The Husband Fund

“I would be if you hadn’t robbed us of our trip!” she replied. “It’s only fair you make up for it now. Who knows? I might meet an exciting playboy with husband potential! But the point is, when your brother finds out I’ve gone on a vacation with you, he’ll give up any idea he had about marriage to me.”

“Why is that?” His voice had taken on a darker tone.

Olivia’s impulsive nature had once again caused her to leap before she looked.

But this was serious business. The most serious of her existence.

It was Luc she loved with every fiber of her being. The longer he didn’t say anything, the more she realized that if she didn’t give him the right answer, she might just lose him forever….

Dear Reader,

I came from a family of five sisters and one brother. The four oldest girls were my parents’ first family. There was a space before my baby sister and baby brother came along.

My mother called the first four her little women, and gave each of us a Madame Alexander doll from the Little Women series based on the famous book by Louisa May Alcott. We may not have been quadruplets, but we were close in age and definitely felt a connection to each other.

In our early twenties, I recall a time when I took the train from Paris, France, where I’d been studying, to meet one of my sisters at the port in Genoa, Italy, where her ship came in from New York. Some of my choicest memories are our glorious adventures as two blond American sisters on vacation along the French and Italian Rivieras, dodging Mediterranean playboys.

When I conceived THE HUSBAND FUND trilogy for Harlequin Romance®, I have no doubt the idea of triplet sisters coming to Europe on a lark to intentionally meet some gorgeous Riviera playboys sprang to life from my own family experiences at home and abroad.

Meet Greer, Olivia and Piper, three characters drawn from my imagination who probably have traits from all four of my wonderful, intelligent, talented sisters in their makeup.

Enjoy!

Rebecca Winters

Book 3: To Marry for Duty, Harlequin Romance #3835

www.rebeccawinters-author.com

To Win His Heart

Rebecca Winters

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

August 2nd

Monza, Italy

“GOOD night, Cesar. I’ve had a spectacular time.”

After the party downstairs with his Formula I racing team, Cesar walked Olivia to her hotel room, but it irritated her when he looped his arms around her neck outside the door.

Since he never drank before a race, she knew for a fact it couldn’t be the effect of alcohol making him amorous all of a sudden.

Twenty-nine-year-old Cesar de Falcon, known as Cesar Villon when he used his paternal grandmother’s maiden name Villon to race, was all flash and excitement, the ultimate charmer, albeit one who was still too obsessed with his career to be taken seriously.

Neither during the night of the Monaco Grand Prix in June, or throughout the last two days in Monza prior to tomorrow’s race had Olivia led him to believe there was anything but friendship between them. There couldn’t be.

She was painfully in love with his elder brother, Lucien de Falcon.

Though that love wasn’t reciprocated, it didn’t matter. With her emotions involved elsewhere, she couldn’t let go with Cesar and kiss him for the sheer fun of being out with one of Europe’s most eligible and sought after playboys. Especially not this particular one.

When she’d come to Europe with her sisters in June, the highlight for Olivia had been to watch the Monaco Grand Prix where the legendary Cesar Villon had taken second place.

It was an absolute fluke that Cesar’s cousin, Max, had ended up marrying Greer, one of Olivia’s sisters, thus throwing their families together under the most unlikely and unexpected circumstances.

Because of her fascination with Formula I racing before meeting Cesar, she’d been thrilled and flattered by the famous driver’s eagerness to show her around. How many times in life did one get a chance to see firsthand what went on behind the scenes of the racing world? Especially with someone as well-known?

“I’ve had an even more wonderful time, ma belle. There’s no reason why it can’t continue now that we’re alone.”

“Yes, there is.” She averted her face in an attempt to prevent him from kissing her. “You have a big race tomorrow and need your beauty sleep.”

“Beauty sleep?” He chuckled before brushing his lips against the side of her cheek. “I intend to get some, but not by myself.” So saying, he trapped her against the door and kissed her.

