The Tycoon’s Pregnant Lover (European Tycoon Book 1) Read online

  European Tycoon

  The Tycoon’s Pregnant Lover

  The Tycoon’s Fake Fiancée

  The Tycoon’s Convenient Bride

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, JANUARY 2020

  Copyright © 2020 Relay Publishing Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Leslie North is a pen name created by Relay Publishing for co-authored Romance projects. Relay Publishing works with incredible teams of writers and editors to collaboratively create the very best stories for our readers.

  Cover Design by LJ Mayhem Covers.

  www.relaypub.com

  Blurb

  Romance novelist Brandy Jackson is not a one-night-stand kind of girl, but with Maximillian Benton, she’s willing to make an exception. Big mistake. Turns out, the charming, handsome man with a sexy British accent is a jerk who’s only interested in laying claim to Landon Castle, the inheritance Brandy received when her beloved grandmother died. But apparently through a cheating attorney, the castle was purchased at auction by Max. When a judge orders them to both live at the castle until the legal matter is resolved, Brandy reluctantly agrees. As big as the castle is, it turns out to be too small for her and Max, who find themselves spending more and more time together. And even though Brandy knows Max isn’t her happily-ever-after, when the heat becomes too much she still gives in to her passion. Bigger mistake. Now she’s pregnant.

  Max’s motives for wanting the castle are simple: revenge. A billionaire software designer, Max was swindled by the man who owned the castle, and now it’s sweet payback owning the thing his nemesis loved most. So when his plans are sent awry by a pretty American, he has no choice but to dig in his heels and make sure the castle remains his. Max tries, rather desperately, to ignore his attraction to Brandy and the way his heart expands whenever they’re together. Despite his cynicism about love, he can’t help wondering if Brandy might be different from all the other women he’s met. But when he believes he’s been duped by her sweet smile and sexy body, Max all too readily decides ending what they have is for the best. Happily ever after just isn’t for him. But he can’t shake the feeling he may have lost the best thing in his life…

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  (European Tycoon Book One)

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  End of The Tycoon’s Pregnant Lover

  Thank you!

  About Leslie

  Sneak Peek: The Tycoon’s Fake Fiancée

  Also by Leslie

  1

  Max Benton had come to the Grand Abby Hotel in York on business, not pleasure—but that didn’t mean temptation didn’t have a way of happening.

  These days, it was almost always business with him. Either he was sprinting to finish coding a security program to faultlessness, or he was enjoying the company of a woman. Tonight, sitting at the hotel bar with his laptop open and an Old Fashioned on his right, he was just settling into the former when the latter walked through the door.

  Don’t look, Max warned himself. Look up and it’s over for you. You may as well kiss your deadline goodbye.

  He massaged his lower lip thoughtfully with one rough finger, then cursed. He didn’t need to be thinking in terms of kisses. He had seen an incredible pair of legs enter the bar out of the corner of his eye, and he’d immediately barred himself from looking beyond that. The telltale click of heels heralded the woman’s approach. She sat down several stools away and sighed wearily. He didn’t look up. When she placed her order with the bartender in a pleasant, throaty voice, he didn’t look up. But when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed those long, lean legs cross themselves beneath the bar, and that black skirt rise up to expose several more inches of thigh…

  He looked. He was helpless not to. He kept his glance brief, drinking in everything he could of his fellow bar patron before turning back to his screen. Suddenly, he became aware of his own heartbeat, his blood pumping in his ears. She was more than he might have expected even in his wildest (and crudest) imaginings—she was a stunner, a knockout, a raven-haired beauty with a body that would make a photographer for Playboy blush. She carried herself casually, as if she wasn’t at all aware of herself or the effect she would have on any watching hot-blooded male, and her unassuming demeanor only made that blood of his run hotter.

  She jounced one ankle beneath the bar, cheek pillowed in one softly-closed palm, as she pored over a set of documents she had unearthed from her briefcase. She didn’t appear to notice him there, but appearances could be deceiving. She could be playing the same game he was, both players abiding by unspoken rules.

  Max glared at his laptop.

  He couldn’t go on like this, not with Venus herself sitting so close to him. A decision had to be made.

  For perhaps the first time in his life, Max decided that work, revenge… it could all wait. He could afford one last diversion. He closed his laptop and turned his full attention to the gorgeous specimen sitting farther down the length of the bar. The brunette didn’t disappoint; she looked up at once, perhaps compelled by the forthrightness of his stare. A light pink dusted those impeccably high cheekbones of hers, and he hadn’t even said a word.

  This was going to be too easy.

  “You’re an American,” he said.

