Marie Ferrarella - Texan Seeks Fortune

From Bachelor Businessman…to Insta-Dad?

Connor Fortunado comes to Houston with only one agenda: tracking down a missing (and malicious) Fortune relative. His new assistant, Brianna Childress, is a huge help—even though the single mom has her hands full at home. His attraction to Brianna is instant—and inexplicable. The last thing the bachelor Fortune wants is a houseful of commitments. But could it be that Brianna and her brood are the family he’s been seeking all along?

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, marieferrarella.com.

Also by Marie Ferrarella

The Cowboy’s Lesson in Love

Diamond in the Ruff

Her Red-Carpet Romance

Coming Home for Christmas

Dr. Forget-Me-Not

Twice a Hero, Always Her Man

Meant to Be Mine

A Second Chance for the Single Dad

Christmastime Courtship Engagement

for Two

Adding Up to Family

Fortune’s Second-Chance Cowboy

The Maverick’s Return

The Fortune Most Likely To…

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Texan Seeks Fortune

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09078-0

TEXAN SEEKS FORTUNE

© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

To

Elliana Melgar,

The Incredibly Precocious

And Intelligent

Three-Year-Old

Who Was My Inspiration

For Ava And Axel

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

Connor Fortunado was torn.

He glanced out of the window of his first-class seat. The flight was just about over.

He was almost there.

Houston.

Home.

Connor half smiled to himself. Home, better known as “The House of the Incurable Romantics.” The whimsical title had recently occurred to him because every one of his five siblings was either married or going to be married.

Except for him.

And that little fact of life, he promised himself, wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

Or ever.

Connor was pretty happy with his life. He was thirty-one, single, carefree and able to take off at a moment’s notice without an explanation to anyone if he wanted to—the way he had just done. If he were married and had what was whimsically referred to in some circles as “a better half,” right about now that “better half” would most likely be giving him hell for the double life he was leading. She would have doubtlessly not looked favorably on his giving up an executive position with a prestigious corporate search firm just so that he could follow his passion.

Everyone in the family still thought he was that highly paid executive at his old firm. His former career had been a dependable, respectable position with an excellent, if somewhat boring, future laid out in front of it. None of his relatives knew that somewhere along the line he had discovered he had a real aptitude for detective work.

It had begun innocently enough. He’d helped his boss uncover an embezzling scheme within the company. But once he’d discovered the culprit, Connor found that he was hooked on the rush that came in the wake of untangling all the twisted skeins and getting to the bottom of the mystery. After a bit of soul-searching, he’d decided to put his newly honed skills to better use. So he had turned his back on the corporate world and became a highly paid private investigator.

Career changes like that wouldn’t have sat well with a wife and she would have undoubtedly had no qualms about making her displeasure known.

To everyone.

Connor frowned. The moment of reckoning was almost here. He was going to have to come clean to his family once he landed in Houston. Telling his siblings should go fine because for the most part, they were pretty open-minded. It was coming clean to his parents that was going to be the problem. His parents, especially his father, were not going to look favorably on this change in careers.

He was not looking forward to this. All things considered, he would have gone on keeping his secret for as long as possible.

However, fate had other plans for him and was forcing him to own up to this major change in his life. All in the name of the family good. He just hoped his parents would see it that way. Yes, he was an adult, but there was still a part of him that preferred parental approval.

But he really didn’t have the luxury of keeping this to himself any longer. His family needed him. There was no other conclusion to be reached.

Someone was out there, trying to get them.

It wasn’t merely a paranoid thought reserved for the rich but an honest assessment of the situation. How else could he view what had been happening to different members of his family in the last two months? Like to his father’s half brother. Gerald Robinson’s estate, palatial by any standards, had been the target of an arsonist, set on fire and almost burned down to the ground. The family-based technology firm, Robinson Tech, had been the victim of cybersabotage. And Fortunado Real Estate, a company his father founded and two of his sisters and one of his brothers-in-law now worked at, had been the target of sabotage, as well.