Cesar was an attractive man, very persuasive, but she broke away before he could deepen the kiss. The look of surprise on his face let her know few women had ever resisted him.

“You’re not going to invite me in?” He gave her that wounded look so typical of Max, her new, all-Italian brother-in-law.

She smiled, needing to handle this with grace and discretion considering the fact that he was now Greer’s cousin-in-law. It wasn’t as if she could risk offending him by her rejection, knowing she would never see him again in this lifetime.

“No, cousin,” she said the word deliberately. “I’m not. I always sleep alone.”

“Always?” He looked shocked to the foundations.

“Always.”

“Not even with Fred?”

The mention of her ex-boyfriend, the one who’d followed Formula I racing on TV and had gotten her interested in the sport in the first place, made her chuckle. “Especially not Fred.”

“But this is unbelievable.”

Olivia burst into laughter. She couldn’t help it. “My sisters and I were taught to wait for marriage.”

“You mean to tell me Greer and Max—”

“Didn’t until their wedding night,” she finished the sentence for him.

Now it was his turn to laugh. “Then she lied to you.”

“No.” Olivia shook her head. “I would stake my life on it.” When she could see he wasn’t convinced she said, “Tell you what. After they’re back from their honeymoon, you can ask Max. He’ll tell you the truth.”

Cesar grinned. “What if you’re wrong?”

“I won’t be.”

“For the sake of argument, let’s assume you are,” he teased. “We’ll make this a bet. If I win—”

“You won’t!” she declared in a note of finality.

He was such a tease, it surprised her when he grasped her upper arms. “The German team thinks they’re going to win the Italian Grand Prix tomorrow, but by the end of the race I will be the one standing at the podium.

“After a race I always spend a week at the family villa in Positano on the Amalfi Coast where I can be alone. This time I’m taking you there with me to celebrate my victory, so be warned.”

No, Cesar, I won’t be going anywhere with you.

The man had an ego that wouldn’t quit. Any other woman would probably jump at the chance to go off alone with him, but Olivia wasn’t one of them.

“You would have to be my husband first.”

He flashed her a disarming smile. “Then I guess we’ll have to pick out a ring while we’re in Positano.”

“You’re full of it, Cesar, but I like you anyway. I’ll be rooting for you tomorrow.” She raised up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, then eased out of his arms. “Good night and good luck,” she said before escaping to her room for the night.

Though he represented the epitome of most women’s desires, he wasn’t the man who’d dominated Olivia’s every thought after she and her sisters had flown home to New York to get ready for Greer’s wedding.

There was only one man’s kiss she wanted. She’d worked herself up into a breathless state just waiting to see Luc again at the wedding, but he’d shot her down within the first moments of their meeting.

You may come off the innocent and have Cesar fooled, Olivia, but I see right through you. You’re nothing more than what you Americans call a “groupie.”

Really…well if I’m a groupie, then that makes you the jealous older brother with what we Americans call a “game” leg. It must be galling to know you wouldn’t be able to climb into Cesar’s race car, let alone drive it!

Her body still bristled from the ugly words they’d thrown at each other. He’d actually had the audacity to call her a groupie!

How dare he liken her to a sycophant, one of a cast of a thousand hopefuls…those grasping, opportunistic women who hung around the track and flung themselves at idols like Cesar who was single, famous and wealthy.

Luc had made her so furious, she’d been glad to take Cesar up on his invitation to watch him race in the Italian Grand Prix. However it had given off the wrong signal to Cesar who now assumed she was his for the taking.

Everything was Luc’s fault. Just thinking about their fiery confrontation outside the chapel caused Olivia’s heart to thud painfully.

If he hadn’t thrown that final insult at her, she wouldn’t have done anything so impulsive.

Unlike his brother, Luc didn’t need or crave the limelight, a fact that made him much more appealing to her. Though she found his aloofness disturbing, she was also fascinated that he didn’t seem to need anyone. He was a man who lit his own fires and moved in an orbit all his own.

