A Self-Made Man

A Self-Made Man
Kathleen O'Brien

Adam Kendall: He's rich, he's powerful–he's a man who gets what he wants. When he left town, he was a nobody. Now he's the somebody everyone wants to know–everyone except Lacy Morgan.Lacy Mayfair Morgan: After Adam left, Lacy married money–but only because she had no other choice. Some would say she's worked even harder than Adam to get what she has. But Adam has his doubts.Adam's never forgiven Lacy for lying to him all those years ago. And now that she can afford it, he's going to make her pay.

“Hello, Adam. Welcome back.”

“Hello, Mrs. Morgan,” he replied, and Lacy wondered whether anyone else could hear the slow, scathing emphasis on her name. “You’re looking particularly…prosperous. Marriage seems to have agreed with you.”

“And traveling has obviously agreed with you, Adam,” she observed pointedly, scanning his well-cut tuxedo in deliberate replication of his earlier perusal of her. “You’re polished to a rather high gloss yourself.”

“Apparently, we’ve both learned the value of wearing the right uniform.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Uniform?”

“Yes. After all, if you don’t suit up, they won’t let you play, will they?”

She took a moment to breathe past her anger. Perhaps his clothing was just a costume to disguise the irreverent rebel he’d always been, but her transformation was deeper, more fundamental. She hadn’t “suited up” to play a poised young widow. She had changed far more than her gown. She was no longer naive, desperate or foolish.

“I really wouldn’t know,” she said coolly. “Unfortunately, I have very little time to play. Which reminds me, I should be getting back to the other guests. Perhaps you’d like to see some of our more expensive paintings. After all, now that you’ve gone to the trouble of suiting up as a rich philanthropist, we wouldn’t want to deny you the chance to get in the game.”

Dear Reader,

We’ve all made more mistakes than we can count. We’ve stumbled and grumbled. We’ve misjudged, misbehaved and just generally messed up. The road not taken haunts us, and the road we did take is littered with our mistakes.

But sometimes we get lucky—sometimes life offers us a second chance. And, if we’ve learned anything, we try to do better, to be kinder, wiser, stronger. We use our new chance to fight our way to happiness.

When Adam Kendall, the hero of A Self-Made Man, comes back to Pringle Island, the home he left ten years ago, he isn’t looking for a second chance. He’s looking for revenge. Lacy Morgan, the childhood sweetheart he abandoned, doesn’t want to start over, either. She just wants to be left alone.

But somehow these two wounded people, who thought it was too late for happiness, discover that they learned something very special during those lonely years apart.

They learned how to forgive. And they learned how to love.

I hope you enjoy their story. And I hope that your days, too, will be filled with love and happiness…and all the second chances you need!

Warmly,

Kathleen O’Brien

A Self-Made Man

Kathleen O’Brien

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To Manning, who proves daily that “happily ever after”

isn’t just something you read about in books.

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 FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

“OH, MY LORD, WHAT’S THE matter with the baby?” The horrified bellow could be heard fifty yards away. “Lacy! Where are you? The baby is upside down!”

The chatter in the crowded riding arena skipped a heartbeat. More than a hundred guests had gathered in the cleverly converted Barnhardt stables, expecting to be lavishly feted in return for their financial support of the new Pringle Island General Hospital Neonatal Unit. This development—an upside-down baby—was clearly quite a surprise.

“Lacy! Come here!”

Under the soft light from overhead fixtures, two dozen faces turned toward Lacy Morgan with expressions of well-bred curiosity. Down along the main aisle, which had once housed the eight Barnhardt horses, other guests poked their heads inquisitively out from the individual stalls, where they had been viewing the items placed for auction.

“Lacy, come quick!” The call grew shrill. “Lacy, for heaven’s sake, come look at this baby!”

Lacy sighed internally, recognizing Tilly Barnhardt’s voice immediately. No one but Tilly could hit that particular note and hold it quite that long. And no one but that eccentric elderly matron would have dreamed of interrupting this glittering event, the kickoff fund-raiser for the neonatal wing, with such a dreadful caterwauling.

“Excuse me. I believe I’m being paged.” Lacy bestowed an apologetic smile on her companion, a gentleman who, for the past half an hour, had been telling her everything any human could want to know about corn options—and perhaps, if she were truthful, just a little more. Murmuring reassuring noises at the other guests, she plucked a champagne flute deftly from a passing waiter’s tray and, lifting her long blue silk skirt slightly with one hand, she glided across the softly polished hardwood floors toward the echoing wail.