The Billioniare's Bought Bride (Contemporary Romance) (2 page)

He took her hand, pressed her palm to the spot on his chest where she’d poked him. “Maddy.”

She tilted her head, losing herself in his gaze. The world seemed to drop away, until two teenage girls walked by, whispering and pointing, their appreciation of the handsome man they’d passed obvious. Maddy stared after them, anything to divert her from the sheer power that was Dylan Blackwater, her first love. For one summer, up until that fateful moment when reality had intruded and torn all her dreams to shreds, he’d been her world.

His voice washed over like a tantalizing, tempting wave. “Maddy, I don’t hold you responsible. I understand why you rejected me. You did what you had to do, what any sixteen-year-old girl would do when faced with the choice of her socially inappropriate boyfriend or her family and inheritance. Maybe we should clear the air. We’re adults now.”

His system of touch urged her forward, but Maddy jolted, recovered her senses, and
yanked her hand free. She couldn’t let his “forgiveness” sway her. He certainly hadn’t acted charitable toward her grandfather. As Dylan had built his financial empire over the last six years, he had purposely outbid her grandfather for every parcel of land in King County that Stephen Johansson had tried to purchase.

Her grandfather had spent his entire life as a naturalist and a philanthropist—he’d wanted nothing more than to keep the land he purchased untouched and undeveloped. He’d donated most of his parcels to various wildlife organizations that kept land in its natural state for eternity.

Yet
,
Stephen’s goals of creating wildlife havens had been thwarted once Dylan entered the fray. Dylan began to immediately outbid her grandfather on every single available parcel. He’d then stripped many of those lakeshore pieces of their trees and turned the ground into property developments.

Dylan called his actions progress. Maddy called it vengeance, and blamed herself for his hatred of her family. Her only consolation was that Dylan’s Knollwood Lake holdings were few, and those remained unchanged.

That long ago fateful summer she’d toed the line and obeyed her grandfather’s wishes to break up with Dylan—or else. The irony was now she was about to lose Summerhaven anyway. The highest offer to purchase Summerhaven had come from Dylan’s company. She’d turned it down.

“No,” she declared, her resolve solidifying. “There’s really no need for us to talk.”

Her car was a few parking spaces over and she moved to leave, drawing on reserve manners. “It’s been lovely seeing you again, but I should be getting home.”

His cheek twitched, the only sign her dismissal rankled. “Maddy, when are you going to realize I’m not your enemy? That I’m probably the only one
who’s
willing to help
you?”

“What are you talking about?”

He shrugged, without one ounce of guilt. “I won’t lie. I know all about your tax and mortgage problems.”

“You’d have made it your business, wouldn’t you?” She hated corporate games. It’s why she’d chosen to be a teacher.

“A property like Summerhaven is a rare gem. I know how important it is to you. After all, you dumped me to keep it.” He dismissed that fact with a shrug. “I like Summerhaven and I don’t want to see it fall in the wrong hands. Maybe I can help. You need a friend…”

“Friends? You keep saying that” She cut him off, unable to contain herself. Good breeding be damned. She allowed her tongue spit the venom she’d been restraining all day—and Dylan made the perfect target.

“No friend would have done to my family what you’ve done. You are no friend of mine.”

She pivoted and ran to her car. Her breath came in ragged bursts as she pressed the remote key fob and jumped into her three-year-old compact sedan, a used car she’d purchased last week after selling her luxury SUV to raise the tax money. Dylan made no move to follow or stop her as she made her escape, her destination twelve miles away on the shore of Knollwood Lake.

She fumed as she drove Highway 84 northbound. How naïve could she be? First Ted and then Dylan… She pounded the steering wheel with her palms. Of course Dylan Blackwater would have made it his business to know everything about her situation.

Dylan was the devil. He owned the Midwestern Development Group, along with a
bunch of other companies she’d discovered on the Internet when she’d researched the purchase offer one of his agents had brought her.

