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Ruthless Seduction: Pleasured in the Billionaire's Bed / The Ruthless Marriage Proposal
Miranda Lee
The ruthless playboy’s seduction schemeWhen sexy, rakish Jack Cassidy set eyes on Lisa, he knew that he had to seduce her. Lisa was the ultimate ice princess – perfectly groomed and controlled. But it took just one unexpected, long, hot night to unleash the kind of passion to which she had never dared submit. . .Did it also leave her expecting? The boss and the housekeeper – he won’t let her leave him! Australian billionaire Sebastian Armstrong thinks he knows his housekeeper inside out. Emily’s prim, proper and dedicated to getting the job done.But beneath her plain-Jane exterior there’s a passionate woman determined to move on and forget that she fell in love with her handsome boss. . .
Praise
RED-HOT AUSTRALIANS
Visit sun-drenched Australia and feel the heat
in these two intense, passionate novels
by bestselling author
Miranda Lee
Ruthless Seduction
A collection of of two sensual, steamy novels
“In Miranda Lee’s enchanting The Ruthless Marriage Proposal, Emily deals with her unrequited love for her boss, Sebastian, by resigning. But he isn’t prepared to let her go. This Sydney-set novel makes for very enjoyable reading, and Lee does an excellent job of maintaining the sensual tone of their relationship.”
“Author Miranda Lee does an excellent job…Lisa’s an endearing character, and she and Jack make a great couple. Pleasured in the Billionaire’s Bed is a great book to cuddle up by the fire with.”
—Romantic Times BOOKReviews
RED-HOT AUSTRALIANS
Visit sun-drenched Australia and feel the heat in these two intense, passionate novels by bestselling author
Miranda Lee
Ruthless Seduction
A collection of of two sensual, steamy novels
“In Miranda Lee’s enchanting The Ruthless Marriage Proposal, Emily deals with her unrequited love for her boss, Sebastian, by resigning. But he isn’t prepared to let her go. This Sydney-set novel makes for very enjoyable reading, and Lee does an excellent job of maintaining the sensual tone of their relationship.”
“Author Miranda Lee does an excellent job…Lisa’s an endearing character, and she and Jack make a great couple. Pleasured in the Billionaire’s Bed is a great book to cuddle up by the fire with.”
—Romantic Times BOOKReviews
Red-Hot
Australians
Ruthless Seduction
Miranda Lee
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Pleasured in the Billionaire’s Bed
MIRANDA LEE is Australian, living near Sydney. Born and raised in the bush, she was boarding-school educated and briefly pursued a career in classical music, before moving to Sydney and embracing the world of computers. Happily married, with three daughters, she began writing when family commitments kept her at home. She likes to create stories that are believable, modern, fast-paced and sexy. Her interests include meaty sagas, doing word puzzles, gambling and going to the movies.
Miranda Lee’s most recent novel, A Night, a Secret…a Child, was published by Mills & Boon in July in Modern™ romance.
Chapter One
LISA grimaced when the couple on the television screen started ripping each other’s clothes off.
‘As if people really act like that,’ she muttered as she reached for the remote.
If there was one thing Lisa couldn’t stand it was over-the-top love scenes in movies. As much as she appreciated she might not be a typical viewer, Lisa felt pretty sure sex was never the way it was portrayed in Hollywood.
She literally cringed when the man lifted the by now half-naked woman onto the kitchen counter and thrust into her. Or pretended to. The camera was on their faces. When the grunting and groaning started, Lisa pressed her finger firmly on the off button. She’d had enough of watching such ridiculous goings-on, thank you very much. Time to go upstairs and make sure Cory was asleep. It was after nine o’clock and tomorrow was a school day.
Lisa was halfway up the stairs when the phone rang.
Darn, she thought as she hurried on up the stairs and turned left, popping her head into Cory’s bedroom on the way to her own bedroom.
Good, he was asleep.
Once in her bedroom, she closed the door behind her—so as not to risk waking her son—and picked up the cordless phone.
‘Hello,’ she said, fully expecting it to be her mother at this hour. All her girlfriends were married with children and were too busy each evening for gossipy chats.
‘It’s Gail, Lisa,’ a woman’s voice said down the line. ‘Gail Robinson.’
Lisa decided she’d best sit down. When one of her employees rang her on her personal line on a week night, it usually meant there was some problem or other.
‘Hi, Gail. What’s up?’
‘I’ve sprained my ankle,’ Gail said dispiritedly. ‘Slipped down that rotten steep driveway of ours. I’ve been sitting here with my foot in a bucket of iced water for ages but it’s still up like a balloon. There’s no way I can do Jack Cassidy’s place tomorrow.’
Lisa frowned. Jack Cassidy was one of her newer clients. Sandra—her assistant-cum-bookkeeper—had signed him up whilst Lisa was away with Cory on a week’s cruise of the South Pacific during the recent school holidays. A bachelor, Mr Cassidy owned a penthouse apartment in Terrigal which apparently had acres of tiled floors and took ages to clean. He also liked his sheets and towels changed and his weekly linen washed, dried and put away, not something her cleaners usually did. Their standard service lasted four hours and covered cleaning all floors, bathrooms and kitchens, not doing laundry or windows. Laundry could be very time-consuming and windows dangerous.
But he’d apparently talked Sandra into finding someone who would do the extra.
Gail took five hours to do everything, for which Clean-in-a-Day was paid one hundred and fifty dollars, with Gail’s cut being one hundred and twenty. Their rates were very competitive.
