The Billioniare's Bought Bride (Contemporary Romance)

by Michele Dunaway

  The Billionaire’s Bought Bride

  Michele Dunaway

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2012 Michele Dunaway

  All rights reserved

  KindleEdition License Notes

  This is an original work of romance fiction, never before published. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author who receives no payment on illegal downloads.

  Please note this is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locals is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To all those who spent summers in Wisconsin with me, those are still some of my favorite memories in the world.

  Chapter One

  Friday, July thirteenth, was literally the day from hell. Madison Johansson primly folded her hands in her lap, her stomach churning as she tried to get comfortable on one of the unforgiving, hard plastic chairs lining the beige-colored walls of the King County revenue office in northwestern Wisconsin. The movement did little to ease her discomfort or her growing desperation.

  She’d worn her best navy blue suit and secured her shoulder length blond hair in a tight bun—an attempt to appear older than her twenty-four years. Her shoes were discount; last week she’d sold the last of her Italian leather pumps and her designer clothes via eBay. However, even after the massive closet purge, her bank balance remained a mere fifth of the two hundred thousand dollars she needed to save the only real home she’d ever known. Then there was also that matter of the half-million dollar balloon mortgage coming due. She inhaled and prayed for calm.

  “Ms. Johansson.”

  Hearing her name, Maddy stood and followed the heavyset government official into a tiny conference room. The tired-looking women sat at the table, flipped open a file folder and got right to the point. “Let’s see. Five years of unpaid real estate assessments…”

  She began to read aloud details Maddy now knew by heart. Her family’s lake home, a ten million dollar piece of property that was Maddy’s entire inheritance, was about to be sold so the county could recoup unpaid back taxes, penalties and interest.

  “Ms. Johansson, I do understand your dilemma,” the woman’s voice remained expressionless as she finished, “but unless you bring us the entire amount due, the county will take possession August first and will sell the entire parcel at auction.”

  Maddy gripped her hands together to stop their shaking. Behind her thick plastic frames, the official didn’t even blink, as if delivering death notices was a daily occurrence. Then again it wasn’t her property. To Maddy, Summerhaven was more than a house. It was home.

  “This is ridiculous,” Madison protested, despite already knowing further arguments were futile. “This house has been in my family for seventy-five years. I didn’t even know the full extent of the tax situation until a week ago.”

  And once she’d found out, she’d been in meetings with family lawyers ever since. “When I called earlier to set up this appointment, Mr. Smith mentioned the possibility of a payment plan.”

  The woman’s bland expression never changed. “Mr. Smith gave you incorrect information.”

  “Is he here? Is his supervisor?”

  The woman’s lips puckered as if she’d sucked a lemon. “I’m his supervisor. As for a payment plan, it’s far too late. We’ve sent you notices of this impending date for over a year. No one responded. It’s all or nothing, Ms. Johansson. That’s the only way to keep your property.”

  Maddy tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear. Johanssons never quit. Never gave up. That had been drilled in since birth. “But as I said, I didn’t know about the taxes. I never received any past due notices. My grandfather died two months ago and the estate took some time to settle. My brother was handling this trust, this property. He was power of attorney.”

  Which was the crux of the matter. When their beloved grandfather’s health had started declining five years ago, Stephen Johansson had turned over management of all family finances to Maddy’s brother Ted. Ted had embraced the role of executor like a kid let loose in the candy store. His high society lifestyle had to be financed somehow, and rather than touching his funds, he had siphoned the monetary trust designed to fund Summerhaven, leaving the estate broke.

  The woman continued, either oblivious or deliberately ignoring Maddy’s discomfort. “We sent all letters certified mail. Would you like to see the receipts?”

  Maddy cursed her foolishness. She had trusted her brother to manage her investments. “I’m sure Ted signed for them.” Or one of his lackeys had. It probably didn’t matter.

  The woman picked up a pencil and studied the yellow wood for a moment. Then she sighed. “Listen, you seem like a nice girl. If I were in your shoes, I’d sell the place, make the new owners settle the tax bill, pay off any mortgage and bank the proceeds. I’ve seen the property appraisal. In this volatile real estate market, surely you don’t need to saddle yourself with a huge estate you can’t possibly afford to maintain? Not when you can make yourself a millionaire by selling it and that’s even if you get half its value?”

  Of course that had been Ted’s logic, his reason for “borrowing” from the Summerhaven trust when his own investments had soured.

  He’d made the wrong assumption that she’d want to sell the family lake house. He’d never thought she would want to keep it. He’d called her nostalgic and naive. Maddy bit her lip. She’d spent every summer since birth on Knollwood Lake. It represented sanctuary. Peace. She’d even become a teacher, freeing up her summers to spend on the lake. She’d loved it as her parents had.

  The woman tapped her pencil in an annoying staccato, interrupting Maddy’s thoughts. “I do have another appointment, so let me reiterate that you have until close of business July thirty-first to bring us the full amount or we will force the sale of the property to retrieve our money. Unless you make a deal with the new owners, you will be evicted August first.”