In college, and then teaching kindergarten at a St. Louis Catholic elementary school, Maddy been removed from most of the mudslinging between her grandfather and Dylan. But the lawyers had told her plenty this week.

Dylan had loved every minute of the land purchase wars he fought with her grandfather. He’d relished every minute of making Stephen Johansson suffer as Dylan robbed her grandfather of the one thing he loved and wanted to preserve for posterity—land in its natural state.

Now Dylan wanted to help. Friends be damned.

Maddy shuddered as she thought of Dylan and the feelings he’d aroused. She couldn’t let any physical reaction get in the way. Dylan Blackwater was not the person he’d been at eighteen. He’d become something unspeakable. He’d become her worst nightmare.

She’d rejected him again.

Not that this time he was surprised. Dylan made his way into the café and settled himself at a table. He was texting his second in command when the waitress came by, and he ordered a roast beef sandwich and iced tea.

Maddy had changed since that summer when she’d been sweet sixteen. So had he. In hindsight, he realized now that both of them had been far too young for such a serious relationship.

He scoffed. He’d been a foolish boy, thinking he’d loved her. Hell, he’d had many women since. They’d been easy come, easy go, not worth the expensive baubles from
Tiffany’s he’d bestowed as insignificant parting gifts.

He sent the text and then picked up as the phone rang. “Blackwater,” he said crisply, taking the call he’d been expecting.

“The bank turned her down.”

For a brief moment, Dylan’s gut clenched, just a slight,
almost
unnoticeable twinge. He’d learned long ago to squash any emotions, for physical reactions revealed weakness to the enemy. Never again would he be called weak or insignificant, as Maddy’s brother had taunted that long ago summer. Dylan calmed taut nerves, reschooled any change in his expression to passive disinterest. “Of course it did. Thanks for the report.”

He ended the call and glanced around the restaurant. Because of his private investigator’s extensive reports, Dylan had known the scope of Maddy’s financial situation long before she had. Months, in fact.

He glanced at his platinum Rolex, a present to himself when he’d made his first million. Just last month he’d made ten million more, a nice profit achieved from selling the flailing Internet company he’d discovered. He’d purchased the company for a steal, turned it around, and sold it high.

The Internet could make any man a modern day Carnegie if he knew how to use it, and Dylan Blackwater had mastered the web, venture capital, and the art of property development. He’d earned more money than he’d ever dreamed. He’d become rich through shrewd and discriminatory decisions, which had seen him skate through the recent real estate fiasco and banking bailouts. He’d learned that being cold and ruthless was the way to get exactly what he wanted. Maddy’s brother Ted had taught him that.

Dylan had one last thing to do to settle the score, to finalize a plan he’d put into motion the day he’d left Knollwood Lake with bruised ribs, bloody nose and a black eye.

Ten years ago he’d sworn revenge on Ted. He’d also vowed that Maddy would be the only woman for him, whether he deserved her or not. Back then he hadn’t had two nickels to rub together. Now he was worth billions…

The waitress set his food down and he barely glanced at it. Maddy remained the only woman he’d desired whose body he’d never possessed. That fact bothered him. He’d achieved everything else and seeing her today had driven his libido into overdrive.

But he wanted her now, not because he loved her—for that feeling had died that fateful day—he wanted her because frankly, he’d vowed to have her and he was a man who never broke a promise or reneged a pledge.

They’d played pretend that long ago summer—one of those dumb things you do when you’re teenagers in love, as if he were Heathcliff and she Cathy. He’d even read the damn book because she’d asked him to, claiming it her favorite. Well, like Cathy, she’d fallen far from her pedestal. He’d built his own dynasty. Childish love of bygone days didn’t factor into his emotions or decisions anymore. He was older, wiser, much more jaded.

Timing was everything, and Maddy’s and Ted’s time was up. If he knew Maddy, and he knew he did, she’d sell her soul to the devil himself before she’d lose her precious land to the county coffers. He grinned and reached for his sandwich. Indeed, it was a fact he was counting on.

