to meet her for drinks on Hotel Galles’s rooftop. Fortunately Blair was a pilot with access to her company’s fleet of private planes, so she wouldn’t have any repercussions from this excursion like she had all those other times Miranda had talked her into things. Blair wasn’t going to get in trouble for using the plane...unless her business partner, who was also her older brother, found out she’d used the Cessna to meet Miranda. He’d always considered her school friend a bad influence on her, which was pretty damn ironic coming from him.
But maybe it was easier for one bad influence to recognize another...because Miranda had never been a huge fan of his, either.
As far as things Miranda had talked her into doing went, this was one of the better ones. Blair had already taken in the view of the steeples of the Duomo and, in the distance, the golden mounds of the Alps. Now she lifted her face to the warmth of the sun shining down on them and raised her glass of pinot grigio to her mouth for a long sip. A sigh of contentment slipped out of her lips.
The contentment didn’t last—not when Miranda tapped her long, manicured nails against the glass tabletop and asked, “So who are you seeing?”
With the waiter hovering nearby, Blair fought the temptation to flip off her friend and instead just glared at her. “You know I’m not seeing anyone.”
As well as her partner in past crimes, Miranda was—as always—her confidante. She told her everything. Unfortunately. They were more than best friends; they were like sisters. Actually, Blair with her blond hair and blue eyes looked more like Miranda than either of the matchmaker’s biological sisters did.
Miranda smiled. “I can fix that for you. I can find you your soul mate.”
“The last thing I want is a husband.” She shuddered at the thought of some man trying to control her, to pin her down, to keep her in one place...
It was too horrible a thought to even allow into her mind. Especially here on this beautiful rooftop, with these beautiful views.
“I didn’t say husband,” Miranda said with a shudder of her own as she uttered the word like it was a curse. “You don’t have to marry the guy. You can just enjoy him.”
Blair hadn’t enjoyed a guy in a long time, which her friend damn well knew. “But you said soul mate.” Another tremor ran through her at the hopelessly romantic term. “That sounds like something our mothers would say.”
“Liaisons International is not your mother’s matchmaking service,” Miranda continued defensively. “Well, it’s not my mother’s matchmaking service, not anymore, not since my sisters and I took over the company and changed the entire business model for it.”
A smile tugged at Blair’s lips, and she shook her head. Even though it had been a few months, she was still in shock over what her friend had done. “I can’t believe you went into the family business—not with the way you always felt about it.”
She had listened to Miranda and her sisters, but especially Miranda, rant and rave so many times over their mother’s company, over everything about their mother. Catarina was the hopeless romantic who’d started the matchmaking business, and with five marriages in her fifty-five years of life, she really was hopeless. So Blair had always supported and understood her friend’s frustration with her mother, just as Miranda had understood Blair’s frustration with hers.
Miranda raised her wineglass to her lips and tipped back what was left of her red, as if she needed it to brace herself. “Me neither,” she murmured. “But I saw a need for an overhaul in that old system and for more security in the new system that men and women use to meet and date.”
“Apps are the new system,” Blair said with a sigh of resignation. She’d tried them herself.
“Apps,” Miranda said, her voice sharp with disgust, “make it too easy for people to lie about themselves and about their true intentions. At Liaisons International, we vet every single member, so that there are no unwelcome surprises. It’s the safest way to date worldwide.”
Blair chuckled now at what must have been their company’s marketing slogan. “You are good, my friend. You’ve nearly sucked me in.”
“I’m not trying to suck you in,” Miranda said. “I’m trying to get you ba
ck out there, dating, safely.”
“Isn’t that an oxymoron?” Blair asked. A former fighter pilot, she was tough, but there had been times dating had scared her, when the men had gotten too aggressive, too clingy and too stalkerish. She’d been able to handle them, but she’d been reluctant to put herself into that situation again.
“I promise you won’t be harassed,” Miranda persisted. “And that all of our members are exceptionally attractive.”
