Brides For Billionaires. LYNNE GRAHAM

that she would never have a child of her own and she smiled at the prospect of a tiny nephew or niece, quelling her worries about their financial survival while dimly recalling her paternal grandmother’s much-loved maxim, ‘God will provide.’

      The bell went at eight and as she started in surprise it was followed by three unnecessarily loud knocks on the front door. Kat darted into the hall where the outside light illuminated three large shapes standing in the small outer porch. Potential guests, she hoped, needing to take shelter from the inclement weather. She opened the door without hesitation and saw two men partially supporting a third and smaller man, balancing awkwardly on one leg.

      ‘This is a guest house, right?’ the tall lanky man on the left checked in a decidedly posh English accent, while the very large black-haired male on the right simply emanated impatience.

      ‘Can you put us up for the night?’ he said bluntly. My friend has hurt his ankle.’

      ‘Oh dear …’ Kat said sympathetically, standing back from the door. ‘Come in. You must be frozen through. I’ve nobody staying at the moment but I do have three en suite rooms available.’

      ‘You will be richly rewarded for looking after us well,’ the biggest one growled, his heavy foreign accent unfamiliar to her.

      ‘I look after all my guests well,’ Kat told him without hesitation, colliding with startlingly intense dark eyes enhanced by spiky black lashes. He was extremely tall and well built: she had to tip her head back to look at him, something she wasn’t accustomed to having to do, being of above average height herself at five feet ten inches tall. He was also, she realised suddenly, quite breathtakingly good-looking with arresting cheekbones, well-defined brows and a strong jawline, an alpha male in every discernible lineament.

      He stared down at her fixedly. ‘I’m Mikhail Kusnirovich and this is my friend, Luka Volkov, and his fiancée’s brother, Peter Gregory.’

      Mikhail had never been so struck by a woman at first sight. Spiralling curls the rich dark colour of red maple leaves rioted in an undisciplined torrent round her small face in glorious contrast to porcelain-pale perfect skin with a scattering of freckles over her small nose and eyes as luminous and deep as emeralds. Her mouth was full and pink and unusually luscious, provoking erotic images in his brain of what she might do with those lips. He went instantly hard and his big powerful body stiffened defensively because he was always in full control of his libido and anything less than full control was a weakness in his book.

      ‘Katherine Marshall … but everybody calls me Kat,’ she muttered, feeling astonishingly short of breath as she began to turn away on legs that suddenly felt heavy and clumsy. ‘Bring your friend into the living room. He can lie on the sofa. If he needs medical attention, I don’t know what we’ll do because the road’s probably impassable—’

      ‘It’s only a sprained ankle,’ the man called Luka hastened to declare, his accent identical to the larger man’s. ‘I simply need to get my weight off it.’

      Mikhail watched her cross the room, his attention gliding admiringly down over the small firm breasts enhanced by a ribbed black sweater, the tiny waist and the very long sexy legs sheathed in skinny jeans. Aside of the fluffy pink bunny slippers she sported, she was gorgeous, a total stunner, he thought in a daze, disconcerted by the level of his own appreciation.

      ‘What a hottie …’ Peter Gregory remarked, predictably following it up with a crude comment about what he would like to do to her that would have had them thrown out had their hostess had the misfortune to overhear him. Mikhail gritted his even white teeth in frustration. So far, Peter’s unexpected inclusion in their disastrous weekend of hiking remained the worst aggravation Mikhail had had to bear. Always at his best in a crisis, Mikhail functioned at top speed under stress and enjoyed a challenge. The sudden change in the weather, Luka’s fall and losing battle to tolerate the freezing temperatures, their lack of mobile phones and inability to call for help had all played a part in the ruin of their plans, but Mikhail had dealt calmly with those setbacks. In contrast, having to also tolerate Peter Gregory’s crassness downright infuriated Mikhail, who had virtually no experience of ever having to put up with anyone or anything he didn’t like.

      The two men lowered the third to the sofa where he relaxed with a groan of relief. Kat thoughtfully provided Luka with a low stool on which to rest his leg while the tallest man went back out to the porch to retrieve their rucksacks. He returned with a small first aid kit and knelt down to remove his friend’s boot, a process accompanied by several strangled groans from the injured man. They conversed in a foreign language that she did not recognise. Without being asked Kat proffered her own first-aid kit, which was better stocked, and he made efficient use of a bandage. Kat then fetched her father’s walking stick and helpfully placed it next to them before noticing that Luka was shivering and dragging a woollen throw off a nearby chair to pass it to the man tending to him.

      ‘Have you any painkillers?’ the hugely tall one, Mikhail, asked, glancing up at her so that she could not help but notice that he had the most ridiculously long, lush black eyelashes she had ever seen on a man. Eyes of ebony with sable lashes, she thought, startling herself with that mental flight of fancy.

      Her cheeks pink, Kat brought the painkillers with a glass of water, noticing that the younger posh man had yet to do anything at all to help. He had also at one point complained bitterly that the other two men were no longer speaking English.

      ‘I’d better show you your rooms now. I’ve got one downstairs that will suit you best,’ she informed Luka with a reassuring smile, for he was obviously enduring a fair degree of discomfort.

      ‘I need to get out of these filthy clothes,’ Peter Gregory announced, storming upstairs ahead of Kat. ‘I want a shower.’

      ‘Give the water at least thirty minutes to heat,’ she advised.

      ‘You don’t have a constant supply of hot water?’ he complained scornfully. ‘What kind of guest house is this?’

      ‘I wasn’t expecting guests,’ Kat said mildly, showing him into the first available room to get rid of him. She had dealt with a few difficult customers over the years and had learned to tune them out and let adverse comments go over her head. There was no pleasing some folk.

      ‘Ignore him,’ Mikhail Kusnirovich told her smoothly. ‘I do …’

      The deep vibrations of his accented drawl raised goose bumps on Kat’s skin, made her feel all jumpy and she swung open the door of the next room, eager to return downstairs.

       Chapter Two

      KAT SCANNED THE messy room she had entered in frank dismay, having totally forgotten that Emmie had slept there the night before and had left the bed unmade and every surface cluttered with her belongings. Unfortunately she had no other room available.

      ‘I forgot that my sister slept here last night. I’ll tidy up and change the bed,’ she assured Mikhail as she began to snatch up Emmie’s possessions in haste, gathering up an armful to carry it across the corridor and deposit it in her own bedroom.

      Mikhail wondered why she was so nervous around him. He could feel the nerves leaping off her in invisible sparks, had noticed how she carefully kept a distance between them. No, this was not a woman who was going to butt into his space like so many of her sex tried to do, drawn like magnets to his power and wealth with little understanding of the man who went with those attributes. Yes, he was used to rousing many female reactions—lust, jealousy, greed, anger, possessiveness—but nervousness had never once played a part and was novel enough to attract his attention. It amused him that she had not the slightest idea who he was: he had noticed her total lack of recognition of his name when he introduced himself. But then why should a woman who lived in the backend of nowhere know who he was? That sense of anonymity was strangely welcome to the son of a billionaire who had never known a way of life that did not classify as A-list and exclusive.

      Kat returned for a second