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This month, in
THE MILLIONAIRE’S PREGNANT BRIDE
by Dixie Browning,
Meet William Bradford—CFO of Wescott Oil and millionaire cowboy. His marriage to the lovely Diana Foster was supposed to be in name only. But it wasn’t long before Will found himself wishing Diana would be his wife…in every way!
SILHOUETTE DESIRE
IS PROUD TO PRESENT THE
Five wealthy Texas bachelors—all members of the state’s most exclusive club—set out to uncover the traitor in their midst…and find true love.
And don’t miss
HER LONE STAR PROTECTOR
by Peggy Moreland,
the second installment of the
Texas Cattleman’s Club: The Last Bachelor series.
Available next month in Silhouette Desire!
Dear Reader,
Escape the winter doldrums by reading six new passionate, powerful and provocative romances from Silhouette Desire!
Start with our MAN OF THE MONTH, The Playboy Sheikh, the latest SONS OF THE DESERT love story by bestselling author Alexandra Sellers. Also thrilling is the second title in our yearlong continuity series DYNASTIES: THE CONNELLYS. In Maternally Yours by Kathie DeNosky, a pleasure-seeking tycoon falls for a soon-to-be mom.
All you readers who’ve requested more titles in Cait London’s beloved TALLCHIEFS miniseries will delight in her smoldering Tallchief: The Hunter. And more great news for our loyal Desire readers—a brand-new five-book series featuring THE TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB, subtitled THE LAST BACHELOR, launches this month. In The Millionaire’s Pregnant Bride by Dixie Browning, passion erupts between an oil executive and secretary who marry for the sake of her unborn child.
A single-dad surgeon meets his match in Dr. Desirable, the second book of Kristi Gold’s MARRYING AN M.D. miniseries. And Kate Little’s Tall, Dark & Cranky is an enchanting contemporary version of Beauty and the Beast.
Indulge yourself with all six of these exhilarating love stories from Silhouette Desire!
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
The Millionaire’s Pregnant Bride
Dixie Browning
MILLS & BOON
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DIXIE BROWNING
is an award-winning painter and writer, mother and grandmother. Her father was a big-league baseball player, her grandfather a sea captain. In addition to her nearly 80 contemporary romances, Dixie and her sister, Mary Williams, have written more than a dozen historical romances under the name Bronwyn Williams. Contact Dixie at www.dixiebrowning.com or at P.O. Box 1389, Buxton, NC 27920.
“What’s Happening in Royal?”
NEWS FLASH, February—Word has it that one of Royal’s sexiest tycoons has gone and gotten himself hitched—in a hurry! William Bradford has been the talk of the town since he and Diana Foster said “I do.” Not much is known about the blushing bride, but she must be something special to have persuaded Will to give up his confirmed bachelor status! Several eyewitnesses report that Diana has a certain glow about her…could there already be a little Bradford on the way?
Also in the news, it looks like there might be trouble brewing at Wescott Oil. Rumors of missing money abound…. Is there a thief at large? Nobody seems to know for certain, but Wescott’s new CEO, Sebastian Wescott, has refused to comment on the situation, except to say that he is looking into matters….
And what’s going on at Royal’s Texas Cattleman’s Club? It seems a few of Royal’s sexiest bachelors have made a bet as to which one of them will be the last bachelor left standing. Gents, if you need any help on this one, we know a few local ladies who’d be willing to lend a hand….
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
One
Will Bradford switched off the lights in his tenth-floor office in the Wescott Building and debated whether or not to stop off at the Royal Diner for a bowl of chili on the way home. Too much trouble, he decided. After spending one more in a long string of eighteen-hour days trying to unravel the mess left behind by the unexpected death of his partner and one-time friend, Jack Wescott, he wasn’t up to dealing with anything as complicated as a grease-stained menu. His three-day-a-week housekeeper would have left something in the freezer he could zap in the microwave.
That is, if he could stay awake long enough to eat.