  Madison stood, unwilling to lose the final sheds of her shaky composure. “I’ll have your money before the deadline,” she declared with unfounded bravado.

  The woman set the pencil down and didn’t bother to hide her disbelief. “Of course you will, Ms. Johansson. Have a nice day.”

  But a visit to the bank minutes later proved to be just as futile, as the bank manager told Maddy she didn’t meet the lending ratios. “Even though you only want to borrow a small portion of what the property is worth to pay both the taxes and the balloon mortgage your brother took out, your teaching salary simply isn’t enough to make that type of monthly house payment. And your personal trust fund isn’t nearly enough. You don’t have the collateral.”

  He’d been sympathetic, but firm, and he’d also suggested she sell the property, take the money and live large.

  A hot tear escaped and created an angry path down Maddy’s right cheek as she left the bank and walked toward her car. She wiped it away, almost hearing her late grandmother’s chastisement. “No one should ever see you cry, Maddy. You are a Johansson.”

  Maddy hid behind her sunglasses. Damn her brother and what he’d done! She’d assumed Ted would have been fair and ethical. S
he’d been so terribly wrong.

  “Maddy?” A deep voice startled her, and she stumbled as she turned to see who’d spoken to her so familiarly. Strong arms reached out to steady her. In addition to the ninety-eight degree July heat prickling her skin, strange warmth flowed through her, curling her toes.

  Only one man had ever made her react like this.

  “Maddy? Are you okay?” His deep baritone washed over her like bad déjà vu.

  “Dylan?” She pushed the sunglasses up. At eighteen he’d been cute, the stuff of teenage girl worship. Ten years later, he remained dangerously sexy. Pure male power emanated, even in his relaxed stance. He was tall, dark and handsome defined. Although born on American soil, with his Italian heritage, he’d easily be at home in Rome or Milan.

  He’d matured well. Wavy, jet-black hair curled at the nape of his neck, a longer style that suited him. His six-foot height towered over her tinier, five-foot-four frame, making her skin tingle with heightened awareness. The late afternoon sun suddenly seemed infernally hot.

  He’d always had the power to melt her with a mere glance, and today those smoldering obsidian eyes that peered over a straight nose radiated something she couldn’t decipher. He wore the laid-back dress of the summer people of Knollwood Lake: khaki Dockers shorts, red polo shirt and brown boat shoes sans socks, but the casualness of his wardrobe did not diminish the desirable man he’d become. A man worth one look, then another. The way those full, delicious lips moved when he spoke…

  A heated flush crept over her. The kisses they shared that fateful summer had branded her, made her his. How many times had she dreamed of his mouth on hers since that summer? How many times has she wished and fantasized things had turned out differently? Far too many to count. And now here he was. She didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “Maddy.” His deep voice rumbled forth like a freight train, reminding her of how often she’d heard him calling her name in her dreams. “Let me take you somewhere. It’s obvious you need to sit down. It’s unnaturally hot today.”

  His words doused her like a bucket of cold lake water. She could go nowhere with him. This man who’d been all her childish dreams and girlish fantasies, everything she’d ever believed in and wanted, now represented everything she hated.

  “No, thank you, but really, I’m fine.” She struggled for the social politeness Johansson family manners ingrained since birth. She extracted herself from his solid grip.

  His black eyes narrowed but he didn’t step aside. “At least let me buy you a cup of coffee or a bottle of water. You appear as if you could use something to drink. The café’s right over there and you can tell me what’s bothering you. Maybe I can help.”

  “Help me? Bothering me?” Emotions of a long, trying day crashed around Maddy and fraught nerves snapped. “You’re what’s bothering me, Dylan. What, since I said no to your minions, you have come to gloat and stalk me yourself? I won’t sell Summerhaven. Not to you. Not when you’ve raped the lakes around here and ruined them with your horrid condos.”

  His lips inched downward, and his cheek twitched. She’d struck a nerve. Good. “You’re misinformed.”

  Her anger flared. “No, I’m not. I drove by Lake Tekawitha and saw what you did myself. Those concrete high rises are an eyesore. How could you?”

  She jabbed her finger into his chest and immediately realized her mistake as he captured her hand. The grown up Dylan oozed primal domination, and the moment his fingers touched hers, all that natural magnetism focused on her. The wind whooshed from her lungs as his grip tightened.

  His gaze roved over her and her face flushed. She wore a plain white blouse and navy blue skirt, nothing special. “Maddy, what about that drink? Obviously you’re angry. Let’s talk about this. Maybe you should hear the truth from me rather than listen to unfounded rumors.”

  “No,” she managed, disgusted that her body betrayed her. She felt the signs: lips parted, nipples hardened, heat pooled between her thighs. His mere presence had always called forth something basic and carnal from deep within. Passion. Desire. Need.

  Not that she wanted any of those, and certainly not with this man, her grandfather’s most despised enemy. Stephen Johansson had called Dylan the scourge of the earth as recently as nine months before he died. “Dylan Blackwater has no conscience. He’s only driven by money,” her grandfather had declared. Then he’d added, “He’s worse than the devil himself.”