“Isn’t that discrimination?” Blair asked. When trying to become a fighter pilot, she’d been subjected to way too much of that as well.
Miranda shrugged and smiled. “I just call it good fortune...” She inclined her head toward the attractive young waiter. “Like the male members make him look homely.”
“Yeah, right,” Blair remarked with a chuckle. But temptation pulled at her, drawing her in.
To what?
Possibilities? She didn’t want marriage, but she actually wouldn’t mind enjoying a man again. Really, really enjoying him...
Trying not to appear too intrigued, she studied her wineglass with the setting sun glowing within the pale amber liquid. Then she oh-so-casually asked, “So who are some of these male members?”
“Tsk, tsk, no, no, no...” Miranda admonished her with a shake of her head. “You’re going to have to join if you want to find out.”
“And I thought we were friends,” Blair teased.
“We are,” Miranda said. “That’s why I want you to join. You work so hard all the time—first in the air force and now with your business. You need to balance all that work with some play, with some fun.”
Skeptical, Blair arched a brow. “Fun? Since when is dating fun?” It had never been that for her. Every man she’d met had tried to change her in some way, had wanted her to be more feminine, less her.
“Dating will be fun for you now,” Miranda promised as she lifted her empty glass to clink against the rim of Blair’s. “Since you have just become the newest member of Liaisons International.”
Blair groaned in realization of what she’d done. In joining the dating service, she had let Miranda talk her into something again—something that was undoubtedly going to get her in trouble, just as she had gotten into trouble every time she’d let Miranda talk her into anything.
* * *
What the hell had Matteo Rinaldi gotten himself into? Joining a dating service was risky, but dating blindly had proved even riskier—as all the advertising for Liaisons International had pointed out.
He leaned over the sink in the bathroom of his hotel suite and stared into the mirror to adjust the black tie of his tuxedo. Matteo was about to find out if the premier dating service was actually going to deliver on the promises it had made him when he joined.
No games.
No lies.
No secret agendas.
That was what he’d been promised. Other women had made him those same promises but had, over and over again, broken their vows. They’d played games. They’d lied. They’d had their own agendas.
He was not going to be blindsided. Ever again. His eyes were wide open now. Whatever his date had told the service, he doubted that she really wasn’t looking for a husband and a rich one at that. Why else would she have signed up for the elite agency?
He made that assumption because that had been his experience with women; starting with his mom who’d used men for financial support and had taught his sister, Francesca, to do the same. They weren’t above using him either, especially now.
Hopefully tonight went well and not just with his date. He glanced at his watch, checking to see if she was late. She had better not be—because he couldn’t be late. Not tonight.
So he probably shouldn’t have set up his first date with Liaisons International for this evening of all evenings. But knowing Francesca, his attending the event solo would cause more problems for him than bringing along a stranger. She, undoubtedly, had a friend she wanted to set up with him.
As he walked out of the bathroom, he noticed a darkness at the bottom of the door to the hall. No light showed through the crack as it had earlier. Someone or something had cast a shadow against his door. Nobody had knocked, so it was probably a maid’s cleaning cart or a room service trolley. He hadn’t ordered either, though.
All he’d ordered was a date for the evening, and now it occurred to him how odd the whole process had been. He hadn’t been shown any photos. Hadn’t talked to his potential match through email or text. Was Liaisons International actually a dating service?
Or was it something else entirely?
An escort service?
No. Before signing up, he’d thoroughly checked it out. Even though its name had recently changed, the business had been active for a long time with nothing but glowing reviews and recommendations. But that had been for when it was Matchmakers International. It sounded like something else entirely now.
Not that he would have signed up for a matchmaking service; that sounded too old-fashioned and far too permanent, like finding the match for the rest of one’s damn life. Teo just wanted a date, so he could ward off amateur matchmakers and the gold diggers those amateurs often found for him.