You’d think the man had deliberately tried to scramble the books, Will mused tiredly as he reached for the coat of his rumpled, Western-cut suit, slung it over his left shoulder and headed for the elevator. God knows, Jack Wescott had shaved a few corners over the years, but things were in worse shape than anyone had expected. A fanatic regarding privacy, Jack had essentially distrusted anything with a hard drive. Like most successful enterprises, Wescott Oil had a large computer division, yet Jack had insisted on keeping a hands-on set of paper files under lock and key.
Probably, Will mused, because he’d engaged in more than a few questionable business practices along the way to building his oil empire. Jack had been equally reckless in his personal life. Will had known about some of it and suspected more, even though the friendship that had begun more than fifteen years ago had cooled over the past few years.
Jack had been a womanizer, both before and after his marriage had ended. That sort of thing wasn’t easy to keep hidden in a town like Royal, where gossip was a stock in trade. What had taken everyone by surprise, however, had been the sudden appearance of an illegitimate son shortly after Jack’s death; Dorian Brady had turned up last month in Royal.
The resemblance between Dorian and Sebastian Wescott, Jack’s legitimate son and heir, was striking enough that no one had doubted the relationship, even before it had been checked out. It seemed that when any of Jack’s old flames got pregnant, he bought them a one-way ticket out of town. Evidently one of them had read about Jack’s death and told her son, who figured it was time to call in a long-overdue debt.
As much as he hated the scandal for Sebastian’s sake, Will couldn’t blame the guy. If Dorian resented Jack’s shabby treatment of him and his mother, he hid it well. Sebastian had accepted him to the extent of taking his half brother into his home and giving him a job in the computer division of Wescott Oil. Now Seb was pushing for Dorian’s membership in the Texas Cattlemen’s Club.
Will decided to reserve judgment.
Jack’s secretary was another matter. The first time he’d seen her, she’d been backing out of the Royal Diner, talking to someone still inside. He’d held the door and waited patiently—tired, but not too tired to appreciate the view.
Not that she’d been advertising the view. Just the opposite, in fact. There’d been nothing at all outstanding in the tan-gray gabardine dress she’d been wearing. The color had a name: one of those colors with “au” in the middle. Mauve, taupe. He could never remember what it was. With her glossy, brown hair and delicate build, it had looked coolly elegant on a day when the temperature could frazzle the calmest nerves.
Two shapely young women passed by the diner licking ice cream cones. They were wearing tight jeans and skimpy, skin-tight tops. He’d barely spared them a glance.
“It’s over next to the library, I think,” the lady standing in the doorway was saying. “I’ve got several boxes to go, once I sort through them.”
Nice hips. Slender build, rounded in just the right places. Gabardine was a surprisingly sexy fabric when it hung—as this did—over a shapely pair of hips, merely hinting at the surface beneath.
He must have sighed. Will knew he hadn’t said anything, because what could he have said other than, “Would you please either come in or go out, lady? It’s nearly three in the afternoon and I haven’t had lunch.”
She turned—gasped—and wiped a three-scoop ice cream cone across his chest. “Oh, my— Oh, dear— I’m so sorry!”
Will backed up, staring blankly down at the mess she’d made of one of his favorite ties. “It’s all right,” he assured her. Then, when she began mopping the mess up with a handkerchief in one hand, the rapidly melting cone in the other, he said, “Look, it’s really all right, okay? No harm done.”
No harm a dry cleaner couldn’t take care of. Trouble was, he had that three-thirty meeting. He could either go home and change clothes or go inside and have a quick lunch.
“Oh, Lord, I can’t believe—and I think I know you, too. That’s even worse.”
He was edging away, wanting to escape before his shoes caught the rest of her melting chocolate ice cream. “No problem. It’s all right.” She looked as if she might burst into tears, which would be the last straw. He didn’t know her. Might have seen her around town somewhere—she was the kind of woman a man wouldn’t notice right off, but when he did, she’d be worth a second look.
Only not today. Not under these circumstances.
“Excuse me, I think I’ll go drown myself.”
Sticky, hot, irritated, he managed a smile. “Swimming pools frown on that sort of thing.”
“Is there still a French Foreign Legion? Do they take women? Look, I’m really, really—”
“Don’t say it. Better go back inside and wash your hands before you get into more trouble.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again and sighed. Looking disgustedly at the melting mess in her left hand, she tossed it in the trash receptacle, sighed again and walked away.
