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The perfect marriage?
Mining magnate Scott McAllister thinks that inexperienced, biddable Sarah is the perfect wife. Until he’s led to believe she’s committed the ultimate betrayal! When he confronts her, Sarah’s defiant response astounds Scott, sparking a desire to uncover these unseen passionate depths...
Sarah is furious Scott believed such lies, but even more furious that her body can’t forget the seductive magic of his! The sheer power of their attraction and Scott’s pull over her is overwhelming...
In this fight to save their marriage, their bed is the ultimate battleground! Unless Scott can persuade Sarah that surrender is more fun with two winners...
‘I’m going to leave, Scott, and I suggest you don’t try to stop me.’
He straightened, his broad shoulders squaring as he faced Sarah with narrowed eyes. ‘Are you planning on leaving me for good?’
‘I don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait and see.’
‘What does that mean, exactly?’
‘It means I need some time away from you, Scott. Time to think and to work out what I should do.’
‘I don’t want you to leave,’ he growled. ‘Look, I’m sorry for what I did. Sorry I jumped to conclusions.’
‘No,’ Sarah said, resisting the temptation to accept his apologies and stay. ‘Scott, we don’t even know each other. I can see that now. We got married way too quickly. All we have between us is lust. And that’s not enough for me. I need to have a husband who truly loves me and trusts me unconditionally.’
‘You expect too much.’
‘Perhaps. But I refuse to settle for less.’
Marrying a Tycoon
Australia’s most eligible tycoons meet their match at the altar!
Magnate Scott McAllister believes he has the perfect compliant wife—until she defies him! Suddenly he discovers the passionate nature she hides… and is determined to awaken it!
The Magnate’s Tempestuous Marriage
Available now!
Tycoon Byron Maddox doesn’t do commitment, but shy PA Cleo intrigues him instantly! He wants her in his bed—but will he want her to wear his ring?
Look out for Byron and Cleo’s story, coming soon!
You won’t want to miss this dramatic, passionate duet from Miranda Lee!
The Magnate’s Tempestuous Marriage
Miranda Lee
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Born and raised in the Australian bush, MIRANDA LEE was boarding-school-educated, and briefly pursued a career in classical music before moving to Sydney and embracing the world of computers. Happily married, with three daughters, she began writing when family commitments kept her at home. She likes to create stories that are believable, modern, fast-paced and sexy. Her interests include meaty sagas, doing word puzzles, gambling and going to the movies.
Books by Miranda Lee
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
Taken Over by the Billionaire
A Man Without Mercy
Master of Her Virtue
Contract with Consequences
The Man Every Woman Wants
Not a Marrying Man
A Night, A Secret…A Child
Rich, Ruthless and Renowned
The Italian’s Ruthless Seduction
The Billionaire’s Ruthless Affair
The Playboy’s Ruthless Pursuit
Three Rich Husbands
The Billionaire’s Bride of Vengeance
The Billionaire’s Bride of Convenience
The Billionaire’s Bride of Innocence
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.
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Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Introduction
Marrying a Tycoon
Title Page
About the Author
PROLOGUE
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
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Extract
Copyright
PROLOGUE
SARAH SAT AT her desk, twiddling her thumbs, bored to tears. Thank God it was Friday. Only a couple of hours to go and the working week would have ended, as would her tedious stint in Contracts and Mergers. Sarah hadn’t become a lawyer to spend her days filling out forms and asking people to sign on the dotted line. Anyone could do that. It didn’t take four years of study, doing a law degree.
When she’d been offered a job at the prestigious legal firm of Goldstein & Evans, Sarah had imagined herself becoming the champion of the underdog, righting wrongs and representing innocent people in court. Instead, in the seven weeks since she’d joined the firm in January, she hadn’t even come close to setting foot in a court. She’d spent one week in Conveyancing, two in Trustees and Wills and then two in the family law section, which had not been to her liking at all. Still, at least it had been more interesting than what she’d been doing this last fortnight.
Sarah was infinitely grateful that next week she would be moving on to the criminal and civil defence team, which was more her cup of tea. They had a pro bono section where some of the lawyers—usually the new ones, she gathered—were assigned to people who needed but could not afford legal representation. Sarah was looking forward to that.
Meanwhile, she rolled her eyes as they returned to her laptop where she’d been filling in time, doing some research on a client who was coming in to sign a sales contract at three o’clock. For a diamond mine, no less! His name was Scott McAllister and he was supposedly some hotshot mining magnate whom Bob—her current mentor—said she should have known. Apparently he’d been on the TV a lot lately, because of a nickel refinery that was going bust, whose threatened closing down would cost a lot of jobs. Sarah wasn’t a great watcher of news programmes so she didn’t have a clue who he was.