  Brandy’s first instinct was toward self-consciousness. Obviously, this lone man sitting at the bar across from her was gorgeous. In fact, she had been surprised to find him alone. His sandy blond hair was swept faultlessly back from his angular face, and his eyes were such a vivid, gorgeous blue, their steady gaze stole the air from her lungs—and any memory of how to breathe along with it.

  He had the face of a romance hero, one of the dashing men she wrote about in her books—something she had never expected to encounter in real life. She wondered idly if he was a movie star… one of those rarified beings who was, here and now, staring at her raptly and obviously awaiting her next move. It was a dance, she realized. The question was: did she want him to continue to take the lead?

  “How did you guess?” She was all too aware in that moment of how unspectacular her accent was compared to his own. Then again, if she was a foreigner on this side of the pond, might she sound just a little exotic to an Englishman? Maybe a little Hollywood chic?

  Or maybe that was too much to hope for.

  “I never guess.” He signaled the bartender.

  Brandy realized belatedly that he was ordering another drink for her. Cocky. She raised an eyebrow, not
quite approving, not quite disapproving. “Not ever?”

  “I never make a move that isn’t calculated,” the man replied.

  Brandy calculated her own move, then, and moved a few stools closer. “Oh no? Sounds boring.”

  “Am I boring you?” The Englishman raised an eyebrow.

  She shook her head. “No. Surprising me, yes. I didn’t expect to meet anyone while I stopped over.”

  “What are you in town for?”

  His questions were so direct, they left her feeling a bit breathless. “I’m here on business,” she managed after a moment. She toyed with her drink, letting her fingertips rove the cool glass, mopping up the beads of water weeping down its sides.

  “What sort of business?” The man’s eyes were transfixed on her fingers. In the ensuing silence, he raised his gaze to her face. His eyes were so blue, they burned. Brandy drew her lip between her teeth, desperate for a spark of physical contact, and his eyes followed. She had him hypnotized, she thought. Or had he already mesmerized her?

  “Family business.” She didn’t mean to be evasive, but it was a long story, and one she didn’t wish to delve into at this moment. As excited as she was about what the future held for her here in England, at the moment, this man excited her more. He was gazing at her with unabashed hunger, and now that they had actually spoken, she sensed that his interest had been even further piqued. Maybe her curt responses added to a veneer of mystery, or maybe he hadn’t expected her to be a match for his questions.

  But all he said in reply was, “I’m here on family business, too.”

  “What are the odds?” Hard as it was to turn away from him, she did. She had drained her drink to little more than melted ice by this point, but she pretended to sip the remainder.

  “I’d say they’re about the same as the odds of me getting your name,” he replied.

  Brandy offered her best mysterious smile. She was really getting into it now. For the first time in her life, she was actively allowing herself to get picked up at a bar, and she was enjoying it more than she had ever expected.

  The man caught the close-lipped intention behind her smile and chuckled. “You can give me a fake name, if you like.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Keeping things transactional. I like it.”

  “Transactional? No.” Brandy shook her head. “That’s not the word I would use. And I’m a woman who likes words.” That’s an understatement. No way in hell was she going to bring up the fact that she was an author. Even though she was drawing on every romance heroine she had ever written to excite the conversation between them, she couldn’t imagine the questions that would follow if she revealed who she truly was.

  Or why she was really here in England.

  “What word would you use, then?” the man asked her with an amused quirk of his lips.

  Words failed Brandy in the face of that crooked half-smile. “I… I admit I’m a bit at a loss for words.” She flushed and looked down. A woman could stare into those eyes only so long before she started to ache. “My apologies, but I’m a little rusty when it comes to flirting with strangers.”

  “I’m not flirting with you,” he informed her.

  Brandy’s heart fluttered a little. “No?” What are we doing, then? Making idle conversation?

  “No.” The bartender returned, then. The man accepted his drink and passed the other to her. “I’m seducing you.”

  Brandy nearly choked on the dainty sip she had been taking. Powerful alcohol burned down her throat like wildfire and made her eyes instantly tear up. She did her best to stifle a cough and set the drink down. She could feel the man’s steady gaze; out of the corner of her eye, she saw an amused smile slowly wind its way up one side of his face.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “What makes you think you’ll succeed?” she wondered aloud. She tried to convince herself she sounded breathless due to the potency of the drink and nothing more.

  “I told you. I never guess,” the man replied.

  “That’s too bad.” She leaned in, letting her gaze linger a moment too long on his lips. “Guessing games can be fun. If I asked you to guess what color underwear I’m wearing, for instance. What sort of calculation would you be able to make then?”