For several minutes Will stared after her. She was worth watching. Again, nothing particularly outstanding—no twitchy little behind, no slinky movements, she simply walked. Where the devil, he wondered, had he seen her before? There was something about her…
The second time he saw her was several days after the ice-cream episode. She was just coming out of the secretarial pool. On his way to meet someone in the lobby, he’d stopped and stared, tempted to go and ask her name and if she worked there and whether or not she’d be interested in exploring a brief, nonbinding relationship with him. Fortunately, she hadn’t noticed. Fortunately, no one else had, either.
Equally fortunately, common sense had kicked in before he could be accused of workplace harassment. The trouble was, his social life had been moderated along with just about everything else as he’d neared the four-oh mark. He was out of practice.
He had seen her several times after that, and the less she did to call attention to her sexuality, the more intrigued he became. There was something challenging about a woman who went out of her way to downplay her feminine attractions. Made a man wonder what was under all the muted colors and understated styles. The lady was a challenge, and if there was one thing Will thrived on, it was challenge.
But not this kind of challenge.
He told himself it was probably something simple—maybe a minor midlife crisis. He’d made a policy of never mixing business with pleasure. In today’s litigious society, it simply wasn’t worth the risk of future embarrassment, awkwardness or worse. Even so, he’d been almost at the point of breaking his own rule and asking her out when Jack had moved in and staked a claim by whisking her up to the executive floor as his personal secretary.
Jack’s tastes had invariably run to leggy blondes in thigh-high skirts, with big boobs and big blond hair. The Foster woman was a marked improvement. Quelling his own disappointment, Will had gone out three nights in a row with three different women and—always the gentleman—had managed to conceal his boredom.
As for what Diana Foster had seen in Jack Wescott, that was easy. At fifty-eight, the wealthy oilman had been in peak physical condition until he’d dropped dead of a massive heart attack. It was widely known that wealth was among the world’s greatest aphrodisiacs, and Jack had been a practiced philanderer who enjoyed bragging about the notches on his bedpost.
At least he hadn’t bragged about his latest conquest. If he had, Will might have decked the man. After which, Will would have been forced to sell his stock, turn in his resignation and move out to his ranch a few years earlier than he’d planned to retire.
What he couldn’t understand now, after Jack’s death, was what the quietly elegant Ms. Foster had gained from the affair. She still drove the same elderly sedan, still wore the same inexpensive classic styles and—so far as he could tell—owned no jewelry other than pearl studs and the type of wristwatch that could be purchased at most drugstores.
Not that he’d paid any particular attention to her, once he’d realized she was having an affair with his business partner. For all he knew, Jack might’ve been planning to marry the woman, even though Jack had sworn he would never let himself be trapped into marriage again.
But, if that had been the case, surely he’d have had his lawyers drawing up a prenuptial agreement, and there’d been nothing like that in the works when he’d died. As a rule, Jack had even his mistresses sign a settlement agreement so that they couldn’t come back to haunt him. Dorian’s mother had signed one, but obviously Dorian didn’t consider the terms of the agreement to apply to him.
Waiting for the elevator, Will stroked the back of his neck, massaging away the tension that always seemed to settle there. Jack’s will, which had been read four days ago, had been simple and direct. Other than a few token gifts to his household staff, Sebastian had inherited everything the IRS didn’t claim.
As executor of Jack’s estate, Will was still trying to reconcile a few discrepancies in his personal accounts. Jack had been notoriously delinquent when it came to balancing his own checkbooks.
Nodding to the night security guard who let him out of the building, Will set off to walk the eleven blocks to his own apartment. Maybe fresh air would work a miracle. Maybe his headache would ease and the incomprehensible entries on Jack’s personal check stubs would miraculously begin to make sense.
And maybe he would quit obsessing on the quiet, elegant beauty who had begun to crop up in more than a few of his dreams.