Where the hell was his date?
Not that she was late.
Yet.
He glanced down at the crack beneath the door and noticed the shadow receding. Maybe the cart or trolley was being pushed away. Or maybe...
Curiosity compelled him to pull open the door and, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut, he sucked in a breath of shock. She had her back to him but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, since her backside was so very good.
A black silk dress clung to the sweet curves of her hips and her ass, and the short hemline of the dress exposed the longest damn legs he’d ever seen. Blond hair flowed partway down her back, falling like a deep gold curtain against the fabric that couldn’t compare to the silky look of her hair. If her face was half as attractive as her legs...
Then the dating service had done damn well. But maybe she had been walking away from some other room, not his.
She might have nothing to do with Liaisons International. But before she even turned around, he hoped like hell that she did, that she was his date.
“Ciao,” he called out to her. She didn’t stop, those long legs bringing her ever closer to the elevator and ever farther away from him. So he tried English. “Hello? Are you looking for me?” he asked.
She stopped, as if frozen, in the hall, her back to him yet.
So he continued, “I’m Matteo—” She turned around, and he was so stunned by her beauty that he momentarily forgot his own damn name.
She couldn’t be from the dating service. There was no way that a woman this stunningly beautiful was unattached. She must have been leaving some other room, some other man...
And for the first time in a long time, envy gripped Matteo. He hadn’t felt this envious in years, not since he was a hungry kid begging for change on the streets of Rome, so that he could help feed his family. In the years since then, he had worked hard and accumulated a fortune, so Teo hadn’t thought he would ever be hungry or jealous again.
He’d thought wrong.
CHAPTER TWO
BLAIR HAD MADE a mistake—a very big mistake—when she let Miranda talk her into joining a dating service, especially such an odd one. As she’d stood outside the door of the hotel suite, hand raised to knock on the dark mahogany wood, it occurred to her that she might be mistaken for an escort, the way she was showing up at a man’s hotel room. Anyone passing her in the hall might think she was one, especially as she’d been told to wear a little black dress for a semiformal event. Maybe the man she was supposed to meet already thought she was an escort—that was why he’d told Miranda how to have her dress.
Matteo Rinaldi.
That was the name Miranda had given h
er—along with the number of the suite in the swanky hotel where he was staying. What the hell had her friend talked her into? Prostitution?
Maybe that was what Miranda had meant when she’d said it wasn’t her mother’s matchmaking service. Her mother’s service had had rules. Etiquette.
What the hell were the rules here? Knowing Miranda and how she had always rebelled against her mother’s rules, there probably weren’t any.
So before she’d even knocked, Blair had decided to leave, but as she’d been walking away, he’d opened the door and called out to her. She shouldn’t have stopped; she sure as hell shouldn’t have turned around...because now she really didn’t want to walk away.
He was so damn good-looking with thick, slightly curling chocolate-brown hair and heavily lashed chocolate-brown eyes. To the chocoholic that Blair was, he looked good enough to eat. And his body...
He was so tall and broad that his shoulders stretched the seams of his tailored tuxedo. Like James freakin’ Bond, he wore a tuxedo. To her he was an international man of mystery as well, a man who spoke Italian so fluently it must have been his native language. He was crazy good-looking, like mega-movie-star good-looking.
How the hell had Miranda talked him into joining the dating service? He was too ridiculously attractive to need help finding women. But then she hadn’t needed help finding men, either; she’d needed help screening the assholes that she had always wound up dating.
Miranda claimed that she’d vetted everyone thoroughly before letting them join, and she’d assured her that Matteo Rinaldi was anything but an asshole. What was he, though? Besides ridiculously good-looking?
All the information he’d allowed Miranda to share about him had been his name and his hotel suite number and that he did something in business or owned a business. It would be such a shame if he really just wanted an escort. But for him, Blair might be tempted...
No. Unlike her best friend, she had rules. Unfortunately.