According to Cesar, Luc’s energy was tied up in his work as a robotics engineer. She found herself wanting to know everything about him, but Cesar had been strangely silent when it came to details about Luc’s life, whether professional or personal.

The most she’d learned was that seven months earlier he’d almost lost his leg in the same tragic ski tram accident that had killed his cousin Nic’s fiancée.

Olivia already knew from Greer that Luc had never been married.

It certainly wouldn’t have been for lack of opportunity. His serious gray eyes beneath black hair and brows were startlingly beautiful and unexpected when contrasted with the olive complexion of his hard-boned features.

She’d only seen him smile once and thought there couldn’t be another man as gorgeous, not even Cesar. But after their bitter quarrel, Olivia had given up hope of ever witnessing that rare sight again.

She imagined the pain from his injured leg had something to do with his saturnine disposition. However Olivia suspected his morose moods were the result of problems that went deeper than the physical.

Some woman must have gotten to him… Whoever it was, she’d done a good job of ruining him for anyone else.

The Falcon men were tall, dark and dashing in that irresistible Mediterranean way. If it were Luc’s goal, he could be surrounded by stunning beauties all the time. But he obviously had other things on his mind and was too intelligent and self-confident to need constant attention from the opposite sex.

He definitely didn’t want Olivia’s. She’d never been so hurt, and was still suffering from the wounds. Yet the more she pondered it, the more she refused to accept his biting remarks as final. That jaded, aloof, thirty-three-year-old brother of Cesar’s had misjudged her, and she was going to prove it!

Pounding her pillow, she lay her head back down willing sleep to come, afraid it wouldn’t.

“You’re not going to see your brother race in the morning?”

Non, Dieu merci.

“I’m afraid not, maman. The doctor plans to drain my knee day after tomorrow, so I’m taking it easy until then.” Luc was glad to have a legitimate excuse to give his mother. She would pass it on to his father and Cesar.

“Then take care, mon fils. I’ll be by in a few days to see how you are doing.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll come to see you.”

If the doctor’s prognosis was correct, Luc’s leg was in the last stage of healing. After seven ghastly months of pure physical hell, the end was in sight. He only wished he could say the same about his mental torment, but no medical procedure could fix that.

“Talk to you soon, maman.” He hung up and sat back in the swivel chair of his private study, staring blindly at the monitor screen.

Normally the math required to do his latest project kept his darkest thoughts at bay, but not tonight. An image of Olivia Duchess in his brother’s bed made the bile rise in his throat.

He reached for his cell phone and punched one of the digits. After three rings his cousin picked up.

“Luc? I was wondering if it might be you.”

“Who else bothers you at this time of night? Were you in bed?”

“No. I’m in my library working on this blasted manuscript.”

“I was just going to ask how it was progressing. Now I won’t.”

Nic had been going through his own personal hell since Nina’s death. On top of his grief that the accident had happened, he was suffering guilt. All because he’d broken his engagement to her an hour before she’d taken that last tram ride up the mountain without him.

Luc would never know if Nic had discovered she’d been unfaithful to his cousin, and that’s why he’d called the wedding off. As close as Luc and Nic were, his cousin had never once hinted that Nina had been seeing another man.

But Luc knew she had.

By chance he’d decided to take one more ski run late that day. When he’d gone outside the lodge to get his skis, he’d witnessed a sight that had torn him apart.

Over in the trees he’d seen a stranger with thick, dark blond hair kissing Nina. She gave him her full cooperation before she broke away and hurried toward the tram with her skis.

Having always loved Nic like a brother, Luc intended to confront her and followed her onto the tram. But before he had a chance to take her aside, tragedy struck, killing her and injuring him.