On the long walk home, Will mulled over a few minor discrepancies he’d come across just today. While the business’s financial records were in excellent condition, thanks largely to his own hand on the controls, Jack’s personal affairs weren’t quite so tidy. In building the empire that bore his name, he had stepped on more than a few toes, cut more than a few corners and no doubt had paid off his share of politicians and predatory women. Which might account for the unexplained drafts for tens of thousands of dollars in the past few months.
Poor guy. He’d been warned more than once to tone down his lifestyle. Will had often heard him joke about having a few wild chickens come home to roost. One of them, Dorian Brady, already had.
How many more would there be?
Urged by the board to take over as president, Will had declined the honor. With Jack gone, he was now the senior partner, but getting himself mired any deeper in corporate crap wasn’t among his long-term plans for the future. Once he turned over his tenth-floor offices to the mandatory outside auditors, he would have to clear out Jack’s tower office to prepare for the new regime. Which meant he was probably going to need the help of Jack’s secretary. He didn’t know whether to dread it or look forward to it. All he knew was that the woman affected him in a way no woman had in nearly twenty years.
Midlife crisis?
Yeah…probably. And dammit, he didn’t have time for it now.
Shoulders hunched, the tall, lean Texan strode along the empty sidewalk. This time of night, traffic was light. The weather was unusually mild for February despite the wind and the threat of rain. If he finished up by Friday, maybe he could spend a couple of days out at the ranch.
Or maybe not. There was still a lot of sludge to wade through before the company could move ahead at full speed. For a business the size of Wescott Oil to be run like a mom and pop market was not only criminal, it was damn near impossible in this age of government regulations and demanding stockholders. But by bribing and threatening the right people, Jack had managed to do things his way right up to the end.
The end…
God, what a waste. At fifty-eight, he’d looked no older than Will himself did at forty-one, thanks to great tailor, a good barber, a personal trainer and a top-notch plastic surgeon. For a man who routinely managed to tick off half of the Texas legislature and buy off the rest, he’d been one hell of a guy. He was going to be missed.
While a scratchy recording of Fleetwood Mac flowed from a battered portable phonograph, Diana propped a bare foot up on her lap and carefully painted her big toenail a deep shade of coral. Tears ran a crooked trail down her face, not because she missed Jack, exactly, but because…
Well, because it was such a waste. Underneath his crazy suspicions and his domineering ways, he’d been a good man. In some ways. At least he’d been good to her when it mattered most. Her mother had had the very best care right up to the end, and if it meant giving herself—Diana refused to call it selling herself—to a man like Jack Wescott, then it was well worth the shame.
Or the guilt. Whatever she was feeling, it probably wasn’t grief, which was even more of a reason to feel guilty.
She screwed the cap on the bottle of nail polish, which she used only on her toes where it wouldn’t show, and grabbed a tissue to blow her nose. “Get over it, Foster,” she muttered. People said that all the time. Get over it. Deal with it.
And she would, she really would. She was nothing if not a realist. The thing was, she had never really wanted to be anyone’s lover, especially having grown up in a household where love was never a factor.
Her parents had been what she’d once heard referred to as “tie-dyed rebels for peace.” When the rebellion had lost its luster, her father had left his wife and daughter to “find himself.” Lila, her mother, had gone to work in the cosmetics department of a local discount store for minimum wages and no benefits other than a minuscule discount.
Her father had eventually come back—still lost—and taken a job selling paper products. Less than a month later he had gotten drunk, blacked both his wife’s eyes so she couldn’t go to work, and then left town again.
They’d been “flower children.” Their mottos: Make Love, Not War; If It Feels Good, Do It.
Growing up, Diana had rebelled against her parents’ entire generation. Eventually she might have ended up marrying some nice, dull man, the antithesis of her own father. Someone who would have been good with children and kind to pets. Someone who would, at least, be there for his family.
Jack hadn’t been a dull man, nor had he always been nice. And while she’d let herself believe at first that he wanted to marry her, that had never been in the cards. He had set out on a deliberate campaign to seduce her, and once he’d discovered her weakness, he’d succeeded.
And now Jack was dead and she would soon be back in the secretarial pool. Jack’s son Sebastian would be the new chairman, and Sebastian already had his own executive secretary, one who was more qualified for the position.
