LITMIR.BIZ

      “I have a dress for you,” he declared.

      “I’d prefer to wear my own clothes,” she told him.

      “And I’d prefer you to wear the dress I selected.”

      “I think we’re at a stalemate,” she said.

      “No, we’re not.”

      “We’re not?” she asked. She shook her head. “I know you think you’re going to get your way, but—”

      “I don’t think it, Bella. I know it. Because as my mistress, you’ll put my preferences first.”

      Married to His Business

      ELIZABETH BEVARLY

      Six-Month Mistress

      KATHERINE GARBERA

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MARRIED TO HIS BUSINESS

      by

      Elizabeth Bevarly

       ELIZABETH BE VARLY

      is a New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of more than fifty novels and eight novellas. Her books have been published in nineteen languages and more than two dozen countries, and have been included in launches in Russia, China and the Spanish-speaking North American market. There are more than eight million copies of her books in print worldwide.

      Although she has claimed as residences Washington, DC; Virginia; New Jersey and Puerto Rico, she now lives back in her native Kentucky with her husband and son, where she fully intends to remain.

      Dear Reader,

      Whenever you get a group of writers together, something interesting always develops. Something like, oh…I don’t know, a romance series. That’s what happened with the book you’re reading now. When some of us gathered in a hotel room at a romance writers’ conference and called another writer on the phone, we somehow ended up brainstorming this six-book MILLIONAIRE OF THE MONTH series.

      We came home from the conference and immediately formed an e-mail loop, and little by little, the series took shape. One of us even located a magazine featuring log homes that included the perfect lodge for the Seven Samurai to occupy in the stories.

      I had so much fun working with the other writers on this series, and I loved how it all turned out. Here’s hoping you enjoy our millionaires, as well.

      Happy reading!

       Elizabeth Bevarly

      For all my Desire™ readers over the years.

      Thanks for joining me on the ride.

      One

      As Kendall Scarborough watched her boss close his cell phone, stride to the northernmost window of his office and push it open, then hurl the apparatus into the wild blue yonder, she found herself thinking that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t a good day to tender her resignation. Again. But she would. Again. And this time she would make it stick.

      And how fitting that one of her last tasks for Matthias Barton would be ordering him a new phone. Again. At least phones were easier to program and format to his liking than were PDAs and MP3 players, a number of which also lay at the bottom of the reflecting pool in the courtyard of Barton Limited—which just so happened to be situated directly below the northernmost window of Matthias’s office. In fact, there were at least five years’ worth of PDAs and MP3 players and other small apparatuses… apparati…little gizmos…in the pool, Kendall knew. Matthias Barton was, without question, one of the finest minds working in big business today. But when it came to itty-bitty pieces of machinery, he was reduced to, well…throwing a lot of stuff out the window.

      She straightened her little black-framed glasses and plucked out the pen that was perpetually tucked into the tidy, dark blond bun knotted at the back of her head. Then she withdrew a small notepad from the pocket of the charcoal pin-striped, man-style trousers she’d paired with a tailored white, man-style shirt. All of her work clothes were man-style, because she was convinced they gave her petite, five-foot-four-inch frame a more imposing presence in the male-dominated society of big business. After scribbling a few notes—not the least of which was New phone for Matthias—she flipped the notepad closed and stuffed it back into her pocket.

      “Kendall,” he began as he closed the window and latched it, then turned to make his way back to his desk.

      “Got it covered, sir,” she told him before he said another word. “We’ll go with VeraWave this time. I’m sure that service will suit you much better than the last one.”

      To herself, she added, And the one before that. And the one before that. And the one before that. It was just a good thing Barton Limited was headquartered in a city like San Francisco where new phone services sprang up every day. The year wasn’t even half over, and Kendall had already been forced to change cellular companies three times.

      “Thank you,” Matthias told her as he seated himself behind his big mahogany desk and reached for the small stack of letters she’d typed up that morning, which were now awaiting his signature.

      His attire was, of course, man-style, too, but she didn’t think that was what gave him such an imposing presence—though certainly the espresso-colored suit and dark gold dress shirt and tie, coupled with his dark hair and even darker eyes, didn’t diminish it. Matthias himself was just larger than life, be it sitting at the head of the massive table that bisected the boardroom of Barton Limited, or slamming a squash ball into the wall at his athletic club, or charming some bastion of society into a major investment at a dinner party. Kendall had seen him in each of those situations—and dozens of others—and she couldn’t think of a single moment when Matthias hadn’t been imposing.

      He’d intimidated the hell out of her when she’d first come to work for him straight out of graduate school, even though, back then, he’d barely been out of grad school himself. In spite of his youth, he’d already made millions, several times over. Kendall had been awed that someone only five years older than she—Matthias had only recently turned thirty-two—was already light-years ahead of her on the corporate ladder. She’d wanted to observe his habits and policies and procedures and mimic them, thinking she could achieve the same rapid rise and level of success through emulation.

      It hadn’t taken long, however, for her to realize she would never be in Matthias’s league. He was too focused, too intense, too driven. His work was his life. He needed it to survive as much as he did oxygen or food. Over time, she’d gotten used to his ruthless single-mindedness

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