HIS BLACK SHEEP BRIDE

      ANNA DEPALO

       “Your father wants a dynastic marriage. Real but—”

      “Loveless,” she finished for him before he could spell it out for her.

      He nodded. “It’s been done for generations.”

      Of course, it was centuries of ruthless breeding that had produced Sawyer Langsford—a man’s man, a captain of industry, a guy who seemed capable of impregnating a woman just by looking at her.

      “I’m suggesting a short-term arrangement for our mutual benefit,” Sawyer stated.

      “A short-term marriage of convenience?” she asked incredulously.

      “Well, I know what you would get out of the arrangement,” she shot back.

      “Do you?” he said smoothly.

      About the Author

      A former intellectual property attorney, ANNA DEPALO lives with her husband, son and daughter in New York City. Her books have consistently hit the Waldenbooks bestseller list and Nielsen BookScan’s list of top 100 bestselling romances. Her books have won an RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First Series Romance and have been published in over a dozen countries. Readers are invited to surf to www. annadepalo.com, where they can join Anna’s mailing list.

      Dear Reader,

      I’ve always wanted to write a series with aristocratic grooms. This one draws upon my wonderful New York City as well as the English countryside, which I grew to love while studying abroad after college.

      I hope you’re entertained (and have a laugh or two) while reading Tamara and Sawyer’s romance. It was fun watching my tart-tongued, nonconformist heroine loosen up the conservative (or so she thinks) hero. Tamara may have made a devil’s bargain, but Sawyer may wind up losing his heart!

      I also hope you enjoy reading about Tamara and Sawyer’s friends—Pia and Belinda, and Hawk and Colin. Watch for their stories, coming soon from Desire!

      Warmly,

       Anna

      For Olivia

      One

      Serving as maid of honor at a wedding was hard enough. If you were trying to avoid someone—such as your intended fiancé—it could be unbearable.

      From across The Plaza’s crowded reception room, Tamara eyed Sawyer Langsford—or as he was more grandly known in some quarters, the Twelfth Earl of Melton.

      She reflected that some things—say, an uncaged lion—were best considered at a distance. Sawyer was an unpleasant reminder of the match her father and his had given voice to making for years. And then, Sawyer had never vocalized his thoughts about marrying her, leaving her in a perpetual state of unease.

      If she was wary and even hostile, it was also because her personality and Sawyer’s were so different—he being so much like her tradition-bound but ambitious, aristocratic father.

      Damn Sawyer for being here today. Didn’t he have a drafty English castle somewhere that needed his attention? Or at least a moldering dungeon where he could sit and brood?

      What was he doing playing the part of one of Tod Dillingham’s debonair groomsmen?

      If only he looked like a dark, unhappy aristocrat fighting private demons. Instead, he was all golden leonine prowess, owning his domain and topping most people in the room.

      If she were being fair, she’d say a society wedding wasn’t all that surprising a place for her to run into Sawyer. Almost unavoidable, really, since Sawyer spent a great deal of time in New York for his media business.

      But she wasn’t in the mood to be fair. Today, as Belinda Wentworth’s maid of honor, she’d had to stand at the altar, a smile pasted on her face, aware of Sawyer mere feet away among the other groomsmen.

      As the Episcopal priest had intoned the words that would join Belinda and Tod in wedlock, Sawyer’s gaze had come to rest on her. He’d looked every inch the aristocrat in white tie and tails, his black tuxedo accentuating his masculinity and air of command. His light-brown hair had reflected gold, caught in a beam of light filtering through one of the church’s stained-glass windows, as if some deity in a whimsical mood had decided to spotlight a naughty angel.

      Shortly after that moment, the Wentworth-Dillingham nuptials had gone hopelessly awry.

      Tamara would have been consoling Belinda at the moment, if the bride were anywhere to be found. But Belinda had disappeared along with Colin Granville, Marquess of Easterbridge—the man who had interrupted the wedding ceremony with the shocking news that his Las Vegas marriage to Belinda two years earlier had never been annulled.

      Now, from across the room, Tamara watched with a sinking heart as her father, Viscount Kincaid, approached Sawyer and the two men began to chat.

      After a moment, Sawyer looked across the room, and his gaze locked with hers.

      His face was handsome but unyielding—the stamp of generations of conquerors and rulers on his face. His physique was lean and solid, like a soccer star in his prime.

      Just then, the side of Sawyer’s mouth lifted in silent amusement, and Tamara felt her pulse pick up.

      Disconcerted, she quickly looked away. She told herself her reaction had nothing to do with physical attraction, and everything to do with annoyance.

      To bolster that thought, she wondered whether Sawyer had had advance notice of what Colin had intended—and perhaps more, had been feeding Colin inside information. She hadn’t seen Sawyer near Colin earlier at St. Bartholomew’s Church. But she’d seen them speaking at social functions in the past, so she knew them to be friendly.

      Tamara’s lips compressed.

      Trust Sawyer to be friends with a villain like Colin Granville, Marquess of Easterbridge, who’d just acquired another title: wedding crasher extraordinaire.

      She looked around, careful not to glance in Sawyer’s direction. She couldn’t find Pia Lumley, either. She wondered whether the wedding planner—part of her and Belinda’s trio of girlfriends—had managed to catch up with the bride after encouraging all the guests to repair to a show-must-go-on reception at The Plaza. Or whether Pia was closeted somewhere, in fits over the nuptial disaster that had befallen them all today.

      The last time she’d seen Pia, the pixie blonde had been walking away from James Carsdale, Duke of Hawkshire, another friend of Sawyer’s, and toward the swinging doors that admitted the waitstaff. Perhaps right now someone in the kitchen was waving smelling salts under her friend’s nose, trying to revive her from a dead faint.

      Tamara sighed, but then her gaze landed on Sawyer again, and their eyes connected.

      His mouth lifted sardonically, and then he turned his head to exchange a few words with her father before both men glanced at her.

      A moment later, she realized with horror that Sawyer and her father were heading in her direction.

      For a split second, she thought about trying to get away. Run! Duck! Disappear!

      But