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Taming of the Two
Elizabeth Harbison
TAMING OF THE ICE PRINCESS…Tired of her sister's meddling in her love life, Kate Gregory knows their ancient-fashioned father won't bless her sister's wedding plans until she finds someone. And she discovers the perfect candidate when her childhood nemesis returns to save his family's ranch. Pretending to fall for Ben Devere will achieve two goals–1) She'll get revenge for his careless handling of her childhood heart and 2) Her sister will get out of her hair!But what seems like a foolproof plan soon goes deliciously awry. Because 1) The Bad Boy Next Door is nothing like she remembers; 2) His kisses are even more memorable than his pranks and 3) He's got his own agenda for her!
“With any luck, we won’t have to do this again,” he said
He trailed his fingertips lightly down her arms. Her skin was soft and smooth. He didn’t think he’d ever touched such soft skin as hers. He lowered his mouth onto hers. Her mouth was warm and soft, her breath sweet. She responded to his kiss immediately.
“Good. Now look like you’re enjoying yourself. This is looking more like sexual harassment than love.”
“It’s…not…love,” she breathed.
“No kidding,” he said against her skin. “But if you could possibly act like a warm-blooded woman, you might not ruin everything we’re trying to achieve.”
“Maybe you just don’t warm my blood,” she said haughtily, but her voice quivered at the end.
“Sweetheart, I haven’t even turned the burner on and you’re boiling.”
Dear Reader,
As the days get shorter and the approaching holidays bring a buzz to the crisp air, nothing quite equals the joy of reuniting with family and catching up on the year’s events. This month’s selections all deal with family matters, be it making one’s own family, dealing with family members or doing one’s family duty.
Desperate to save his family ranch, the hero in Elizabeth Harbison’s Taming of the Two (#1790) enters into a bargain that could turn a pretend relationship into the real deal. This is the second title in the SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE trilogy. A die-hard bachelor gets a taste of what being a family man is like when he rescues a beautiful stranger and her adorable infant from a deadly blizzard, in Susan Meier’s Snowbound Baby (#1791)—part of the author’s BRYANT BABY BONANZA continuity. Carol Grace continues her FAIRY TALE BRIDES miniseries with His Sleeping Beauty (#1792) in which a woman sheltered by her overprotective parents gains the confidence to strike out on her own after her handsome—but cynical—neighbor catches her sleepwalking in his garden! Finally, in The Marine and Me (#1793), the next installment in Cathie Linz’s MEN OF HONOR series, a soldier determined to outwit his matchmaking grandmother and avoid the marriage landmine gets bushwhacked by his supposedly dowdy neighbor.
Be sure to come back next month when Karen Rose Smith and Shirley Jump put their own spins on Shakespeare and the Dating Game, respectively!
Happy reading.
Ann Leslie Tuttle
Associate Senior Editor
Taming of the Two
Elizabeth Harbison
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Books by Elizabeth Harbison
Silhouette Romance
A Groom for Maggie #1239
Wife Without a Past #1258
Two Brothers and a Bride #1286
True Love Ranch #1323
* (#litres_trial_promo)Emma and the Earl #1410
* (#litres_trial_promo)Plain Jane Marries the Boss #1416
* (#litres_trial_promo)Annie and the Prince #1423
* (#litres_trial_promo)His Secret Heir #1528
A Pregnant Proposal #1553
Princess Takes a Holiday #1643
The Secret Princess #1713
Taming of the Two #1790
Silhouette Special Edition
Drive Me Wild #1476
Midnight Cravings #1539
How To Get Your Man #1685
Silhouette Books
Lone Star Country Club
Mission Creek Mother-To-Be
ELIZABETH HARBISON
has been an avid reader for as long as she can remember. After devouring the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden series in grade school, she moved on to the suspense of Mary Stewart, Dorothy Eden and Daphne du Maurier, just to name a few. From there it was a natural progression to writing, although early efforts have been securely hidden away in the back of a closet.
After authoring three cookbooks, Elizabeth turned her hand to writing romances and hasn’t looked back. Her second book for Silhouette Romance, Wife Without a Past, was a 1998 finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award in the Best Traditional Romance category.
Elizabeth lives in Maryland with her husband, John, daughter Mary Paige, and son Jack, as well as two dogs, Bailey and Zuzu. She loves to hear from readers and you can write to her at c/o Box 1636, Germantown, MD 20875.
To Miss Erin Sears, a heroine-in-training and Trey Sears, my boy’s best pal
Contents
Chapter One (#u2bfd8a23-a8a2-5c02-85ac-a5f0c27eb61a)
Chapter Two (#u1d2a2794-f440-5200-8cf1-ec45ad9e74c1)
Chapter Three (#u20a08048-00a9-5294-a382-2c6497234bce)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Kate Gregory couldn’t believe what her sister was asking her to do. “No way,” she said firmly, rolling on her squeaky wooden desk chair back to her desk, effectively turning her back on her sister. “I am not getting involved in this ridiculous plan of yours.”