The Internet, however, had a reasonable amount of information on Scott McAllister. One of Australia’s youngest mining magnates, he had his finger in a lot of mining pies, having interests in iron ore, gold and coal as well as nickel and aluminium. And now diamonds, she added to the list. Apparently, he’d got his start after his prospector father had died over a decade earlier, the son soon discovering that two of his parent’s seemingly worthless purchases of land held hidden treasures. One had some decent-sized deposits of iron ore underneath which had originally looked like useless rock. The other was chock-full of brown coal.
Bingo! Good old Dad. Luck, it seemed to Sarah, had played a big part in this McAllister’s success. Not according to Bob, however, who insisted their client was a very astute man, who had a history of buying rocks of his own and turning them into diamonds, for want of a better word.
‘Several reports stated that the diamond mine he’s buying today is all mined out,’ Bob had told her earlier today. ‘But a man like McAllister wouldn’t be buying it if that were the case. Clearly, he knows something that the present owners don’t know.’
He’d sounded full of admiration for the man. Sarah wasn’t quick to admire any man. But she’d looked him up just the same out of sheer curiosity.
Clicking onto a different site, she encountered a photograph of him that didn’t tell her much other than he was very tall and very well built. It had been snapped at a work site where all the men, including the owner, were wearing yellow safety vests and yellow hard hats. The caption underneath disclosed it was a recent photo, taken at the nickel refinery last month during a strike. It was impossible to see what McAllister really looked like as he was also wearing sunglasses. Amazing how much the eyes told you about a man’s looks. What she could see of his face was large and tough-looking, with suntanned skin, a strong nose and a squared jaw that could have been carved out of granite. A frown on his high forehead gave him a thoughtful look, but the set of his mouth was hard and uncompromising. He was reputedly only thirty-five, but he looked older. Not married, she’d also read, and decided that wasn’t surprising. He didn’t look like the type of man many women would take to, despite his wealth.
Bob’s phone started to ring. Muttering a swear word under his breath, he swept it up to his ear. Thirty seconds later he swore even harder.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised to her. ‘But McAllister has arrived early and the other parties aren’t here yet. Neither have I finished reading through this damned complicated contract. Look, could you do me a favour and go down and welcome him? Take him up to the boardroom on the next floor and get him a coffee, or a drink or whatever he might like. You’re good at that sort of thing.’
Sarah had no doubt she was. She’d been doing nothing much but getting coffee for Bob and his cohort since she started in this section. Might as well have been a waitress as well as a clerk. But her mother had taught her good manners, and excellent social skills. So she just smiled and said it would be her pleasure.
He beamed back at her. ‘You are such a good girl,’ he said.
Sarah might have taken offence if Bob had been any less than the sixty-three years he was. She was twenty-five years old. Twenty-six this year. Hardly a girl!
Rising, she smoothed down her skirt and pushed her hair back from her face before making her way from the office and along the hallway to Reception, glad in a way to have something to do. And to be honest, she was quite curious about the man she was about to meet, curious to see what he looked like without those sunglasses.
She spied him straight away, sitting all alone on one of the black leather two-seaters that dotted the large reception area. Dressed in a dark grey business suit, a white shirt and a rather dreary navy tie, he was leaning back with his arms outstretched along the back of the couch, his right foot hooked up over his left knee. His shoes, she noted, were clean but far from new. Fashion, she realised, was not one of this man’s long suits. Maybe mining magnates didn’t care about such things.
Disappointingly, his eyes were closed, but she could see the rest of him more clearly. His hair was dark brown and cut very short on top, and even shorter at the sides; a very macho look, which suited him. His nose was bigger than she’d originally thought, but his face could handle it. His mouth was wide and his top lip on the thin, slightly cruel side. His bottom lip was fuller, though not full enough to soften his hard face.
Even before he opened his eyes, Sarah knew Scott McAllister wasn’t a traditionally handsome man but there was something about him that she found perversely appealing. Odd, since she’d never been attracted to big macho-looking males, always finding them physically intimidating. She much preferred lean, elegantly handsome men who had more brains than brawn.
She stopped a metre short of his feet and cleared her throat. ‘Mr McAllister?’ she said, a sudden burst of nerves making her voice higher than she would have liked. Her drama teacher at school had once called her voice lilting. She found it a touch girlish, not a voice designed to make a great impact in court. But she was working on it.
His eyelids rose, and she finally saw them. His eyes...
