To Catch a Man (In 30 Days or Less) (The BAD BOY BILLIONAIRES Series)

Copyright © 2012 Judy
Angelo

Lyons Publishing
Limited

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise (mechanical, photocopying,
recording or stored in a retrieval system) without the prior written consent of
the Publisher.  Such action is an infringement of the copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction.  The names, characters,
places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been
used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Author contact: 
[email protected]

The BAD BOY
BILLIONAIRES Series

by Judy Angelo

Volume 1 -
Tamed
by the Billionaire

Volume 2 -
Maid
in the USA

Volume 3 -
Billionaire's
Island Bride

Volume 4 -
Dangerous
Deception

Volume 5 -
To
Tame a Tycoon

Volume 6 -
Sweet
Seduction

Volume 7 -
Daddy
by December

Volume 8 -
To
Catch a Man (in 30 Days or Less)

BAD
BOY BILLIONAIRES, Mega-Collection - Vols. 1 - 8

BAD
BOY BILLIONAIRES, Collection I - Vols. 1 - 4

BAD
BOY BILLIONAIRES, Collection II - Vols. 5 - 8

 (Two free stories
in the Mega-collection;

one free story in
each, Collection I and II;

purchase
collections and save)

COMING IN
SEPTEMBER:

The NAUGHTY AND NICE
Series

Volume 1 - Naughty by
Nature

September 18

HOW DO YOU CATCH A MAN...IN 30
DAYS?

Indiana Lane is in a pickle.  She
must find a man, fall in love and get married...all within the space of thirty
days.  How in the world can she pull this off?  And then she runs into Stone
Hudson - or, more accurately, he runs into her - and that's when the adventure
begins.

Stone Hudson has met his match. 
He is used to women fawning over him and then he meets Indie, a woman who tells
it like it is.  And worse, she dares to tease him wherever and whenever she
desires.  Stone is intrigued, to say the least, but then his heart is snagged
on a wire from which there is no escape.

Will the wedding bells ring for
Indie, and will they ring in time?  Thirty days is not a lot of time...

Show More

Show Less

TO CATCH A MAN

(IN 30 DAYS OR LESS)

CHAPTER ONE

“Are you kidding me?”

Randolph Marshall shook his head. 
“I’m dead serious.  You have until October twenty-three or you forfeit fourteen
million dollars.”

“Fourteen million…”  Indiana Lane’s
voice trailed off as she stared across the desk at the attorney.  “No, you’ve
got to be kidding me.”  She looked around the room.  “I’m on ‘Candid Camera’,
right?  Or one of those other crazy prank shows?”  She began to chuckle as she
turned to look back at him.

“Miss Lane, trust me.  I do not
have time for pranks.”  Exasperation dripped from each word.  “I’m an old man
with a bad heart.  I don’t play games.  I tell it as it is.  Do you understand
me?”

Indie’s smile began to fade as she
stared back at the now frowning man.  Okay, so he really was serious.  He was
shaking his graying head and looking at her like he wanted to give her a sharp
rap on the knuckles.  Ouch.

“Yes,” she said, gripping the arms
of the chair, “I understand you but…but he hardly even knew me.”

Marshall looked unimpressed.  “He
seems to have known you well enough to want to make you a rich woman.  Under
certain conditions, of course.”

“But…but…” She was spluttering
again
.  Come on, Indie, this is so not like you.  You’ve negotiated with
guerilla fighters and warlords and you’re thrown upside down by this?
  She
drew in a slow, deep breath then got up and shoved her hands deep into her
trouser pockets.  Her brain worked better when she was standing.

“So let me get this straight. 
Based on the stipulations in my uncle’s will I have to find a man in the next…”
she frowned, thinking, “…thirty days, fall in love, and get married in order to
inherit this fourteen million dollars?”

Randolph cocked a grizzly eyebrow. 
“Nobody said anything about falling in love.”

“Well, I can’t very well just run
off and marry the next man I run into, can I?  One would hope I’d at least feel
something for him…and he, for me.”  She stopped talking when she saw the
attorney’s expression.  Was the man laughing at her?

“A real idealist, I see.”  His
smile was broader than the Cheshire Cat’s.

That got her riled up.  “And who
says I want his money, anyway?”  The man was looking too smug and it was
pissing her off.  Big time.  “Money has never been the biggest thing in my
life, Mr. Randolph Marshall.  And neither has marriage.  I can do without both
of them-”

“Yes, Miss ‘Save-The-World’.  I
know.  And that’s exactly why your uncle did what he did.  Don’t you worry.  He
filled me in on all the details.”

Now on top of pissing her off he
was confusing the heck out of her.  “What details?”

“Remember that conversation you had
with him right after your mother’s funeral?”

She frowned.  “That was nine years
ago.”

“Yes,” Randolph said with a nod.  "You
were twenty-one years old and you sat in the library spouting off your
idealistic philosophies to Samuel about not wanting to get married or have
children.  There are too many homeless kids in the world for you to even think
of starting a family of your own.  Isn’t that what you said?”

Indie straightened to her full five
foot nine inch height and frowned at Marshall.  What was he getting at?  “Yeah,
so what?  I still think the same way.”

Marshall nodded slowly.  “Ah-ha. 
And that’s what your uncle was afraid of.”  He leaned forward and propped his
elbows on the desk.  “You’re going to be thirty years old in thirty days,
Indiana.  Thirty.  Think of it.  That old, and no man and no kids.  No life
except for running off to the favelas of Brazil to save orphans or chopping through
the bushes and jungles of Colombia to search out drug dealers selling girls as
sex slaves.  Where were you this time?  Africa?”

