Kimberly Lang - Misbehaving with the Millionaire - The Millionaire's Misbehaving Mistress

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The Millionaire’s Misbehaving Mistress

Kimberly Lang

KIMBERLY LANGhid romance novels behind her textbooks in junior high, and even a Master’s programme in English couldn’t break her obsession with dashing heroes and happily ever after. A ballet dancer turned English teacher, Kimberly married an electrical engineer and turned her life into an ongoing episode of When Dilbert Met Frasier. She and her Darling Geek live in beautiful North Alabama with their one Amazing Child—who, unfortunately, shows an aptitude for sports.

Visit Kimberly at www.booksbykimberly.comfor the latest news—and don’t forget to say hi while you’re there!

For the women who made all this possible:

Andrea Laurence, Marilyn Puett, Kira Sinclair and Danniele Worsham—who are more than just my playfriends and the sisters-of-my-heart, they are also some of the smartest, most talented, and infinitely patient women I’ve ever been lucky enough to know;

Linda Winstead Jones, Linda Howard and Beverly Barton—who let me learn at the feet of the masters—I mean, mavens;

Pamela Hearon—who broke me of a lot of my bad habits in the nicest way possible;

and,

Bryony Green and Lucy Gilmour, whose editorial brilliance is matched only by their excellent taste.

CHAPTER ONE

“EVIE is Bradley Harrison’s daughter. I can’t just lock her in the attic and pretend she doesn’t exist!”

“You cannot continue to send her out in society as she is, either, William. She’s an embarrassment to the family and the company.”

Will Harrison poured another two fingers of Scotch and tipped the bottle in the direction of his late father’s oldest friend and HarCorp’s company attorney. So lunch at the Club yesterday hadn’t gone as expected. It wasn’t the end of the world.

Marcus Heatherton held out his glass for the refill. “Evangeline is a sweet girl, but Rachel let her run wild after your father died. You see the results. The child is a complete hoyden.”

Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day. Hoyden . Much nicer sounding than “ill-mannered,” “socially inept” or “tomboyish”—all of which had, unfortunately, been applied to his half sister.

The smile caused by Marcus’s word choice faded. The image of a petit four flying out of Evie’s wildly gesticulating hand and landing on the head of Mrs. Wellford’s spoiled lapdog like a little hat flashed through his mind. That had been funny. The ensuing regurgitation of said petit four in Mrs. Wellford’s lap after Shu-Shu swallowed it whole…well, that pretty much ended Evie’s most recent foray into Dallas society on a distinctly low note.

At seventy, Marcus possessed old-fashioned ideas about proper upbringing for young ladies, but old-fashioned or not, he was right. Fifteen-year-old Evie had no manners, no social protocol and, as Marcus had been reminding Will for the last half-hour, he had to do something about it.

Or else the Harrison name would be gossip column fodder once again.

When his father announced his engagement to a company secretary half his age, everyone but him easily pegged Rachel for the gold digger she was. Bradley, though, either couldn’t see or didn’t care, and he smiled benignly in the background as Rachel ran circles around him, spending his money like it was going out of style and making him the laughingstock of the very society she’d worked so hard to infiltrate.

When Rachel tired of Dallas, Bradley officially retired and moved her and five-year-old Evie to the Caribbean, leaving Will in charge of the family company at the ripe old age of twenty-six.

And while Will dedicated the next ten years to running the company and expanding it into an international force, his father and Rachel frolicked on the beaches around St. Kitts and traveled the world, but made no attempt to prepare Evie for her place in Dallas society—or civilization in general, as far as Marcus was concerned.

Will hadn’t heard much from Rachel in the last couple of years—after his father’s death, she’d been little more than another issue for the accountant to deal with—but after the accident last month that had left her daughter an orphan, he’d found himself Evie’s guardian.

So far, it hadn’t been easy. Yesterday had just been the proverbial last straw for Marcus.

Will cleared his throat. “Mrs. Gray and her tutors…”

“Mrs. Gray is a housekeeper. She’s kind to Evangeline and makes sure you both eat well and have clean clothes, but she is hardly the person to teach the child anything about etiquette. Evangeline’s tutors, even if they were qualified, need to focus on her studies so she’ll be ready to start at Parkline Academy in the fall.”

Marcus could be remarkably and frustratingly single-minded at times, but he’d been the one unwavering pillar of Will’s life, completely dedicated to the company and the Harrison family. Evie’s arrival had given the old man new focus, and for that, Will was grateful. His own love life and the need for a new generation of Harrisons had been under Marcus’s microscope for far too long. At least he hadn’t revisited the idea of Will marrying in order to give Evie a female role model. Yet . The night was still young, though, so he needed to think fast.

“William?”

“All right, I’ll hire someone specifically to work with her on this—to teach her some manners and how to behave in polite society.”

“You must do it now , William. People are already asking where Evangeline is and why you haven’t introduced her to more of your father’s friends or her own peer group. I’ve held everyone off for weeks now, claiming she needs more time to mourn her mother’s passing.”

“She does need time.” His own mother had died when he was twelve; Will could relate to Evie’s grief. At least he hadn’t lost both parents so early in life. His father may have been distant, but he’d been around for the most part.

“Yes, but she has responsibilities that cannot be ignored now that she is back in the States.”

“Responsibilities? She’s fifteen, for God’s sake. She doesn’t have any responsibilities.”

“Let me tell you this, William Harrison. Evangeline must be introduced into society and take her rightful place in it. Everyone is expecting to meet her at the Hospital Benefit.”

With that pronouncement, Marcus sat back in his chair and swirled the Scotch in his glass, seemingly amused by Will’s sputtering.

“The benefit? That’s three weeks away.”

“Then you’d better get busy finding someone, shouldn’t you?”

Dear Miss Behavior,

I told my best friend I was hoping this guy we both like would ask me to go to a concert with him. She goes and buys tickets and then asks him to go with her! I’m so mad at her, but she says that if he’d liked me, then he wouldn’t have agreed to go with her. Now she wants to borrow my leather jacket to wear on their date. She says it would be the “polite” thing to do since she loaned me a pair of boots the last time I had a date. I think she’s the one being rude. Since we both love your column, I told her I’d let you decide. Do I have to loan her my jacket to go on a date with the guy I like?

Thnx.

Cinderella

Gwen reached for her coffee cup. Empty. She’d need at least another cup before she was awake enough to deal with teenage angst. She swiveled out of her chair and headed to the kitchen for a refill to fortify her before she waded in to the dangerous waters of adolescent controversy.