During the long talks at the hospital while Luc underwent several surgeries, Nic finally admitted that he’d never been in love with Nina the way he should have been. He’d agreed to the engagement because of pressure from his parents, particularly his father, who’d wanted the marriage to take place.

But as Nic explained, once the wedding date was set, he realized he couldn’t marry her.

His confession hadn’t surprised Luc or Max. Nic had never acted like a man madly in love. But since Nic had never breathed a word about Nina’s betrayal, Luc decided his cousin hadn’t known anything about it.

After discussing it with Max, the two of them thought it best Nic be kept in the dark since it wouldn’t have served any purpose. Nina was dead. Why make it any uglier.

In Luc’s mind, whether you were engaged or married, it was adultery if your partner proved to be unfaithful. Luc knew firsthand what it felt like to be betrayed, by his own brother no less. He wouldn’t wish the feeling on his worst enemy, let alone Nic of all people.

Thousands of spectators screamed and jumped around when the announcement came over the loud speaker in four different languages that Cesar Villon, the brilliant Formula I race car driver representing Monaco, had claimed the coveted first place at Monza.

Olivia had come to the stands early to watch the race. Now she was on her feet, clapping and cheering like so many of his other fans.

The two days before his race had been an instructive time for her as she’d watched him go through the testing and qualifying trials prior to the big event that he’d just conquered.

Being the fierce competitor he was, he’d made his own prophecy come true. Hopefully he’d forgotten what he’d said about taking her away afterward. But in case he hadn’t, she decided to leave Monza so she wouldn’t be around for him to collect later in the day, giving him another wrong impression.

Blessed with many gifts, including the fact that he was the younger son of the Duc de Falcon of Monaco, he could be excused for assuming no woman was immune to him. If there were depths to him not yet visible, only time would tell, probably after he was too old to compete anymore.

Half Italian, half Monegasque, Cesar’s movie star looks made him the supreme favorite with the crowd. Filled with the matchless optimism of a man who knows he’s number one, he’d arranged for Olivia to sit near the podium. But she didn’t try to reach him after the ceremony was over. Even if she’d wanted to, it would have been a physical impossibility.

Not only was he basking in the adulation of thousands of screaming fans while he drank champagne and pressed his lips to the winner’s cup—at least a dozen gorgeous female admirers were now crowding him, hanging on his arm, lifting their mouths for his kiss which he passed around with obvious relish.

Naturally the spectacle provided hundreds of photo ops for the many international journalists covering the race. By tomorrow morning pictures of him embracing one beauty after another would grace the front page of a thousand newspapers and magazine covers.

For Olivia, the whole scene was a huge turnoff. Her sense of distaste for such a lifestyle deepened as she watched the women battling for position, hoping to be the one he took home for the night. Little did they know that last night Olivia had been his target.

Scenes like the one going on in front of her right now happened to Cesar before and after every race. Women would continue to swarm around him like bees, and he would respond for as long as racing fever was in his blood.

Olivia recognized that any woman unfortunate enough to fall in love with an international sports celebrity would have to put up with a mistress more merciless than any flesh-and-blood female.

While she stood there staring blindly in Cesar’s direction, the idea that had taken root in her mind last night had turned into a fully fledged plan. She couldn’t leave the grandstand fast enough to put it into action.

Without hesitation she worked her way through the crowds to reach the cue of taxis outside the race track. “The Accademia Hotel,” she told the driver.

“Si, signorina.”

Once back in her room, she would phone her sister Piper, who was already in Genoa, Italy, on business.

Some mockups of their calendars in Italian were ready for them to examine. If they thought the finished products looked good, she’d run off a bunch for Signore Tozetti to distribute in the Parma region. Provided they sold well, it could mean a lot more orders down the road.

Olivia was supposed to be there to help make the decision before they flew home to New York together. But she’d changed her mind about leaving Europe just yet, and she trusted Piper’s judgment completely.