  She usually didn’t do this sort of thing. In fact, she never had before. But this man’s eyes pierced her, shook her to her core, made her actually believe for a moment in time that she could be someone more than Brandy Jackson. Someone braver. What she was doing now was brave, wasn’t it? Traveling to another country, staying in a hotel her budget definitely didn’t allow for, coming downstairs to the bar well past midnight… wasn’t she looking for an adventure?

  Under the pretense of getting to his feet, the man at the bar stood and shifted between her legs. Brandy’s heart beat its wings wildly as he leaned in and whispered, “I believe that’s a trick question. As I don’t believe you’re wearing any.”

  He was right, of course.

  He made her pay for her deception many times over back in his hotel room that night. Brandy found herself pinned beneath her golden stranger, limbs quaking, breath shaking, gasping and moaning, bucking and lunging, a willing prisoner to all that he would do to her. Their lips met in a ceaseless clash, their tongues tangling, their hands roaming over every exposed, surging inch. He shagged her senseless, again and again, making her cry out in wordless, pleasured anguish when she realized she didn’t even know his name.

  It was early in the morning before Brandy was finally allowed to succumb to exhaustion. She fell asleep wrapped in a pair of muscular arms, secure in her lover’s embrace. Secure, for the moment, in the fact that against all odds, she had managed to find a storybook hero to sweep her off her feet—and not sweep her under the rug.

  One night, she reminded herself as she burrowed against the man’s bare chest. She hadn’t been promised anything beyond that.

  But God, it had been worth it.

  2

  She woke the next morning with every expectation of finding the prince to her Sleeping Beauty. What she discovered instead was a cold spot in the shape of the man who had burned hotter than Hades atop her the night before. The bed they had shared was empty, and so, for a moment, was her heart.

  “Well, you got what you wanted, Brandy,” she whispered. She fell back against the pillows with a sigh. When her head kept sinking into feathery plushness and sleep threatened to claim her once more, she heaved herself upright and rotated into a sitting position. The view that greeted her when she looked out the window was unfamiliar: cramped English alleyways and crowded-together buildings stretched on for miles (or was it kilometers?) as far as her eye could see. The sky had been a constant slate gray since she’d touched down in York yesterday, but there was a quaint, muted beauty to it all, as if the world were slumbering and she was part of the dream.

  Her life certainly sounded like a dream. How many American girls could say they had inherited their very own castle? The paperwork was finalized, the deed in her grasp. All that was left to do was to drop by the solicitor’s office, meet the purveyor of her fortunes, and pick up the key to the drawbridge (okay, so Landon Castle didn’t have a drawbridge, exactly, but maybe it was something she could have installed further down the line).

  Of course, she would have traded all the castles in England to have her grandmother back. Adeline Jackson had raised her practically from her first breath, taking over when her mother, Adeline’s daughter, died in childbirth. Her father had never been in the picture… and at the tender age of seven, Brandy had discovered the reasons why.

  Now, little more than two decades later, both of her parents were dead, and Brandy understood just how much she owed her grandmother: everything. And the elderly woman hadn’t stopped giving even after she passed away. Landon Castle, it turned out, had long belonged to Brandy’s father, and now passed to her. The house that Brandy had occupied in Charleston—which had really belonged to her grandmother—had
been bequeathed to the South Carolina Historic Society, so if Brandy wanted a roof over her head (or a rampart), she had little choice but to fly to England and consummate her ownership of Landon.

  All of this she stewed on as she sat, bare-chested and abandoned, in someone else’s hotel room. It occurred to her that she hadn’t even gotten her lover’s name—or had he mentioned it at some point during last night’s seduction?

  No. She would have remembered. You don’t forget a man like that, Brandy thought as she rose to get dressed. Not ever.

  She found the maid hovering uncertainly outside her door by the time she made it back to her own room. Brandy ducked her head to disguise her blush, although there was really no disguising her walk of shame: her heels were in one hand, her bra dangling from the other. Her one-night stand had torn it from her with such lustful insistence, he had popped both hooks off. Thankfully, she had packed more than a few spares.

  He’s no prince, she reflected again as she redressed and packed up her suitcase. Certainly, her mystery lover wouldn’t star as the hero in any of the novels she wrote. Well, maybe certain parts of him would. Brandy smirked at the thought.

  When she arrived at the solicitor’s office, though, all thoughts of Siberian blue eyes and well-endowed male anatomy flew from her mind.

  “Brandy Jackson,” she repeated her name to the flustered secretary. “My father was Charles Brockhaven, my grandmother Adeline Jackson. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, but I was told multiple times you would be expecting me.”