Christie Ridgway: His Forbidden Fiancee

His Forbidden Fiancée

Christie Ridgway

www.millsandboon.co.uk

1 Drive to his lodge in the middle of the night to break off your engagement.

2 Find yourself stranded at his place with nothing but the wet clothes on your back.

3 Resolve to tell him you’re through right then and there.

4 Lose your nerve.

5 Kiss him.

6 Ask him to make love to you.

7 Hate him for acting like a gentleman.

8 Break off your engagement.

9 Kiss him again.

10 Thank him for forgetting how to be a gentleman….

For Elizabeth Bevarly, Maureen Child,

Susan Crosby, Anna DePalo and Susan Mallery.

Thanks for making this project so much fun!

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Coming Next Month

The only thing the first-class-all-the-way log house lacked was a sexy female in the master bedroom’s quilt-covered sleigh bed. Make that a naked sexy female. Blond. Curvy.

Make that lots of curves.

Coat hangers with legs didn’t interest Luke Barton. He liked his women built for pleasure. His pleasure.

“Did you say something, Mr. Barton?”

He started, then tore his gaze from the decadent bed to frown at the caretaker who was showing him through the home that was his for the next month. Had he been talking out loud? Luke shoved his hands in his pockets and tried out a noncommittal smile before trailing the woman toward the adjoining bathroom.

She was attractive enough, he supposed, and somewhere in her twenties as well as sort of blondish, but it wasn’t her who had sparked his imagination. It was that luxurious bed, he decided, glancing back at it over his shoulder. That quilt-covered bed with a mattress wide enough to rival the sizable slice of Lake Tahoe that he could see through the room’s tall windows.

There was a stone fireplace near the bed’s carved footboard with wood neatly laid inside and Luke could imagine the logs burning brightly, licking golden color along the naked, fair flesh of his fantasy woman. He’d follow suit with his tongue, tasting her warm—

“Mr. Barton?”

His attention jolted to the caretaker again and he realized he was standing, frozen, in the middle of the room. “Call me Luke,” he said.

“What?” The caretaker frowned. “We were expecting Matthias Barton this month.”

Perplexed, Luke stared at her for a moment. Matthias?

Oh. Matthias. Matt. That luxurious decadent bed was making him forget everything. It wasn’t often that Luke Barton forgot his bastard of a twin brother, Matt. And it was never that he did his bastard of a brother a favor.

Except for now.

Damn Matt.

When his assistant had called Luke’s assistant he’d wished like hell he could have turned the cheating, thieving SOB down flat. “Your brother has to take care of some unexpected business and he wants to know if you’ll switch months with him,” Elaine had imparted, as if it wasn’t damn strange that identical siblings refused to speak to each other.

But for once, Luke had been unable to refuse his brother’s request.

“I’m sorry. I meant to mention it right away,” Luke told the caretaker. Apparently she hadn’t noticed the cryptic note Nathan left behind had been addressed to him. “Something came up and my brother and I had to trade months.” The ol’ twin switcheroo.

“Oh, I suppose that’s all right,” the woman replied, then gestured him forward. “So, as I was saying, Luke, you must spend the next month in the lodge in order to fulfill the requirements of Hunter’s will. Your friend Nathan was here last month and your brother Matthias will then take your place in the fifth month.”

Luke knew all that. A while back, letters had been received by each of the remaining “Seven Samurai” as they’d called themselves in college. The six had lost touch after the death of Hunter Palmer and graduation, but with the arrival of those letters they’d been reminded of the promise they’d once made to one another as they closed in on getting their diplomas. Though they were from families of distinction and wealth, they’d been determined to each make their own mark on the world. In ten years, they’d vowed.

Over a table filled with empty beer bottles they’d pledged to build a lodge on the shores of Lake Tahoe and in ten years, each of them would take the place for a month. At the end of the seventh month, the plan had been that they’d all come together for a celebration of their friendship and the successes they’d achieved.

But after Hunter’s illness and subsequent death, that dream had died with him.

Though apparently not for Hunter. Even aware he wouldn’t be there to share it with them, he’d made arrangements for a lodge to be built at the lake. The letters he’d written to each of the friends said that he expected them to honor the vow they’d taken all those years ago.

The caretaker stepped aside as they reached another arched doorway. “And here’s the master bathroom.”

As Luke stepped inside, the fantasy blond popped back into his thoughts. The light of a fire was tracing her skin again, all that pretty, pretty skin, as she lowered herself into the deep porcelain tub that was surrounded by slate and butted up against yet another fireplace. The ends of her hair darkened as they swished against her wet shoulders. Bubbles played peekaboo with her rosy nipples.

“Do you think you’ll be comfortable here?”

Sidetracked again by his enticing little vision, Luke was jolted once more by the sound of the caretaker’s voice.

Damn! What was the matter with him? he wondered, firmly banishing the distracting beauty splashing in his suddenly sex-obsessed brain.

“I’ll be just fine here, thank you.” Even though he was going to be “just fine” three months early, all for the sake of his brother.

He must have been scowling at the thought, because the woman’s eyebrows rose. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Not at all.” There was no reason to expose the family laundry to a stranger. “I guess I’m just thinking of…of Hunter.”

The woman’s gaze dropped. “I’m sorry.” The toe of her sensible black shoe appeared to fascinate her. “I think…I think he intended this as a nice gesture.”

“Hunter Palmer was a very nice man.” The best of the seven of them. The very best. Luke let himself remember Hunter’s wide grin, his infectious laugh, the way he could rally their group to do anything from nailing all the furniture in the freshman-dorm rec room to the ceiling to organizing a charity three-man basketball tournament senior year.

Hunter had been part of Luke’s squad. They’d won the whole shebang, too. What a team they’d made, Hunter and Luke…and Matt.

In those days, like never before and never since, Luke and Matt had played on the same side.

But it was Hunter who Luke had been thinking of when he’d agreed to take his brother’s place for the next month. Their dead friend’s last request had been for the six other men to spend time at the lodge he’d built. If they fulfilled his request, then twenty million dollars and the lodge itself would be turned over to the town of Hunter’s Landing, here on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Luke wasn’t going to be the reason that didn’t happen, no matter how he felt about his brother.