“But, Katie.” Bianca whined behind her, like the little sister she was twenty years ago instead of the grown woman she was today. “It’s a good cause. Think about it—it’s romantic. Don’t you have at least a little tiny bit of romance in your soul?”
Kate turned her chair around to face her sister. Now this was a question she could answer easily. “No. Not even a little tiny bit.” No way. Romance was a gamble, and she was fed up with gambling in life.
“Kate!” Bianca was aghast. “You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, yes, I do.” Kate smiled and turned back to the ledgers she was trying to balance for Gregory Farms, her family’s Texas business, arguably the finest racehorse breeders in the west.
It was the perfect metaphor for Bianca’s question, actually. For the past forty years, the Gregory family had lived through feast or famine, depending on horses’ bloodlines, track conditions, weather, jockeys’ health and drinking habits, voodoo and a host of other variables that couldn’t be controlled.
She was looking forward to leaving. Already she’d saved a considerable amount of money, and once she hit her goal, she was moving to Dallas—close enough to be here for her father and sister if they needed her, but far enough to be out of the business—to start a new career. Probably as an elementary school teacher. Early childhood education, people in Avon Lake might be surprised to know, was what she’d gotten her college bachelor’s degree in.
Some people might have said the racing life was an exciting life, but not Kate. Though she loved the animals, she could still remember some difficult early years when her family had subsisted on rice and beans and lived under constant threat of losing their home. Mother crying, father impatient, children ignored…it had been a very stressful life.
Bianca had been young then, and was lucky enough to have forgotten the worst of it. Bianca believed she had lived a life of nothing but happy prosperity.
Frankly it made her act like a bit of a spoiled brat sometimes.
Like now.
“Katie.” Bianca whirled Kate’s office chair around to face her. “Please.”
“No.”
“Do it for me.”
Kate shook her head, unable to fully comprehend her sister’s selfishness. “No, Bianca. I am not getting married for you.” It was incredible that she actually had to say it at all, much less over and over again.
“You don’t have to really get married,” Bianca hastened to correct her. “Just tell Daddy you are. As long as he believes you’re getting married, I can go ahead and plan my wedding.”
Kate dropped her hands in her lap and looked at her sister coolly. “Tell Daddy I’m getting married.”
Bianca nodded eagerly. “That’s right.”
“Invent a fiancе, plan a fake wedding, move into an imaginary home, and churn out and raise pretend children, presumably for the next thirty or forty years, until I retire with my nonexistent husband to bounce grandchildren I never had on my knee.”
“Well…” It looked as though the light was finally dawning on Bianca. “I guess you’re right.”
Kate threw her hands in the air. “Hallelujah. She has finally seen the light.”
Bianca nodded. And for a moment it seemed she had really seen the idiocy of her plan. But then she said, “We’ll have to find a real guy.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Or maybe hire an actor.”
Kate’s jaw dropped. She gave Bianca a full ten, fifteen seconds to laugh and say she was kidding, but Bianca’s face remained completely serious. “Do you hear what you’re saying?” Kate asked at last. “Now you want to hire an actor? And have me pretend to marry him?”
“Well…”
“All this so you can mollify Dad’s old-fashioned, narrow-minded, Old World chauvinism? No way.”
Henry Gregory was adamant that his younger daughter couldn’t marry until his oldest had. But she knew it had come from the same place so many of his ideas about men and women came from: the old country and his own strict upbringing.
Before Kate’s mother had died, her father had left the business of the children to her. He’d been the parent who played with the girls, the soft touch who’d always had a smile and a wink for them even when they were in trouble.
But once Kate’s mother, Helen, had passed away, Henry had been like a lost animal, pacing the floors and trying to figure out the ways of the girls who, up to then, had just been playthings. Once he had the sole responsibility of raising Kate and Bianca, he had taken the job very seriously, even at the expense of losing his softer side with them.
“What else can I do?”
“You and Victor should just get married. Just do it. Elope. Dad will get over it.”
“What if he doesn’t? What if I do that and he disowns me and fires Victor?” Victor Blume was Bianca’s fiancе and her father’s top trainer.
“There’s no way he’s going to fire Victor,” Kate said, “he’s too valuable. And as for disowning you, that’s just silly.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he loves you, Bianca, and he wants you to be happy. Even if it means going against his crazy outdated sixteenth-century notions of propriety.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not.” Kate looked at her sister and shook her head firmly. “Look, I promise he’s just being an old blowhard.”
Bianca looked unconvinced. “Well, if you think about it, he’s really only looking after you. He doesn’t want you to be a lonely old spinster. You could give him real peace of mind if you convinced him you were happily engaged to someone.”
Kate gave her sister a long hard look before turning back to the desk and picking up a pen. It wasn’t worth responding to such an idiotic contention. “This conversation is finished, Bianca. Close the door on your way out, would you?” She looked back at the ledger and found the thing she was looking for. An item marked “Fire Essence” with a deposit amount of four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.
