Read Online Her Convenient Millionaire by Gail Dayton - Free Book Online Page A

already knew the truth. In her circles, money always came first. This time she was offering him money instead of expecting to get it from him, but it made him feel the same way. He stalked toward her, advancing as she backed away, until he had her backed into a corner. “Is that what you think?” He kept his voice soft. “That I can be bought with your money?”
    â€œNo.” She came back at him. “I’m not that way, either. I won’t be sold.”
    â€œWhy not? That’s what your kind does, isn’t it?” Mike backed off a few paces, disturbed by the attraction he still felt. “Buy and sell each other, have mergers instead of marriages?”
    â€œMaybe. Some of them. But not me.”
    â€œSure. Tell me another one. Tell me the only reason you just asked me to marry you isn’t to protect that precious trust fund. So you’ll have money after you reach that magic birthday.”
    â€œThe money isn’t important, except that it will allow me to get them off my back. I’ll be able to get a place to live with good security, get a car—or hire somebody to get my car back for me. My name is on the title.”
    â€œYou don’t need money to do that. Report it stolen.”
    â€œReally?” Sherry sounded surprised, but she shook it off, going back to her purpose. “My car isn’t the point here.”
    â€œYou’re right. Money is.”
    She sighed. “Money is nothing more than a tool. The point is that my father wants me to marry Vernon Greeley, and I’m not sure how far he will go to get what he wants.”
    He frowned. “As far as violence?”
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t think so, but—” Sherry wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly looking small and fragile. “I just don’t know.”
    Mike started pacing again and ran a hand back over his hair. He didn’t dare let himself believe her. He’d been down that road before. And yet her story sounded plausible, given what he already knew.
    â€œI don’t understand.” He shook his head. “You would rather sleep on the beach than marry this Vernon guy in a business arrangement. But now you want to do the same thing with me.”
    â€œIt’s not the same thing.”
    â€œNo? What’s the difference?”
    â€œYou’re not Vernon.”
    â€œYou think I’d be easier to control? Is that it?” He slapped a hand against the wall, hard enough to rattle the family pictures hanging there, before turning to pace the other way, toward Sherry. “Do you think you can shut the bedroom door and I’ll stay out? That works when you’re a house guest, little girl, but not if you’re my wife.”
    Mike caught her wrist and pulled her hard against him. He kept hold of her wrist as his arm went around her, pinning it behind her. His other hand stabbed into her hair, gripping her head as he took what he had wanted since he’d first seen her.
    He started with a kiss, openmouthed and demanding.Sherry stiffened and he bent her back over his arm, ready to batter down her defenses. Then she melted against him.
    Her hand, the one he didn’t hold captive, slid up his back, and her fingernails dug in. Her mouth softened, opened, welcomed him, gave what he demanded. When he rocked his hips against her, hers rocked back. The kiss he’d intended as punishment transformed into passion, and he lost himself in it. In her.
    Mike slid his hand from her hair down to stroke the smooth graceful column of her neck and was moving lower when he caught himself. This wasn’t what he wanted.
    He’d wanted to scare her off, and instead he’d scared himself. He’d only known her twenty-four hours, but he knew already this was a woman he could fall hard for. He couldn’t do it again. He wouldn’t survive a second time, and he knew, as well as he knew his own name, that anything he could have