Fiona Brand - Takeover In The Boardroom - An Heiress for His Empire

Takeover in the Boardroom

An Heiress for His Empire

Lucy Monroe

Who’s Calling the Shots

Jennifer Rae

A Tangled Affair

Fiona Brand

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling author LUCY MONROElives and writes in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. While she loves her home, she delights in experiencing different cultures and places in her travels, which she happily shares with her readers through her books. A lifelong devotee of the romance genre, Lucy can’t imagine a more fulfilling career than writing.

JENNIFER RAEwas raised on a farm in Australia by saltof-the-earth farming parents. All she’d ever wanted to do was write, but she didn’t have the confidence to share her stories with the world until, working as a journalist, she interviewed a couple of romance-writers. Finally the characters who had been milling around Jennifer’s head since her long years on the farm made sense and she realised romance was the genre for her and sat down to release her characters.

FIONA BRANDlives in the sunny Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Now that both of her sons are grown, she continues to love writing books and gardening. After a life-changing time in which she met Christ, she has undertaken study for a bachelor of theology and has become a member of The Order of St. Luke, Christ’s healing ministry.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Authors

An Heiress for His Empire

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Who’s Calling the Shots

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

A Tangled Affair

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Copyright

An Heiress for His Empire

Lucy Monroe

For Judy Flohr, a very special reader who I have long considered an honest friend. It’s sort of amazing to me that you’ve been reading and sharing your love of my books since the very first one, The Greek Tycoon’s Ultimatum back in 2003. When I’m doubting myself or the story, I know I can re-read your emails or online reader reviews and remember why I write and that maybe I’m not so bad at this after all. THANK YOU!!! Hugs and blessings, Lucy

CHAPTER ONE

MADISON ARCHER SET HER morning coffee down, hot liquid spilling over the rim, as she read her Google alerts with growing horror.

Madcap Madison Looking for New Master?

Archer Heiress into Heavy Kink

San Francisco Bad Boy Dumps Very Bad Girl

The articles made lurid claims about a lifestyle and relationship between Maddie and Perry Timwater. A completely nonexistent relationship.

The fact that Perry was the source caused the coffee to sour in Maddie’s stomach.

His supposed exposé of their fictitious relationship claimed she was a submissive with a serious pain fetish and need for multiple partners. She gritted her teeth on the urge to swear as she read it was her inability to remain faithful that forced Perry to end things between them.

Maddie wouldn’t mind ending Perry right that minute. Betrayal choked her.

How could he have done this?

He was her friend.

They’d met their freshman year at university. He’d made her laugh when she’d thought nothing could. Not after her epic fail trying to get Viktor Beck’s attention. She’d started university with a broken heart and Perry had helped her paste over the cracks with friendship.

She’d helped him pass his accountancy courses. He’d played platonic escort for her and she’d provided him entrée to Jeremy Archer’s world—an echelon above his own.

But never, not once, had their friendship ever taken a turn toward something heavier.

Pounding sounded on her front door. “Maddie! It’s me, don’t freak.” Then barely a second later, the double snick of locks sliding back was followed by the door swinging wide.

Holding a bag from their favorite bakery aloft, her black bob swirling around her pixie face, Romi Grayson kicked the door shut behind her. “I come bearing the panacea for all ills.”

“I’m not sure even chocolate and flaky pastry can make this situation better.” Maddie slumped against the back of her chair.

Eyes the same vibrant blue as Maddie’s glittered with anger. “So, Perry’s lost his mind, right?”

“You saw the articles?”

“Only after reporters woke me from a dead sleep demanding my opinion of my best friend’s darker sexual proclivities.” Romi’s mouth twisted wryly. “Proclivities I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have even if you weren’t still a virgin.”

“You’ve got that right. I’ve never been able to trust one man enough to have sex, much less multiple partners.”

As ridiculous as that might seem at twenty-four, it wasn’t going to change anytime soon, either.

“If you ask me, it’s got less to do with trust and more to do with the fact you imprinted on Viktor Beck like a baby bird when you were a teenager and you’ve never gotten over him.”

“Romi!” Maddie was in no mood to hash out her unrequited feelings for her father’s dark-haired, dark-eyed, to-die-for-bodied golden boy.

“I’m just saying...”

“Nothing you haven’t said before.” Maddie’s stomach grew queasier by the second.

Along with the rest of the world, Vik would see the articles, but she couldn’t afford to think about that right now, or she really was going to lose it. “Father is going to kill me.”

This new scandal was bound to crack even the San Francisco tycoon’s icy demeanor. And not in the way Maddie had always craved.

He’d sent her away to boarding school months after her mother’s death and Maddie had courted media attention in the hopes of gaining his. It had worked for her mother, Helene Archer, née Madison, the original Madcap Madison, but Maddie had come to realize the strategy had backfired pretty spectacularly for her.

In the nine years since Helene’s death, Jeremy had developed a habit of thinking the worst of his daughter. When he wasn’t ignoring her existence all together.

“If he doesn’t die of a stress-related heart attack first.” Romi put a chocolate-filled croissant in front of Maddie.

“Don’t say that.”

The other woman grimaced. “Sorry. Stuff just comes out. You know what I’m like. Your dad is wound pretty tight, though.”

Maddie couldn’t argue that.

“I think this time, Perry’s diarrhea of the mouth has me beat anyway.” Romi chewed her pastry militantly. “What was he thinking?”

Morose, Maddie stared at her friend. “That he wanted the money the tabloid paid him for the story?”

She’d had no idea that turning down his latest request for a loan would result in her utter humiliation. How could she? Friends didn’t do that to each other.

“Jerk.”