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The Marriage Clause
Alexx Andria
She can’t be tied downUnless he can persuade her it’s worth it…!Katherine Oliver is not interested in getting married. The only problem is she can’t keep her hands off gorgeous billionaire Luca Donato, who wants to put a ring on it! So she puts Luca to the test in an X-rated battle of wits—to persuade her that their nights of passion can turn into something more!
She can’t be tied down
Unless he can persuade her it’s worth it!
Katherine Oliver is not interested in getting married. The only problem is, she can’t keep her hands off gorgeous billionaire Luca Donato, who wants to put a ring on it! So she puts Luca to the test in an X-rated battle of wits—to persuade herself that their nights of passion can turn into something more!
“DARE is Harlequin’s hottest line yet. Every book should come with a free fan. I dare you to try them!”
—Tiffany Reisz, international bestselling author
ALEXX ANDRIA is a USA TODAY bestselling romance author who writes about bad boys with a tough exterior but a soft, warm heart deep down. She loves sweet but dirty romance with lots of witty banter—and, of course, sizzling scenes in the bedroom…or kitchen…or wherever they happen to end up—and a guaranteed HEA.
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Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
The Marriage Clause
Alexx Andria
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07118-5
THE MARRIAGE CLAUSE
© 2018 Kimberly Sheetz
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dedicated to the dreamers who have the tenacity to become doers.
Every success story started at the beginning of a long road.
Don’t be afraid to take that first step...and keep walking.
Contents
Cover (#ub89f0a61-8082-594a-850a-6efac587293a)
Back Cover Text (#ub41e6aad-a16f-5acf-a6cb-fecb20d12a49)
About the Author (#u9bb4654f-ccdf-5401-a31f-7a2203f2d0a4)
Booklist (#u9df87618-824f-5b50-ad19-0f3a0e72814b)
Title Page (#uf31977ce-7284-5f37-93e9-6ace6430aa2b)
Copyright (#uee393e14-8e85-508b-b894-9b2be0d82130)
Dedication (#u9141ad9c-6ae0-5d25-9733-8c49ba4c3b8c)
CHAPTER ONE (#ud7d53b83-e999-54db-82a6-29a3f7522495)
CHAPTER TWO (#u3c010f09-3cd8-5d6e-a9fc-292f642f08f6)
CHAPTER THREE (#u89546695-64a4-590b-a7f2-e9b399bdbb74)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u3a81adf1-395b-5b26-9610-1ee496807a40)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ucdf17050-a439-594c-90bd-210e8d45ec59)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u36704d03-5952-5d74-ac3b-a1fcfd0985ea)
Luca
MY NAME IS Luca Donato. You may have seen my mug on the cover and in the pages of Forbes, Fortune and the Robb Report, because my family is ridiculously, obscenely rich.
I’m talking Saudi prince–level money.
I could wipe my ass with hundreds for several lifetimes and still not make a dent in the family trust.
My family descends from Italian aristocracy—some royal connections if you go back far enough—and we’ve done well enough with our investments in Donato Inc. to never have to work again if that were our choice.
But unlike some in similar positions, the Donatos haven’t grown soft with privilege. If anything, our wealth has made us harder, hungrier—all about the victory.
We decimate our opponents, and the word no really isn’t part of our vernacular.
In fact, I can’t remember the last time someone refused to cave to my demands.
Until a certain redhead came along.
The one I’d chased to the airport.
Ah, there you are, you gorgeous pain in my ass.
Katherine Cerinda Oliver...my runaway fiancée.
If Katherine had thought to blend in, that spectacular head of burnished auburn hair was her downfall. Stubborn tendrils escaped her messy bun to curl around her delicate jaw, teasing wispy ends that tickled and caused her to rub her nose without thought.
My hands itched to twist in those sweet, silky curls and bury my nose against her skull. Immediate hunger threatened to override my decision to play it cool. The thing was, she was so damn beautiful sometimes all I could do was stare. I’d been a fool to play fast and loose with her heart years ago.
Now I was paying the price.
Our marriage, arranged by our powerful fathers when Katherine was only a girl, was about to be unarranged if my runaway fiancée had her way.
If Katherine had any inkling how difficult the last two years—giving her the space to do her own thing while I focused on the Donato empire—had been for me, maybe she’d be less inclined to hiss at me like a wet cat.
But that didn’t seem likely, given that over the last six months, anytime we were in the same room together Katherine did everything she could to avoid me.
We were supposed to be working toward building a partnership, courting each other, even. But Katherine wouldn’t even sit through a single dinner unless it was insisted upon by my parents.
And now she was running away from me—literally.
I watched unnoticed from the jet bridge, allowing others to go ahead of me to find their seats on the massive commercial plane. I couldn’t remember the last time I flew commercial—preferring the Donato private jet—and I saw little to compel me to do so again.
So she thought she’d gotten away, had she? Believed she’d outsmarted the Donatos by draining her accounts and leaving without notice, paying with cash for every purchase, including her direct flight to the wilds of California.
But as our wedding date loomed—it was set for this spring—and preparations had hit a fever pitch, I’d sensed something was up. My gut feeling only deepened when our last dinner engagement had gone spectacularly sideways and Katherine had practically tripped on her own feet in her haste to get away.
And when your bride-to-be wants nothing to do with you...well, it doesn’t do your ego any favors.
In spite of her bravado, she nibbled at her cuticles in her seat in coach, a habit my mother had never quite managed to drum out of her. As if hearing my mother’s sharp reprimand, Katherine lowered her hand to double-check her seat belt was cinched tight.
Then she trained her attention out the window, though we were still on the ground and there was nothing to see yet.
That hair was her crowning glory. If she’d been playing it smart, she would’ve worn a hat, at the very least, but then, Katherine was a hothead, passionate to a fault and sometimes reckless.
Case in point: her decision to run away before our wedding.
In certain circles, I was considered quite a catch—rich, handsome, fit—but Katherine saw only the man who’d broken her heart when he’d been too stupid to realize that a woman like Katherine came along only once in a lifetime.
I had a week to prove that I’d changed. Starting now.
I peeled away from the attendants’ area to make my way to my wayward fiancée.
“Leaving without me?” I tsked, startling her with the silky censure in my tone.
“Luca,” she gasped in open dismay, her brow furrowing as her nose wrinkled, as if she’d just stepped in something putrid. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing, love.”
