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       AUSTRALIA’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR

      by Margaret Way

      heralds the start of:

       THE RYLANCE DYNASTY

       The lives & loves of Australia’s most powerful family

      Growing up in the spotlight hasn’t been easy, but the two Rylance heirs, Corin and his sister Zara, have come of age and are ready to claim their inheritance.

      Though they are privileged, proud and powerful they are about to discover that there are some things money can’t buy…

       Look out for Corin’s sister Zara Rylance’s story, coming soon!

       …and stop by your favourite Italian restaurant as the Brides of Bella Rosa saga continues with:

       THE BRIDESMAID’S SECRET by Fiona Harper

      Australia’s Most Eligible Bachelor

      By

      MARGARET WAY, a definite Leo, was born and raised in the subtropical River City of Brisbane, capital of the Sunshine State of Queensland. A Conservatorium trained pianist, teacher, accompanist and vocal coach, she found her musical career came to an unexpected end when she took up writing—initially as a fun thing to do. She currently lives in a harbourside apartment at beautiful Raby Bay, a thirty-minute drive from the state capital, where she loves dining al fresco on her plant-filled balcony, overlooking a translucent green marina filled with all manner of pleasure craft: from motor cruisers costing millions of dollars, and big, graceful yachts with carved masts standing tall against the cloudless blue sky, to little bay runabouts. No one and nothing is in a mad rush, and she finds the laidback village atmosphere very conducive to her writing. With well over one hundred books to her credit, she still believes her best is yet to come.

      Prologue

       Brisbane, State Capital, Queensland.

       Three years earlier.

      FOR Miranda in her hyped-up state, everything seemed to be rushing at her: cars, buses, cabs, pedestrians. Even her blood was whooshing through her veins. The city seemed incredibly noisy—the pulse and beat of traffic, the mélange of sight and sound. Just to top it off, there was the threat of a late-afternoon thunderstorm, routine for high summer. Heat was vibrating rapidly to and fro between the forest of tall buildings, bouncing down on to the pavements. This was the norm: expectation of a brief, hectic downpour, then the return of a sun that admitted no rival. The overhead sky was still a dazzling deep blue, but there were ominous cracklings in the distance, the odd detonation of thunder and a bank-up of dark, silver-shot clouds with acid-green at their heart on the invisible horizon.

      She was abuzz with adrenalin. Almost dancing with nerves. The humidity in the atmosphere did nothing to bank her intensity. The crowded street was thick with voices. People were milling about, smiling and chattering, happy to be going home after a long day at work; others were laden with shopping bags, feeling slightly guilty about blowing the budget on things they didn’t need; more held mobile phones glued to their ears, their side of the conversation loud enough to make the deaf sit up and take notice! Hadn’t they woken up to the fact mobile phones were a potential health hazard?

      Of course there were dangers everywhere—even crossing the busy intersection. She could see the born-to-take-a-risk oddballs and the habitual stragglers caught halfway across the street at the red light. Ah, well! She couldn’t talk. Consider the dangerously risky move she was determined on making this very afternoon, given a stroke of luck? She only had one chance to get it right, but she had thought it through very carefully.

      Over the last fortnight it had become routine surveillance, checking on the comings and goings of the Rylance men. Billionaire father Dalton Rylance, Chairman and CEO of Rylance Metals, one of the biggest metal companies in the world, and his only son and heir, Corin. Corin Rylance, twenty-five, was by all accounts the perfect candidate to inherit the Rylance empire. The Crown Prince, as it were. Super-rich. Super-handsome. Super-eligible. An opinion echoed countless times by the tabloids and gushing women’s magazines. That didn’t mean, however, the Rylances were nice people.

      Anger merged with her constant grief. Not nice was starkly true of the present Mrs Rylance—Leila—Dalton Rylance’s glamorous second wife. His first wife had died in a car accident when Corin Rylance was in his early teens and his sister Zara a couple of years younger. A privileged life cut short. A few years later Dalton Rylance had shocked everyone by marrying a young woman from the PR section at Head Office called Leila Richardson. A gold-digger and an opportunist, according to family and friends who didn’t know anything about this young woman, however good she was supposed to be at her job. Collective wisdom had it she hailed from New Zealand.

      Yet the marriage had survived. With all that money behind it, why not? Always beautiful, Leila Rylance, polished to within an inch of her life, had become over a few short years a bona fide member of the Establishment. She might have been born into one of the best families herself. Except Leila Rylance must live her glamorous life always looking over her shoulder. Leila Rylance wasn’t who she claimed she was.

      Leila Rylance was a heartless monster.

      It took some nerve to tackle people like the Rylances, Miranda thought for the umpteenth time. She could get into very serious trouble. These were people who took threats and perceived threats very seriously. They had armies of people working for them: staff, bodyguards, lawyers, probably they even had the Police Commissioner on side. She had to think seriously of being arrested, restraining orders and the like—the shame and humiliation—only she was fired up by her massive sense of injustice. Seventeen she might be, but she was clever—hadn’t that tag been hung on her since she was knee-high to a grasshopper?

       “Miranda is such a clever little girl, Mrs Thornton. She must be given every chance!”

      That from a stream of teachers—the latest, her highly regarded headmistress, Professor Elizabeth Morgan, reeling off her achievements. Professor Morgan had great hopes Miranda Thornton would bring credit on herself and her school. She had done her bit. She had secured the highest possible score for her leaving certificate, excelling at all the necessary subjects she needed for her goal: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology. She had admittance to the university of her choice. She had the