“Haiti,” she said, her tone
sullen. 

The lawyer heaved a sigh.  “Haiti. 
And where next?  Cambodia?”  He shook his head.  “Listen.  Your uncle wants his
bloodline to continue.  He never had kids and you, his sister’s child, are his
only hope of that.  He wants you to get cracking while your eggs are still
viable.”

“He what?”  Indie almost burst out
laughing.  The audacity of the man.  “He actually said that?”

“Yes, and more, but…” Marshall put
his hand up, “you don’t want to know.”  He leaned back in his chair and clasped
his hands behind his head.  “So, are you on board?  Can I cross you off my list
of things to do this month and consider this sealed and set?”

Indie could only shake her head in
disbelief.  Between the lawyer and her now dead uncle she didn’t know which one
was battier.  They’d probably both been smoking the same…prohibited substance.

“Now you listen to me, Mr.
Marshall.”  She fixed him with a glare of defiance.  “I have two things to say
to you.  Number one, I don’t want a single dime of Uncle Sam’s fourteen million
dollars.  I’ve gotten along quite well without his help and will continue to
survive, I’m sure.  And number two,” she raised an eyebrow, “if he’d wanted me
to be married, barefoot and pregnant by age thirty he should have spoken a heck
of a lot earlier than September twenty-three.”

For a long moment Marshall just
stared at her, his lips pursed, then he nodded solemnly.  “Well said, but let
me implore you to think about it.  You’re so concerned about doing good in the
world, do you know how much more you could do with fourteen million dollars?” 
He paused as if to let that sink in.  “And as for the timing, I think I know
what happened.”  He glanced down, shifted a couple of papers, then picked up
the will.  He reached for his glasses, put them on then peered at the
document.  “Yes,” he said with a sigh, “I was right.  He miscalculated your
age.  When he updated this four years ago he had you down as twenty-four years
old but you were actually twenty-five.”  He looked up at her, peering over the
top of his glasses like an old owl.  “I guess he was planning to tell you but
was biding his time, watching to see if things would work out.  Probably
thought he had at least a few more months before he had to tackle you on such a
touchy subject.”  He shrugged.  “Who was to know he’d have been taken out by a
heart attack at age sixty-six?”

Marshall’s speech had Indie staring
at him in shock.  She was so worked up she didn’t know what to say.  Then she
snorted.  “Yeah, right.  He thought I was a year younger?  Do you realize if he
hadn’t died when he did I would have soon passed his stupid deadline for me? 
I’ll be thirty in a month.”

“Yeah, well.”  Marshall shrugged. 
“If he'd lived he probably would have updated the will.  The pity is, he never
got a chance to realize or correct his miscalculation.  And with him being
dead, you’re stuck with it.”

“This is so stupid,” Indie muttered
as she began to pace the room.  “Stupid, stupid.”

“I know.  But it is what it is. 
Fourteen million dollars or zilch.  Your call.”  The lawyer began to slide the
documents back into the case.  “You know where to find me, Indiana.  I leave
everything in your hands.  Just remember the date – October twenty-three, by
midnight.”

And with that, Indie knew she was
being dismissed.  The man had other clients to deal with, other more pressing
business.  He was probably checking the clock to make sure she didn’t run over
her portion of his ‘billable hour’ or whatever it was lawyers called it.

And at the same time he was
dismissing her he’d thrown her normally well-ordered life into a whirlpool of
indecision.  Where in the world should she go from here?  And if she did decide
to fulfill Sam’s condition where the heck should she start looking for a man to
marry…in thirty days?

******

Stone Hudson skipped channels,
trying desperately to find a station with music that would keep him awake.  The
evening traffic was brutal, jamming up all the way from Oakville.  He wouldn’t
make it to Burlington for another thirty minutes at this rate.  He heaved a
sigh and surfed more channels.

He was one tired son-of-a-gun, up
for the past twenty-two hours since leaving Johannesburg the day before.  The
valet had brought his car and he’d driven out of the Toronto Pearson Airport
exactly thirty-eight minutes ago but still he was only a little more than halfway
home.

Stubborn brute that he was, he’d
insisted on driving his Maserati home.  Now he could only shake his head in
regret.  This was one of those days when he should have let the chauffeur come
and get him.  Damn him for always having to be in control.  He hated being in a
vehicle where he wasn’t the one behind the wheel but that ultra-independent
trait of his was certainly working against him this evening.

He shook his head and blinked to
clear the cobwebs from his eyes then stifled a yawn.  He turned the radio up as
loud as he could stand it and the air conditioning to full blast.  It was going
to be rough going, trying to stay awake in traffic that was almost at a
standstill.

Maroon five’s ‘One More Night’ was
pounding in his ears when traffic got unplugged and began to move.  Finally.  A
slight smile crept across his lips.  The images were so vivid now – home, a
soothing bath, bed, sliding under the cool sheets, his head sinking into the
soft pillows, closing his weary eyes-

Wham!

Stone’s head jerked up and he
slammed on the brake.  What the-

He blinked.  And then he groaned. 
He'd run into the back of an army-green Land Rover.  Christ!

Cursing himself for being such a
clutz he began to pull over onto the soft shoulder.  The Land Rover was pulling
over, too.  He groaned.  Just what he needed.  A rear-ending as a fitting close
to his journey of almost twenty-four hours.  He’d learned his lesson – no more
pretending to be Superman on these long trips.