Diana’s mother had never reconciled herself to the fact that her only child—her little princess—had settled for a secretarial course instead of trying for a college scholarship. “But, honey, you’re so creative,” she’d exclaimed so often in her fade-away voice.
“You mean because I used to write those awful poems for your birthday and Mother’s Day? Mama, grow up. It’s about time somebody in this family did.”
That had been several years ago, before her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Since then Diana had come a long way. She had found a job to help pay the bills and had ended up working for a man who had insisted on doing things in a way that would have probably driven most secretaries up the nearest wall. The system they’d worked out together had been somewhat unorthodox, but it had suited them both.
Well, she thought, sniffing and sighing heavily, that, too, was over. Done with. Fini. Period.
Period? Which reminded her of another possible problem….
But that was stress. Of course it was stress. They’d always been careful—almost always. Although Jack, for all his polished charm, could occasionally be demanding, impatient and insensitive.
But it was over now, and she could get on with her life. Diana stretched her leg and wiggled her newly polished toes. Nail polish had been her favorite treat as a little girl. Her mother would polish her toenails and tell her it was because she was a princess, only she couldn’t tell anyone. And they would look at each other and smile, and when her father came home, Diana would huddle in bed and listen to the awful fights and think, I’m a secret princess. As soon as I’m big enough, Mama and I will go find our real home, and Daddy can’t ever go there.
Daddy had been killed when she was fourteen. By then she’d known she was no princess but only the daughter of a disillusioned flower child who lacked the courage to break away from her abusive marriage to an ex-hippy. Diana remembered her father chiefly for his long absences and his vicious temper.
“Girl, you are a mess! Get it together!” she growled softly to herself.
And she was going to, she really was. It would be awkward returning to the secretarial pool after months of working on the executive floor. For one thing it was a world-class rumor mill, and she herself would be the focus of an uncomfortable amount of gossip.
But before she made any decision she was going to have to help Mr. William K. Bradford, the senior partner and chief financial officer, sort out the mess Jack had left behind. And wouldn’t you know, he’d turned out to be the man she’d plastered with melted chocolate ice cream.
Since then she’d tried to avoid him, hoping he would forget the incident, or at least forget who ruined what had to be a custom-tailored suit and a designer tie. Not to mention the white shirt. Chocolate stains were impossible to remove.
She could only hope he wouldn’t remember her. He’d been wearing sunglasses. Maybe some of the ice cream had spattered those, too, and he hadn’t seen her clearly.
The trouble was, she’d seen him. Had a good look at him, from his broad shoulders to his thick, dark hair and his wonderfully irregular features. What was there about certain men that made them so heartbreakingly attractive? There were probably thousands of men who were more handsome. Hundreds.
Dozens, at least. She didn’t lose any sleep over any of them, while the very thought of having to work in close contact with Will Bradford was enough to make her break out in a heat rash. She hadn’t exactly led a sheltered existence. She did know the facts of life. She simply didn’t know how to deal with a man who made her think wicked thoughts so soon after her mother had died and she’d broken off with Jack.
So much for disapproving of her parents’ early lifestyle. If It Feels Good, Do It.
She’d done it, and it hadn’t even felt particularly good.
Huddling in the lopsided recliner her mother had bought at a going-out-of-business sale, she thought some more about William Bradford. He struck her as the kind of man who lived his life by a set of ironclad rules. She liked that in a man. Purpose. Discipline. Order.
From now on, Diana vowed, she would make rules of her own, rule number one being that she was in sole control of Diana Foster. From this day forward she would take complete responsibility for her own life.
Will was the last to arrive for the weekly dinner meeting in one of the smaller private rooms at the Texas Cattleman’s Club, an exclusive establishment formed originally so that a few wealthy cattle barons and some of the early oilmen could escape from their wives for a night out. As years passed it had served as a convenient cover for a number of covert operations. Of the small group of close friends, all were ex-military and had been involved in any number of operations that never hit the news. Thank God things had been quiet on that front lately. With Jack’s unexpected death, Will had had enough on his mind without having to fly off at a moment’s notice to rescue some poor unfortunate who’d blundered into trouble.
