Capturing The Millionaire. Marie Ferrarella

      “If I’m here past midnight, does that mean I have to stay for the next hundred years?” he joked.

      Kayla was standing so close to him, Alain could feel the heat coming from her body. Could feel the urges being roused in his own.

      All he had to do, he thought, was reach up and pull her down on to his lap.

      And kiss her.

      Kayla took a step back. Or tried to. It felt as if she was trying to walk with a layer of glue spread across the bottom of her shoes.

      And then he did it. Hands bracketing her hips, Alain drew her on to his lap.

      “You shouldn’t be doing this.”

      “It’s a kiss,” he whispered softly. “Just a kiss, nothing more.”

      Get off his lap, something inside her cried. Now. Before it’s too late.

      But it was already too late.

       MARIE FERRARELLA

      This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than one hundred and fifty novels, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

      Dear Reader,

      Well, here we are, at the end of the road, reading about the fall of the last of Lily Moreau’s sons. Alain Dulac is the youngest of her offspring and just possibly the most confirmed bachelor. Tall, blond and blue-eyed, Alain can have any girl he wants and his diary is more than filled with lovely women – as deep as the pages in that book. After seeing how little luck his mother had when it came to finding a life-long partner, Alain is determined not to form any serious relationships. Why bother? But fate has something different in mind for him when a driving rainstorm has him swerving into a tree to avoid hitting a dog. The dog belongs to Kayla McKenna, one of several she is caring for. She prises Alain out of his car and takes care of his wounds – both his physical and emotional ones. And soon Alain starts to think that maybe this bachelor life really isn’t for him after all.

      I hope you’ve enjoyed this trilogy. As always, I thank you for reading and I wish you love. It makes everything else worthwhile.

       Marie Ferrarella

      Capturing the Millionaire

      MARIE FERRARELLA

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To

      Debby, Amy, Maria and all the other wonderful volunteers at the German Shepherd Rescue of Orange County. Thank you for Audrey.

      Chapter One

      It wasn’t supposed to rain in October. Not in Southern California, anyway.

      Alain Dulac was pretty sure it was a law written down somewhere, like the requirements for Camelot. As he tried to steer his sports car, a vehicle definitely not meant for this kind of weather, he found that his visibility was next to zero. Because, as the old song from the sixties went, it never rained in California—but it poured.

      And that’s what it was doing now. Pouring. Pouring as if the entire Pacific Ocean had gotten absorbed into the black clouds that were hovering overhead and were now dumping their contents all over him. He would have been alert to the possibility of a flash flood—if he could see more than an inch or so in front of him. He wasn’t even sure where he was anymore. For all he knew, he could have gotten turned around and was headed back to Santa Barbara.

      By the clock, it was a little after 4:00 p.m. But to all appearances, it looked like the beginning of the Apocalypse. There was even the rumble of thunder, another unheard of event this time of year.

      His windshield wipers were fighting the good fight, but it was obvious they were losing. A few seconds of visibility were all their efforts awarded him.

      Alain swallowed a curse as the car hit a pocket of some sort and wobbled before continuing on its road to nowhere.

      It would have been nice if the weatherman had hinted at this storm yesterday, or even early this morning, he thought darkly. He gripped the steering wheel harder, as if that could afford him better control over his car. If there had been the slightest indication that today was going to turn into something that would have made Noah shudder, Alain would have postponed going up to Santa Barbara to get that deposition until the beginning of next week.

      Archie Wallace certainly looked healthy enough to hang around until Monday. At age eighty-four, the former valet—or gentleman’s gentleman, Alain believed the old term was—looked healthier than a good many men half his age. Alain could have waited to get the man’s testimony instead of risking life, limb and BMW the way he was right now.

      That’s what he got for going into family law instead of criminal law. Not that, he’d discovered, there weren’t a host of criminal activities going on behind the so-called innocent smiles of the people who came into his firm’s office.

      For the first time since he’d left Archie’s quaint cottagelike home, a hint of a smile curved Alain’s lips. Nothing wrong with camera time, he thought. As he turned the notion over in his head, he found that he liked the idea of getting his own spotlight instead of being in one by proxy. Heretofore his main claim to fame was being the youngest of Lily Moreau’s sons. His mother, God bless her, was as famous for her lifestyle as she was for her exotically colorful paintings. At times her lifestyle overshadowed her work.

      Alain had no doubt that the reporters who’d come to cover her last show were as interested in the dark, handsome, quarter-of-a-century-younger man at her side as they were in the latest paintings that were on display. Kyle Autumn was Alain’s mother’s protégé and, to hear her talk about him, the love of her life.

      At least for this month.

      The fact that Alain and his two older brothers each had a different father bore testimony to the fact that Lily loved her men with a passion. But that passion was anything but steadfast.

      She was a better mother than she was spouse, and, luckily for the art world, a better artist than she was either of the two.

      Alain had no real complaints on that score, though. Long ago he’d realized that Lily was as good a mother as she could be, and he and Georges had always had Philippe. As the oldest, Philippe was more like a father than a brother, and it was from him that Alain had gotten most of his values.

      In a way, he supposed that Philippe was responsible for his having gone into family law. Philippe had always maintained that family was everything.

      Too bad the Hallidays didn’t feel that way. The latest case he was handling was already on its way to becoming this year’s family drama. All sorts of accusations were being hurtled back and forth with wild abandon. And the tabloids were having a field day.

      To be honest, it wasn’t the sort of case Dunstan, Jewison and McGuire ordinarily handled. The venerable hundred-and-two-year-old firm took pride in conducting all matters with decorum and class. This case, however, had all the class of a cable reality program.

      But there was an obscenely huge amount of money involved. The firm’s share for winning the case for the bereaved and voluptuous widow was something only a saint would have been able to turn away from. The company had had little to keep it going but its reputation these last few years. Which was why Alain had been brought in. He was the youngest at the firm. The next in line was Morris Greenwood, and he was fifty-two. Clearly an infusion of young blood—and money—was needed.

      Alain had been the one to bring the Halliday case to the older partners’ attention. When they won the case—when, not if—it would also lure a great deal of business their way. Nothing wrong with that.

      Like his mother, Alain was a wheeler-dealer when he had to be. He felt