www.millsandboon.co.uk

      The Billionaire’s

      Bride of Vengeance

      Miranda Lee

      PROLOGUE

      RUSSELL’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he arrived at the address he’d been given.

      ‘Mr Power is out of the office today,’ he’d been told when he burst into Power Mortgages half an hour earlier and demanded to see Alistair Power.

      At first the receptionist had refused to tell Russell where Power might be, no doubt sensing trouble in the eyes of the distraught young man standing in front of her desk. But Russell’s ironically truthful statement that he had urgent business with her boss concerning the tragic death of a business associate had finally elicited the information he wanted. Mr Power and his wife were at the construction site of their new home in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Belleview Hill.

      Russell had somehow managed a smile and the girl had jotted down the address.

      He wasn’t smiling now, a bitter bile filling his mouth as he stared up at what was obviously going to be a grand mansion. Amazing what one could buy with other people’s money!

      Russell wrenched the wheel of his rusty old car towards the gravel driveway and drove right up to the front of the three-storeyed building. The shell of the house was finished, the roof was on, the front steps in place. A middle-aged man in a superbly tailored business suit was standing up on the porch, a leggy blonde next to him.

      Power’s trophy wife, obviously.

      Russell didn’t stop to think, his emotions spilling over at the sight of the man whose greed had driven his father to despair and suicide. Hatred propelled him out of the car, his hands curling into furious fists as he charged up the steps.

      ‘Alistair Power!’ he called out at the same time.

      Cool grey eyes raked over him; Power was not overly perturbed, it seemed, by Russell’s aggressive approach.

      ‘Yes. Can I help you?’

      Russell could not believe the man’s lack of concern. Couldn’t he see his visitor had murder in his heart?

      Russell resisted the urge to punch Power then and there. First, he wanted the creep to know who he was and why he’d come.

      ‘I thought you’d like to know that my father killed himself last week.’

      Power’s eyebrows arched. ‘And your father is?’

      ‘Keith McClain.’

      ‘That name means nothing to me. I know no Keith McClain.’

      My God, he didn’t even recognise his father’s name! Yet Russell knew that his dad—his shy but proud dad—had gone to Power personally and begged him for more time to repay his loan.

      ‘You knew him well enough to let him take out two mortgages on his farm,’ Russell ground out, ‘when he had no possible means of meeting the repayments. He had no stock, no crops, no income. The ten-year drought had seen to that. But his land was valuable, wasn’t it? So you deliberately let him get into debt and then you just took it!’

      ‘Young man, I don’t force people to take out mortgages.’

      ‘You shouldn’t agree to lend money which you know people can’t pay back,’ Russell countered heatedly. ‘I’ve made some enquiries about Power Mortgages and that’s your modus operandi.’

      Power didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘I haven’t done anything illegal. The mistake was your father’s. He should have sold his property rather than borrow more money.’

      ‘But the land had been in his family for generations! He knew nothing else but farming.’

      ‘That’s not my fault.’

      ‘But it is your fault. You, and men like you. You don’t have any feelings, any compassion. All you care about is making money.’

      ‘Business has little room for compassion, son.’

      ‘Don’t you call me son, you greedy bastard,’ Russell snapped, a red haze of grief launching him forwards.

      The trophy wife threw herself in front of Power, stopping Russell in his tracks.

      ‘Don’t!’ she cried, her hands fluttering up to ward off Russell’s fists. ‘It’ll only make things worse. And it won’t bring your father back.’

      He stared into her striking green eyes and saw she didn’t really have any compassion, either. She was just protecting her lifestyle.

      The seeds of a different vengeance were sown in Russell at that point; a vengeance which would be far more satisfying than murder.

      Pulling away from her, Russell whirled and walked back down the steps. At the bottom, he turned and glared back up at Power.

      ‘One day,’ he threatened, his eyes as hard as his heart, ‘one day, I’m going to destroy you. I vow on my father’s grave that I won’t rest till I take everything you hold dear, the way you took everything from him!’

      CHAPTER ONE

       Sixteen years later …

      BANGKOK WAS HOT, VERY hot. And humid.

      By the time Nicole had walked the kilometre from her cheap hotel to the orphanage,