Between missions, the club served as a fund-raising organization for various charities that had arisen as the small town of Royal doubled and tripled its size. Will was, unfortunately, a member of the club’s committee whose duty it was to sift through the dozens of applications and choose a worthy recipient for the funds raised by the annual charity ball. He’d just as soon divide the take equally among the charities, but tradition precluded such a simple solution.
After nodding to a few of the older members dozing over their Wall Street Journals in the cigar, brandy and wax-scented great room, Will opened the massive oak door and closed it quietly behind him. “Evening, gentleman,” he greeted.
“Man, you look like hell.” It was Jason, foreign advisor and CIA agent, the youngest of the group, who passed judgment on him.
Sebastian, Jack’s son and newly appointed CEO of Wescott Oil, looked as though he hadn’t slept in weeks. It was obvious his father’s death and the new responsibilities had taken their toll. Gamely he grinned. “Things are that bad in your neck of the woods, huh?”
“Not bad. Shall we say…disorganized? If your father had suspected an OPEC spy of trying to infiltrate the company to gather information, he might have devised a similar plan for throwing him off track. Anyone ordered yet? What are we having?”
Their tastes were as varied as the men themselves. Keith Owens, owner of a computer software company, was still studying the bill of fare. Robert Cole, private detective with an old-money background, usually ordered seafood.
Will chose steak, medium rare, with a baked potato, no sour cream and a salad, which he didn’t particularly want but which he ordered anyway because at his age a smart man started thinking about health and his own mortality.
Pity poor Jack hadn’t started earlier.
Will hadn’t had time to stop by the club in more than a week. Since every man present was the son, if not the grandson, of a former member, this group was the closest thing to family he was ever apt to have. He asked after each man individually, then took a sip of the single drink he allowed himself each evening and said, “Want to tell me what all the snickers were about when I walked in?”
“What snickers? Oh, you must mean the bet. Seb has the dubious honor of heading up this year’s gala, and he suggested that since we’re all aging bachelors, we place a bet on which one will still be standing alone by the end of the year. Whoever wins can have the consolation prize of choosing the beneficiary,” Rob explained.
Will looked from one man to the other. “You’re not serious. Hell, I outgrew that kind of thing in prep school.”
Jason, the youngest member of the group, enjoyed his playboy reputation enough to pick up the challenge. “Not that I’m particularly interested in game playing—” he was widely known for his games with the fairer sex “—but I’ll win this one in a walk-away.”
“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, old boy?”
Jason, his eyes alight with amusement, said, “Yeah, that about covers it.” It was widely known, as well, that Jason was allergic to marriage.
And while Will didn’t particularly want to win the consolation prize, marriage was definitely not in his future. Once had been enough.
“So, that’s settled,” Sebastian said, sounding vastly relieved. “Lets me off the hook.”
It occurred to Will that, under the circumstances, maybe one of the others should have taken over the task of heading up this year’s shindig. It was a daunting task at the best of times, and the man had just lost his father, after all.
“Next item on the agenda,” Keith Owens said around a mouthful of stuffed quail. “What about Dorian? Do we invite him to join the club?”
Sebastian abstained from commenting. Caution urged Will to suggest they not make any hasty decisions, but before he could voice the thought, Jason spoke up. “I vote we sit on it for a few weeks. All due respect, Seb, but we don’t really know this guy.”
After a brief discussion, it was decided to postpone making a decision. Will was relieved. Jason had razor-sharp instincts. Will trusted his instinct on most matters. By the time his dessert of fresh fruit compote was served, he was too tired to enjoy it. Shoving it across the table, he said, “Sorry, fellows, but if I don’t make it to bed in the next half hour, you’ll have to scrape me up off the street. Been a hell of a week.”
After handing the accounting books to the outside auditors, Will turned his full attention to Jack’s messy personal records. Will had already learned two disturbing things. First, that Diana Foster lacked the required qualifications for the position she’d been given. Second, that aside from a nice raise, she’d been the recipient of several large sums of money deposited to a checking account soon after she’d been promoted to the position of Jack’s executive secretary. Putting that together with a remark Jack had once made about Diana’s mother being ill, Will came to a conclusion that had set his blood to boiling.
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