Her sister wouldn’t approve of Olivia’s plan to go after Luc. Neither would Greer. Luckily she wasn’t around to quash Olivia’s idea. Thanks to Maximilliano di Varano, the love of Greer’s life, Greer was on her honeymoon.

It had taken a very special man to break up the Duchess triplets, three blond sisters who caused a minor sensation at birth and bore a strong resemblance to each other without being identical.

Max had taken one look at Greer with her amethyst eyes, and the dedicated bachelor had fallen so hard, Olivia knew he would never recover.

Since their nuptials four days ago in the private chapel of the Varano family palace in Parma, the two lovers had been honeymooning at an intimate hide-away somewhere in Greece.

The look of desire and adoration in Max’s eyes after kissing his bride at the altar revealed to the whole world how he felt about Greer. There was no telling how long he planned to keep her to himself, but Olivia had a hunch it would be at least a month before she and Piper heard from their sister. Long enough for Olivia to follow through with her daring scheme…

With Greer married off, Olivia’s world had changed. She was feeling a heady new sense of freedom both physical and psychological. She figured Piper was enjoying the freedom, too. Without Greer around to tell them how to think and what they were going to do next, Olivia could finally be master of her own destiny.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love Greer. On the contrary, she adored her. Still, it was a relief not to have to face her and hear her say, I told you it would be a mistake to go off with Cesar. If you do that, then you’re the kind of stupid, naive, dumb blond he seduces after every race.

Despite the fact that Luc’s antipathy toward Olivia had made her do it, heat filled Olivia’s cheeks to realize that once Greer had left on her honeymoon, Olivia had gone off and done the exact, stupid thing Greer had warned her not to do.

In fact it was Greer who’d told Olivia she wasn’t in love with Fred. Olivia had already figured that out after meeting Luc, but she’d gone on dating Fred for the six weeks prior to Greer’s wedding in an effort to forget Luc and prove that Greer’s power over her wasn’t absolute.

Unfortunately she’d paid for it in the end when she’d been forced to tell Fred that it was really over. She’d been very unfair to him by leading him on, and was still smarting from the pain she’d caused him. One piercing glance from Greer with that “I told you so, now you’ve really done it” look, hadn’t helped matters.

What really miffed Olivia was the fact that even though Max had claimed Greer for his wife and taken her away, Olivia was still battling her sister’s powerful influence over her. She could just imagine Greer’s reaction if she knew what Olivia was planning now.

You’re what? Are you insane? Didn’t we all learn a very important lesson the first time around?

“Signorina?” the driver called over his shoulder. They’d arrived at the hotel. She’d been so immersed in her new strategy, she hadn’t even noticed!

After paying him a bundle of Euros she didn’t even bother to count, she got out of the taxi and rushed inside, anxious to set things in motion.

Once she’d confirmed tickets on a flight to Nice leaving in two hours, she phoned Piper at her hotel in Genoa.

After relating the spectacular news that Cesar had won the Italian Grand Prix, Olivia told Piper what she was intending to do.

“You’re what?” Her sister sounded suspiciously like Greer just then, which didn’t help matters.

“I’m going back to Monaco to force Luc to make my trip good. It’s payback time.”

“Say that again?”

“You heard me,” Olivia answered defiantly. “We were cheated out of our first trip to Europe because Max and his cousins thought we were jewel thieves and they ruined everything!

“By the time the whole business got straightened out, our vacation had to be aborted because Max wanted to be alone with Greer on the Piccione. Luc owes me ten days on that boat!”

“It’s Fabio Moretti’s boat! August is still high season. Some other tourists have probably chartered it. Don’t forget it’s the Moretti’s livelihood.”

“I’m sure Luc will be able to work something out with Fabio. We paid three thousand dollars each for a trip along the Riviera that never happened!”

“Technically you’re right, Olivia. But in return we acquired Max, the dream brother-in-law who has treated us like the Duchess of Parma herself while we stayed at his family’s royal palace. That beats any vacation I can think of.