  Standing on the sidewalk, she could believe the latter assertion. Dylan’s eyes seduced: calling her, enticing her, and tempting her to say yes Just one drink said the spider to the fly...

  His smile inched upwards, slightly amused at her hesitation. “Come on Maddy, surely you’re not afraid of having coffee in a public place? We’re old friends, remember?”

  They’d been more than friends. The memory of her first kiss flared to the present and Maddy’s mouth dried. What would it be like to kiss him again? No other man, even her short-lived fiancé, had ever made her feel the way Dylan had…

  He took her hand, pressed her palm to the spot on his chest where she’d poked him. “Maddy.”

  She tilted her head, losing herself in his gaze. The world seemed to drop away, until two teenage girls walked by, whispering and pointing, their appreciation of the handsome man they’d passed obvious. Maddy stared after them, anything to divert her from the sheer power that was Dylan Blackwater, her first love. For one summer, up until that fateful moment when reality had intruded and torn all her dreams to shreds, he’d been her world.

  His voice washed over like a tantalizing, tempting wave. “Maddy, I don’t hold you responsible. I understand why you rejected me. You did what you had to do, what any sixteen-year-old girl would do when faced with the choice of her socially inappropriate boyfriend or her family and inheritance. Maybe we should clear the air. We’re adults now.”

  His system of touch urged her forward, but Maddy jolted, recovered her senses, and yanked her hand free. She couldn’t let his “forgiveness” sway her. He certainly hadn’t acted charitable toward her grandfather. As Dylan had built his financial empire over the last six years, he had purposely outbid her grandfather for every parcel of land in King County that Stephen Johansson had tried to purchase.

  Her grandfather had spent his entire life as a naturalist and a philanthropist—he’d wanted nothing more than to keep the land he purchased untouched and undeveloped. He’d donated most of his parcels to various wildlife organizations that kept land in its natural state for eternity.

  Yet, Stephen’s goals of creating wildlife havens had been thwarted once Dylan entered the fray. Dylan began to immediately outbid her grandfather on every single available parcel. He’d then stripped many of those lakeshore pieces of their trees and turned the ground into property developments.

  Dylan called his actions progress. Maddy called it vengeance, and blamed herself for his hatred of her family. Her only consolation was that Dylan’s Knollwood Lake holdings were few, and those remained unchanged.

  That long ago fateful summer she’d toed the line and obeyed her grandfather’s wishes to break up with Dylan—or else. The irony was now she was about to lose Summerhaven anyway. The highest offer to purchase Summerhaven had come from Dylan’s company. She’d turned it down.

  “No,” she declared, her resolve solidifying. “There’s really no need for us to talk.”

  Her car was a few parking spaces over and she moved to leave, drawing on reserve manners. “It’s been lovely seeing you again, but I should be getting home.”

  His cheek twitched, the only sign her dismissal rankled. “Maddy, when are you going to realize I’m not your enemy? That I’m probably the only one who’s willing to help you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He shrugged, without one ounce of guilt. “I won’t lie. I know all about your tax and mortgage problems.”

  “You’d have made it your business, wouldn’t you?” She hated corporate games. It’s why she’d chosen to
be a teacher.

  “A property like Summerhaven is a rare gem. I know how important it is to you. After all, you dumped me to keep it.” He dismissed that fact with a shrug. “I like Summerhaven and I don’t want to see it fall in the wrong hands. Maybe I can help. You need a friend…”

  “Friends? You keep saying that” She cut him off, unable to contain herself. Good breeding be damned. She allowed her tongue spit the venom she’d been restraining all day—and Dylan made the perfect target.

  “No friend would have done to my family what you’ve done. You are no friend of mine.”

  She pivoted and ran to her car. Her breath came in ragged bursts as she pressed the remote key fob and jumped into her three-year-old compact sedan, a used car she’d purchased last week after selling her luxury SUV to raise the tax money. Dylan made no move to follow or stop her as she made her escape, her destination twelve miles away on the shore of Knollwood Lake.

  She fumed as she drove Highway 84 northbound. How naïve could she be? First Ted and then Dylan… She pounded the steering wheel with her palms. Of course Dylan Blackwater would have made it his business to know everything about her situation.

  Dylan was the devil. He owned the Midwestern Development Group, along with a bunch of other companies she’d discovered on the Internet when she’d researched the purchase offer one of his agents had brought her.

  In college, and then teaching kindergarten at a St. Louis Catholic elementary school, Maddy been removed from most of the mudslinging between her grandfather and Dylan. But the lawyers had told her plenty this week.

  Dylan had loved every minute of the land purchase wars he fought with her grandfather. He’d relished every minute of making Stephen Johansson suffer as Dylan robbed her grandfather of the one thing he loved and wanted to preserve for posterity—land in its natural state.

  Now Dylan wanted to help. Friends be damned.

  Maddy shuddered as she thought of Dylan and the feelings he’d aroused. She couldn’t let any physical reaction get in the way. Dylan Blackwater was not the person he’d been at eighteen. He’d become something unspeakable. He’d become her worst nightmare.