An icy grey, with surprisingly long lashes. Not hard. But definitely on the cold side. Yet strangely hot at the same time. Hot and hungry. They took her in with one long sweeping glance, all of her, making her breath catch and her cheeks colour. Not a fierce blush but a blush all the same. How humiliating!
‘That’s me,’ he drawled as he unfolded himself and stood up, towering over her own five feet eight. And she had heels on as well! Not high heels admittedly, but still...
Her neck craned as she gazed up at him, her mouth having gone annoyingly dry. Suppressing a groan, she surreptitiously licked her perversely dry lips and adopted what she hoped was still a sophisticated persona.
‘The present owners of the mine aren’t here yet,’ she said with one of those coolly composed smiles she could summon on autocue. ‘So Mr Katon sent me down to look after you till they arrive.’
He didn’t return her smile. Just stared at her, his eyes like molten steel.
A returning heat started up deep inside her, melting her core and making her want to do and say the most outrageous things. The control she had to exert over herself was enormous.
‘If you’ll follow me, sir,’ she suggested, still coolly polite on the surface.
‘Sweetheart,’ he said, a small smile now lurking at the corners of that cruel yet sexy mouth. ‘I’d follow you into hell.’
Sarah’s mouth dropped open, the realisation hitting her with a certainty that was as strong as it was seductive that she felt exactly the same way about him.
CHAPTER ONE
Sydney, fifteen months later...
SCOTT STOOD AT the window behind his desk, staring blindly out at the view. Not that there was much of a view. The office block that housed the head office of McAllister Mines stood in the southern end of Sydney’s CBD, not down at the more picturesque harbour end of town. There was no soothing water to look at. No sparkling Opera House. No beautiful parks or gardens. Just traffic-clogged streets and rather boring buildings.
Not that anything would soothe Scott that Monday morning. Never in his life had he felt such emotional upheaval. He’d been distressed when his father had died. But death, Scott decided, was easier to cope with than betrayal. He still could hardly believe that Sarah would do this to him. They’d only been married a year, yesterday their first wedding anniversary. And whilst Scott harboured a degree of distrust in the female sex, Sarah had been different from the women responsible for his cynicism. Very different. That she would cheat on him seemed...incredible.
The text—with photos attached—had arrived on his business phone last Friday afternoon, shortly after he’d finished meeting with a Singapore billionaire who was staying on the Gold Coast, and whom Scott hoped would help solve his current cash-flow problems. Fortunately, he’d been alone at the time, as his first reaction had been utter shock. Followed by total disbelief. Gradually, however, he was forced to accept the evidence before his eyes. The incriminating photos, after all, had been crystal-clear, all of them stamped with the time and the date when they’d been taken. At lunchtime that very day.
And then there had been the accompanying message.
Thought you might like to know what your wife is getting up to when you go away.
It had been signed, ‘A friend’.
Hardly, Scott thought bitterly. More likely a business enemy of his, or a jealous female colleague of Sarah’s. His wife was the sort of girl who would inspire jealousy in other women. And in her husband. Not that that meant Sarah was innocent. His father used to say that if something looked like a duck, waddled like a duck and quacked like a duck, then the odds were pretty high that it was a duck. It didn’t take Scott long to accept that his wife was having an affair with the superbly dressed, very handsome bastard who featured in those damning photos.
Scott would never have thought himself capable of the kind of black jealousy—and almost uncontrollable fury—that had seen him abandon his PA, Cleo, on the Gold Coast to finish his business negotiations for him, making the excuse that Sarah had been taken ill, then flying straight home to confront his adulterous spouse.
But he hadn’t confronted her straight away, had he?
A measure of guilt—or was it shame?—curled in his stomach at what he had done.
He’d meant to have it out with her immediately, still harbouring some vain hope that there might be a logical explanation to this nightmare. But when he’d strode into their apartment that evening, she’d literally thrown herself at him, seemingly overjoyed by his cutting his business trip short to be with her. Her kisses had been wildly passionate, more so than usual. Whilst their sex life up till now had been more than satisfactory, Sarah was not an aggressive partner. She always left it up to him to make the first move; to take the lead in bed matters. Not that night, however. She’d been quite bold with her actions, touching him intimately as she’d kissed him.
Guilt, he decided now in retrospect.
Perversely, after she’d fallen asleep that night, exhausted from their sexual marathon, he’d been the one who’d felt guilty. Crazy, really. Why should he feel guilty? She was the guilty one. She was the adulterer, not him.
She’d blatantly lied to him about what she’d done that day—telling him she’d been shopping at lunchtime for a fabulous anniversary present for him. But he knew exactly what she’d been doing at lunchtime that Friday.
