Seduction: The Billionaire's Bride of Vengeance. Miranda Lee
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so jealous. Actually, no, I’m not at all. My Leyton’s very yummy. But you haven’t been too lucky in that department, have you? I mean, I’ve never heard you rave about a guy, not even David. So, tell me more …’
‘Kara, I’m sorry, but you’re breaking up. I’m losing the signal.’
‘You bitch, you are not,’ she said laughingly. ‘That phone of yours would get reception under water. All right, I’ll stop the probing. Look, before I forget, Dad has lined up a jeweller friend of his to come to the house first thing tomorrow morning to look at your jewellery. He said Max is a fair man and will make a fair offer.’
‘That’s great, Kara. Thank him for me, would you?’
‘Will do. But you’d better come home some time tonight. Don’t stay over at lover boy’s place again.’
‘I should be back for dinner tonight,’ she told Kara.
‘No, you won’t,’ Russell interrupted. ‘You’re coming out to dinner with me.’
‘I heard that! He’s very forceful, isn’t he?’
‘More like very presumptuous,’ Nicole said with a reproving glance his way.
‘Very smitten, I’d say,’ Kara said. ‘But don’t let him get his own way too much. Come home after dinner.’
‘I intend to, don’t worry.’
‘I asked Dad about him. Dad knows everything about everyone with money in this town. Anyway, McClain Real Estate has an excellent reputation for honesty and integrity. Russell McClain, however, is a bit of a mystery man. He keeps a low media profile and doesn’t socialise, which is weird for someone in property sales, according to Dad. Of course, I already knew he wasn’t a party-goer, or I’d have met him somewhere. Dad said his family can’t be from Sydney or he’d have met them. Yet they must have money because Mum said she’d heard from Megan’s mother that he went to school with James Logan and Hugh Parkinson. That’s how he came to be in the wedding party.’
Nicole rolled her eyes. That family were incorrigible gossips! Of course, they had little else to do with their time. None of them worked.
‘Thank you for that vital information,’ she said ruefully.
‘It is vital. He’s a catch, sweetie. Don’t let him get away.’
‘See you some time tonight, Kara. Bye.’ She hung up and immediately switched her phone to ‘voicemail’. No more calls for her today!
‘What vital information was that?’ Russell asked as she slipped the phone back into her bag.
Nicole decided to be as honest as he was reputed to be.
‘Kara’s been asking around about you.’
‘And?’
‘Her mum said your family must have money because you went to school with James Logan and Hugh Parkinson.’
Russell’s heart lurched at this reminder of the expensive education that had pushed his father further into debt.
‘I was a scholarship boy from the country,’ he said truthfully enough, not adding that such scholarships hardly touched the sides of the expenses associated with going to such a school. ‘My family were far from rich. What other misleading information did she uncover?’
‘Her dad said you had a good reputation in the real-estate world.’
‘Well, I’d like to think that was true.’
‘Yet you don’t network much in a social sense.’
He flicked her a frowning glance. ‘Is that comment from you, or Kara’s dad?’
‘Kara’s dad. But Kara and I already knew you weren’t big on Sydney’s social scene, because we would have met you before if you were.’
‘I’ve never been one for dinner parties. Or gallery openings. Like I said, I’m a country boy.’
‘And there I was, thinking you were a playboy.’
Russell smiled. ‘You’re mixing me up with Hugh.’
‘Yet you’re good friends with him and James Logan, both of whom love socialising, not to mention the limelight. You can’t open a glossy without seeing a photo of one of them.’
‘We were forced to share a room together at school,’ Russell explained. ‘I think it was a case of opposites attracting, because we soon became firm friends. Then, after we left school, we flatted together at uni. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, Nicole. They’re both great guys.’
‘If you say so.’
‘So that’s it, is it? No more vital information about me?’
‘Pretty well.’
‘You’re leaving something out.’
Nicole sighed. ‘OK. Kara also said you were a great catch and I wasn’t to let you get away.’
‘Really.’
‘Look, that’s Kara talking, not me. Girls like Kara think the answer to their future happiness is a seriously rich husband.’
‘And you don’t agree?’
‘I might have. Once. Please don’t be offended, but I’ve come to the conclusion that seriously rich guys are all arrogant, ruthless, selfish bastards with absolutely no conscience at all.’
Russell only just managed to hide his surprise at this unexpected statement. Once again, he wondered if she meant what she said. Or was she being super-clever by pretending she wasn’t on the lookout for a rich husband?
‘That’s a rather sweeping generality, don’t you think?’
‘Is it? Yes, you’re probably right. My bad experience with David has made me terribly cynical. I’m sure there are several seriously rich men out there somewhere who are nice. Kara’s dad is a darling,’ she conceded.
‘And then there’s me, of course,’ he said with a superbly straight face.
‘Just because you were once a country boy, Russell, doesn’t mean you haven’t been corrupted.’
‘What will it take to prove to you that I’m not a playboy?’
Nicole shrugged. ‘I think what happens today will speak for itself.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, you’re not bringing me to your fancy bachelor pad overlooking the harbour just for breakfast, are you?’
His fancy bachelor pad …
Russell had to laugh. Life could be very perverse, no doubt about that. ‘You might be in for a surprise or two.’ ‘I don’t think so.’
‘We’ll see,’ he said for the second time that morning.
‘We certainly will,’ she countered firmly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘SO WHAT do you think?’ Russell asked Nicole when she finally made it back to his kitchen.
He’d sent her off to inspect his modest two-bed-roomed apartment whilst he got on with breakfast, knowing that seeing was believing.
‘Not quite what you were expecting?’ he added with a wry smile when he saw the surprise in her face.
‘Not quite,’ she agreed as she slid up onto one of the two kitchen stools. ‘It’s no playboy pad. But I love it.’
‘You love it?’ Scepticism abounded in his reaction.
‘Yes, I do,’ she reaffirmed with a saucy toss of her head. ‘It’s in a great position, and has everything you would ever need—an