Chapter Two

Hours later, with no immediate resolution to her monetary problems in sight,
Madison slapped at a mosquito that landed on her arm the moment she exited the lodge. She killed the offensive parasite, but not before it left the beginnings of a welt and a bloody mess. She brushed off the remains and rubbed her hands on the front of her jeans. Just lovely.

She glanced over her shoulder at the ramshackle brown wood house. A former hunting lodge, the large building with its oversized white trimmed windows sprawled at the top of a gentle sloping hill that led to the water’s edge. Behind the house, deer had come out to graze in the five-acre meadow.

Her feet crunched over compacted gravel as she headed into the woods and down the slightly overgrown eighth-mile drive that led to her great-aunt Gail’s cottage. Not part of Maddy’s grandfather’s holdings, Stephen’s younger sister’s property was located between the former Lawless acres and Summerhaven. As Gail had her own entrance from the county road, and as few people went this way anymore, weeds grew in abundance.

Upon hearing Aunt Gail’s “enter,” Madison stepped inside. Her eighty-two year old great aunt sat in a wooden rocker in a corner overlooking the lake. The last vestiges of sunlight streamed through the picture windows, highlighting her gray hair.

“It didn’t go well today, did it?” Aunt Gail said, her tone sympathetic as she registered Maddy’s tired expression. “When you called me yesterday and told me you were driving up from St. Louis…”

Maddy shook her head. “No. It’s hopeless. I have until the end of July. And that’s just to pay the taxes. If I solve that, then I have another month to deal with the mortgage Ted took out.”

Maddy sat on the faded tweed sofa. Whereas her grandfather had been a wealthy businessman and Summerhaven had five huge bedrooms and a large great room, Aunt
Gail’s cottage was essentially a one-room rectangle, with sliding dividers to hide her bedroom and bathroom area. Despite its compact size, the cottage sat on the top of the point and had a phenomenal view, but tonight even that didn’t provide its normal comfort.

Aunt Gail wouldn’t lose her summer home, her deceased husband Larry leaving her adequately provided for. Aunt Gail rose gingerly from her rocker, moved to the sofa and cradled Maddy into her arms.

“I know what your grandmother always said, but you’re allowed a good cry, my dear,” Gail said.

Maddy sniffed. “Crying won’t help. No bank will lend me money because I don’t make enough money. Maybe I should sell. Teaching starts mid-August. I could use the next few weeks to finalize things before summer ends.”

Aunt Gail stroked Maddy’s hair. “Maybe it is time to let go. Stephen wouldn’t want you to impoverish yourself and risk your future just to keep what he treasured. It’s probably better he died before he found out his faith in Ted was extremely misplaced.”

Madison used her shirttail to wipe away tears. “The problem is I treasure this place. I might live in St. Louis, but this is home. You understand, don’t you? That’s why you kept coming here every summer, even after Uncle Larry passed.”

Gail’s arms tightened. “Of course I understand. You were free to be kids here. Stephen might have been my brother, but he was difficult. He and Susan weren’t ready to be parents a second time. You and Ted never did have a normal childhood after your parents died.” Her voice faded for a second and then, “What about suing your brother?”

Maddy had looked into that, as well as selling the land to various environmental groups. None could move fast enough to help her. “If a lawsuit wouldn’t drag my family name through the mud like the lawyers said, I’d sue him. Even though he’s my brother. I
really would.”

“I’d give you the money if I had it,” Gail soothed.

Maddy knew that Aunt Gail’s yearly allowance would never be enough. “And I thank you. But you have children of your own.”

“Grown children who are doing just fine and don’t expect much when I die. You’re my family as well, Maddy. Like the daughter I never had.”

Darkness had settled over the lake, and together Gail and Maddy watched the bow and stern lights twinkle on a passing boat.

“Oh, Cindy told me some juicy gossip today. Dylan Blackwater’s coming back. He had the house on North Star Island refurbished and readied.”