Her Forbidden Bridegroom

Her Forbidden Bridegroom
Susan Fox

When Lorna Farrell finds herself caught up in a pretend engagement with handsome oil tycoon Mitch Ellery, she knows she's playing with fire. Mitch is the key to Lorna being reunited with her real family. He's also the only man she's ever loved–and the one man she can't have!Mitch must never guess Lorna's true feelings, but pretending to be in love leads to complications. If Lorna walks away, she loses everything. But as the attraction between them intensifies, should she take a risk and confess her secrets?

“I think this is a mistake!”

“Maybe so,” Mitch replied.

He reached out and touched Lorna’s cheek. It sent a lightning bolt of energy through her.

One side of Mitch’s stern mouth quirked. “Smile at me, lady,” he said gruffly, “and enjoy yourself tonight.”

Lorna stared up at him, mesmerized. Why did it have to be Mitch Ellery whose touch affected her so strongly?

Nothing could come of this. Mitch Ellery was off-limits….

Susan Fox lives with her youngest son, Patrick, in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A. A lifelong fan of Westerns and cowboys, she tends to think of romantic heroes in terms of Stetsons and boots! In what spare time she has, Susan is an unabashed couch potato and movie fan. She particularly enjoys romantic movies and also reads a variety of romance novels—with a guaranteed happy ending—and plans to write many more of her own.

Susan Fox has a compelling writing style and loves to take her characters on an intense emotional journey! Share in the powerful feelings and dilemmas experienced by her hero and heroine in Susan’s latest novel. The path to true love never runs smoothly, but the thrill of the chase will keep you hooked!

Books by Susan Fox

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3648—THE MAN SHE’LL MARRY

3668—THE WIFE HE CHOSE

3696—MARRIAGE ON DEMAND

Her Forbidden Bridegroom

Susan Fox

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

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE (#uc79a8241-4a13-595a-8225-8d262b1265a8)

CHAPTER TWO (#u23f26476-9fe8-519b-9a80-8e9a9427012c)

CHAPTER THREE (#u9f2c831d-25d3-5440-8d4a-6d88273d9c29)

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 ONE

LORNA FARRELL would never forget the last time she’d seen Mitch Ellery. She’d been nineteen then. Now, five years later, the memory of that terrible day hung suspended in time, burned so deeply into her heart that it could have happened twenty minutes ago.

The certain knowledge that she would—perhaps in a matter of moments—come face-to-face with Mitch Ellery again caused her memory of him to go bright as lightning. She discreetly brushed at the sheen of cold perspiration on her forehead, dismayed by the slight tremor of her hand.

Lorna had faced trauma and hard times before, so she knew how to steel herself against them and survive. This time, though, she would face calamity knowing she deserved what happened next. Her sense of responsibility was too exacting for her to ignore the heavy load of guilt, hence the reason for the sick dread in her chest and the tremor of her hand.

She glanced cautiously at the young brunette who stood next to her in the elevator. Barely three years younger than Lorna’s own twenty-four, Kendra Jackson was blissfully unaware of Lorna’s anguish. As the silent car rocketed them to the twentieth floor of the San Antonio office building, Lorna studied Kendra’s pretty profile. Emotion stung her eyes, but she continued to stare, alert to any sign that her scrutiny had been detected. It could very well be that these moments with Kendra would be her last.

Once Mitch Ellery found out she’d had such close contact with his stepsister, he would likely speak to her boss, if not also to the police. And the good job she’d worked so relentlessly hard to get would not only be gone, but the circumstances of her firing might ensure great difficulty in securing another.

Kendra Jackson. Now the fiancée of her boss, John Owen; the young woman who’d persistently undermined Lorna’s aloof distance, even to the extent of having her boss put Lorna at her disposal for small tasks and favors. Kendra had seemed to set out to make Lorna a friend and minor confidant, and Lorna had been trapped by Kendra’s friendly persistence. The fact that Kendra had commandeered her time and attention had been a bittersweet joy that Lorna had faithfully kept to herself.

Because Kendra Jackson was a young woman too happy and carefree and in love—and too naïve about the secrets and selfish motives of others—to be aware that the very efficient Miss Farrell, whose time and attention she apparently coveted, was actually her half sister.

And therein lay the reason for Lorna’s guilt. She’d known who her sister was the moment she’d heard her name six months ago. To then see her walk into the office three weeks later to meet her new beau for lunch had been both thrill and torture.

Because Lorna could never allow her sister to know who she was. Their mother had wanted nothing to do with the out-of-wedlock daughter she’d given birth to, and she’d not only made that crystal clear five years ago, she’d followed it up by sending her stepson, Mitch Ellery, to hunt Lorna down and give her wishes emphasis.

Though at first he’d restated it all with a gruff kind of tact, the no-nonsense glitter in his dark eyes and the rocky sternness of his harsh face had given his quiet words the impact of a sledgehammer.

It hadn’t mattered to Mitch Ellery that she’d been as shocked as her mother had been by the surprise meeting at the ritzy San Antonio restaurant where Doris Jackson Ellery had been having lunch with him and his father. The unstable friend who’d arranged it all had been nowhere to be found by the time Mitch had caught up with Lorna later that afternoon.

Lorna had been intimidated enough by his sudden arrival at her one-room apartment that she’d defended herself by telling him the truth: that her well-meaning but misguided friend had arranged the surprise, that she’d been as shocked and horrified as her mother had been.

Lorna had watched his hard expression darken as she’d vowed to him that she wouldn’t for the world have vetoed her mother’s choice and approached her in such a public manner.

The explanation and sincere apology she’d made hadn’t mattered a whit to Mitch Ellery. Though he’d started out with her quietly and sternly, once she’d said all that, his deep voice had lowered to a growl and the scorn on his rugged face had cut her to the quick.

He’d told her bluntly that he thought she was lying, not only about her friend arranging the meeting, but about even suggesting that she could truly be Doris Ellery’s daughter. He’d hinted that it was her own stability that was in question before he’d declared her an inept opportunist using a cruel claim to extort money from a wealthy family. On his way out of her tiny apartment, he’d threatened to inform the police if any of them ever heard from her again.

She’d been devastated by that, devastated by the notion that her mother had apparently lied about having an out-of-wedlock child that she’d given up years ago, and mortified to be thought a liar herself.

Not that Lorna was unsympathetic to the plight of her mother. Doris Jackson Ellery was barely forty by now, so she must have given birth to Lorna when she was only sixteen years old. No doubt the circumstances of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy and the act of giving up her child for adoption had been troubling enough for Doris to go through.

Lorna completely understood that her mother must have surely meant to put that time in her life behind her and to possibly forget it had ever happened. Which was an indication to Lorna that her birth and the circumstances surrounding it must have been traumatic.

Though Doris had married Kendra’s father two years after she’d given up her first child and had many years later married the much older Jake Ellery, the respectable upscale lifestyle she lived now no doubt made her leery of the scandal that might be associated with giving up an out-of-wedlock child, should it become public knowledge. Not everyone had a liberal outlook on such things. And since Doris had obviously kept it a secret from the Ellerys, they might all have considered a belated revelation of the truth a betrayal of trust.

The Ellery family was an old one in the oil and ranching community, and their sterling reputation was no doubt paramount. Kendra herself had been a member of that family for years, and if there was ever a proper young lady, it was Kendra, who clearly had been brought up with strict traditional morals and taught to behave in a respectable manner.