The Hostage Bride

The Hostage Bride
Kate Walker

Fliss's father has been embezzling from Argentine billionaire Ricardo Valeron! She knows Rico is ruthless in his business dealings and will stop at nothing to ruin her father if he should uncover the truth. To save her father, Fliss agrees to marry an old friend and in return he'll pay her father's debt.But before the ceremony takes place, Rico arrives and whisks Fliss away. Has he discovered the missing money? Is he out for revenge? Just what are Rico's intentions toward his hostage bride…?

“Do you want me, gatita?”

Did she want him? Ridiculous question! Impossible, preposterous, unnecessary question. Of course she wanted him! She yearned for him, ached for him. But…

And then suddenly she knew what was wrong. “Do I want you?” Felicity managed, a thread of near laughter running through her words. “But who are you? I don’t even know your name. All I know is Rico—if in fact that is the truth.”

“The truth, gatita?” He laughed. “Sí. Oh, yes, I told you the truth. My name really is Rico—short for Ricardo. Ricardo Juan Carlos Valeron at your service, señorita.”

The words pounded into her senses like cruel blows, making her heart stop. Ricardo Valeron. The one man who had the power to make an appalling situation even worse.

The Hostage Bride

by

Kate Walker

There are times in a man’s life…

when only seduction will settle old scores!

Pick up our exciting series of revenge-filled

romances—they’re recommended and red-hot!

The Hostage Bride

Kate Walker

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

RICO VALERON brought the long, powerful car to a smoothly purring halt outside the house and drew on the handbrake. Checking his watch briefly, he turned the key in the ignition, silencing the idling engine. He had plenty of time, he told himself, and settled back in his seat, waiting.

From her bedroom, Felicity heard the sound of the vehicle’s arrival just seconds before she heard her father hurry from the dining room into the hallway.

‘Your car’s here!’ he called up the staircase, the sound of his voice echoing slightly. ‘Are you ready?’

Am I ready? she asked herself, looking into the grey eyes of her own reflection in the dressing-table mirror, then immediately away again. She didn’t like what she saw in those eyes. They gave too much away.

‘Fliss!’ Joe Hamilton was getting impatient now. ‘Did you hear me? The car’s here—we should be going.’

‘Just a moment!’

Felicity had trouble forcing her voice to work, making it strong enough to carry from her bedroom to the ground floor. In spite of all her efforts it didn’t sound right. It had no strength, no conviction. It didn’t sound at all believable.

Not at all the way a bride should sound in the moments just before she set out on her way to her wedding.

But then this wasn’t the sort of wedding she had ever planned. Not the one she had dreamed of as a young girl. The wedding she had created in her fantasies, lying awake in her bed in the throes of her first adolescent crush. Then, she had imagined herself as Cinderella or Queen Guinevere, with her groom as a mixture of Prince Charming and one of the knights of the round table coming towards her astride a white charger, ready to sweep her off her feet and carry her off into the perfect ‘happily ever after’.

Not like this.

Not like this travesty of a marriage that she had been forced into by fear and desperation and had tried every possible way she could imagine to get out of. But without success.

‘Felicity!’

Her father was getting impatient now. He only ever used the full version of her name when he was annoyed with her and she could sense the exasperation behind the word, could picture him pushing back his shirt cuff to glance at his watch in irritation.

‘I’m coming!’

What else could she say? She had no alternative. There was no knight on a white horse galloping to her rescue. She hadn’t even been able to confide in her own mother. That would have meant revealing just what an appalling mess her father had made of things, the hole he had dug himself into, so deep that there was no hope of ever finding his way out.

Unless she went through with this.

‘Just a minute!’

Drawing in a deep, sighing breath, she turned to the mirror once more, checking her appearance.