‘I’m really sorry to let you down at the last minute,’ Gail said unhappily.
‘That’s all right. I’ll get someone else.’
‘On a Friday?’
Lisa knew why Gail sounded sceptical. Friday was the busiest day for housecleaning. Everyone wanted their homes to be clean for the weekend. Clean in a Day was fully booked on Fridays. Lisa had a couple of names she could ring if she was really desperate, but they were women who had not been through her rigorous training course and might not clean as thoroughly as she liked.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll do it myself. And Gail…’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t stress about the money. You’ll still get paid.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I’m well aware how tight things are for you at the moment.’
Gail’s husband had been made redundant a few weeks earlier. She really needed her cleaning money.
‘That’s very good of you,’ she choked out.
Lisa winced. Dear heaven, please don’t let her start crying.
‘Will you be up at the school tomorrow afternoon to pick up the kids?’ she asked quickly.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll give you your money then.’
‘Gosh, I don’t know what to say.’
‘Don’t say a word. Especially not to the other girls. Can’t have my sergeant-major reputation tarnished. They’ll think I’ve become a soft touch and start taking advantage.’
Gail laughed. ‘I can’t see that happening. You have a very formidable air about you, you know.’
‘So I’m told.’
‘You always look so perfect as well. That’s rather intimidating.’
‘It’s just the way I am,’ she said defensively.
Lisa had heard such criticisms before. From girlfriends. From her mother. Even her husband. When he’d been alive…
Greg had complained incessantly about her compulsive need to have everything look right all the time. The house. The garden. Herself. The baby. Him.
‘Why don’t you lighten up a bit?’ he’d thrown at her more than once. ‘You’re nothing like your mother. She’s so easygoing. I thought daughters were supposed to be like their mothers!’
Lisa shuddered at the thought of being like her mother.
Despite Greg’s nagging, she held on to the belief he hadn’t really wanted her to be like her mother. He’d certainly liked inviting people back to their house, knowing she and it would always be neat and tidy.
‘By the way, I don’t have keys to Mr Cassidy’s place,’ Gail said, reefing Lisa’s mind back to the problem at hand. ‘He’s always home on a Friday. I just press the button for the penthouse at the security entrance and he lets me in.’
Lisa’s top lip curled. Pity. She hated having a client around when she cleaned.
‘He’s a writer of some sort,’ Gail added. ‘Works from home.’
‘I see.’
‘Don’t worry. He won’t bother you. He stays in his study most of the time. Only comes out to make coffee. Which reminds me. Don’t attempt to clean his study. Or even to go in. He made that clear to me on my first day. His study is off limits.’
‘That’s fine by me. One less room to clean.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought.’
‘Will I have a parking problem?’ Lisa asked.
Terrigal was the place to live on the Central Coast. Only an hour and a half’s drive north from Sydney, it had everything to attract tourists. The prettiest beach. Great shops and cafés. And a five-star hotel, right across from the water.
The only minus was demand for parking spaces.
‘No worries,’ Gail said. ‘There are several guest bays at the back of the building. You have the address, don’t you? It’s on the main drag, halfway up the hill, just past the Crowne Plaza.’
‘I’ll find it. Well, I’d better get going, Gail. Have to have everything shipshape tonight if I’m to be out all day tomorrow.’
Which she would be. Terrigal Beach was a good fifteen-minute drive from where she lived at Tumbi Umbi. If she dropped Cory off at school at nine, she’d be cleaning by nine-thirty, finished by two-thirty, then back to pick up Cory at three.
‘See you at the school around three. Bye.’
Lisa hung up and hurried back downstairs, making a mental list of jobs-to-do as she went. Load dishwasher. Hang out washing. Wipe over tiles. Iron Cory’s uniform. Get both their lunches ready. Decide what to wear.
Loading the dishwasher wasn’t exactly rocket science and Lisa found her thoughts drifting to tomorrow.
Penthouses in Terrigal were not cheap. So its owner was probably rich.
A writer, Gail had said. A successful writer, obviously.
No, not necessarily. Jack Cassidy could be a wealthy playboy who’d inherited his money and dabbled in writing as a hobby.
When Lisa started wondering if he was good-looking, she pulled herself up quite sharply. What did she care if he was good-looking or not?
She had no intention of dating, or ever getting married again. She had no reason to. And she had every reason not to.
For once you let a man into your life, sooner or later he would want sex.
The unfortunate truth was Lisa didn’t like sex. Never had. Never would. No use pretending.
She found sex yucky. And no pleasure at all. Not quite repulsive, but close to.
She’d suspected this about herself from the moment her mother had told her the facts of life at the age of ten, a suspicion which had grown over her teenage years, then was confirmed, at the age of nineteen, when she’d finally given in and slept with Greg. Though only after they’d got engaged. And only because she’d known she’d lose him if she didn’t.
He’d thought she would warm to lovemaking in time. But she never had. Sex during her marriage had been given grudgingly, and increasingly less often with the passing of time, especially after Cory was born. It was not surprising that she hadn’t fallen pregnant again.
Lisa had been shattered by her husband’s tragic death when she was twenty-five and poor Greg only twenty-eight. She had loved him in her own way. But she never wanted to go there again. Never wanted to feel guilty about something she had no control over.
Lisa knew she could never force herself to like physical intimacy. So the only sensible solution was to remain single and celibate, even if it meant she sometimes felt lonely.