He’d left her then and gone to his study where he’d acted like the Neanderthal he felt like, drinking himself into oblivion before passing out on the sofa.
Which was where she’d found him the next morning.
And where their final ugly confrontation had begun...
It hadn’t been pretty, Scott still stunned by the accusations Sarah had thrown at him. And the names. In the end, she’d walked out on him. And she hadn’t come back.
By Sunday night Scott was forced to accept that Sarah might never come back.
Something that should have pleased him no end, but, perversely, it hadn’t. As much as he wasn’t the type of man who would countenance having a wife he couldn’t trust, Scott couldn’t get past the niggling doubt that maybe he’d been wrong to jump to the conclusion he had. Maybe he’d made a terrible mistake.
A knock on his office door startled him out of his troubling thoughts. ‘Yes?’ he bit out as he turned away from the window.
Cleo came in somewhat tentatively, the look she gave him speaking volumes. There was worry in her dark eyes and concern on her face. Scott had given her a potted version of the truth when he’d arrived this morning, knowing that it would be impossible to keep lying to Cleo. She wasn’t just his PA. After three years of working closely together she’d become his friend as well. She’d been more shocked than he was, if that were possible, declaring her disbelief openly.
‘Sarah would never be unfaithful to you, Scott. That girl loves you to death!’
Yes, well, he’d always thought so too. But obviously, he was wrong. Cleo, as well.
Scott would have shown her the photos, if he still had them. But he’d given the phone in question to his head of security last Saturday afternoon to have the damned things investigated.
Showing Harvey the photos of his wife with another man had been mortifying to say the least, but he simply had to make sure the photos were genuine and discover who had sent them. Plus he wanted to find out everything he could about the man involved. Lord knew what he would do once he found out his identity.
The man in the photos was facially handsome but he wasn’t as tall or as well built as Scott, his frame on the lean side. Elegant, though. And a snazzy dresser. Scott hated him with a passion.
‘Harvey just rang to say he was on his way up,’ Cleo said, interrupting his jealous train of thought. ‘Do you want me to get you both some coffee?’
Scott had been waiting for Harvey to report back to him all morning, but now that the moment was here he wished he’d never started on this course of action. He should have made Sarah stay and talk to him; should have insisted on her explaining those photos. Though what explanation could there possibly be? She hadn’t denied their veracity. Her outrage that morning had been directed at him, and what he’d done the night before. Okay, so he should have shown her the photos as soon as he arrived home but he hadn’t. Naturally, he’d still been too angry with her the following morning to apologise for what she called his caveman mentality. Her attempts to put the blame on him had almost worked, too. After she’d stormed out of the apartment, he’d begun to think that maybe she was innocent.
Till he’d looked at the photos again.
Scott’s teeth clenched down hard in his jaw after which he glanced up at his patient PA. ‘No coffee right now, thank you, Cleo,’ he told her, doing his best to sound normal and not like a man about to face a firing squad. ‘Oh, and, Cleo...thanks for standing in for me last Friday. I don’t know what I would do without you.’
Cleo shrugged. ‘Afraid I didn’t do you much good. The investor made it obvious that he didn’t like dealing with a female, especially one who’s under thirty. Still, if you want my opinion, you’re better off without his money. I didn’t like the look of him at all. He had shifty eyes.’
Scott smiled a wry smile. Cleo had the habit of judging people by their eyes. And strangely, she was usually right. She’d prevented him making errors in judgment several times. And she had liked Sarah, had thought her the loveliest, nicest girl. He supposed no one could always be right.
‘I’ll scratch him off as a potential partner, then,’ he said.
‘That would be my advice. Still, you’ll need to find someone else quick smart, Scott, or you’ll have to shut down the nickel refinery. Maybe the mine as well. You can’t keep running both at a loss indefinitely.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ he bit out. ‘Look, do some research and see who might be open to investment. Someone from Australia maybe. Ah, Harvey’s here. Come in, Harvey.’
Cleo left them to it, Harvey’s poker face revealing absolutely nothing as he walked in. Harvey was in his mid-fifties, a big burly man and totally bald, with a craggily handsome face, an uncompromising mouth and cold blue eyes. He’d spent twenty years on the police force and another ten as a private detective before he’d become Scott’s head of security. His bouncer-like appearance made him an excellent bodyguard, a job he’d done for Scott on occasion. Being a successful mining magnate did have its hazards, especially when a mine had to be closed, even temporarily. Despite his blue-collar appearance—Harvey was wearing jeans and a black leather bomber jacket—Harvey was also an IT expert, an invaluable security tool in this day and age.