His Bid For A Bride. Carole Mortimer

      CAROLE MORTIMER is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular and prolific authors. Since her first novel was published in 1979, this British writer has shown no signs of slowing her pace. In fact, she has now published more than 145 novels!

      Her strong, traditional romances, with their distinct style, brilliantly developed characters and romantic plot twists, have earned her an enthusiastic audience worldwide.

      Carole was born in a village in England that she claims was so small that “if you blinked as you drove through it you could miss seeing it completely!” She adds that her parents still live in the house where she first came into the world, and her two brothers live very close by.

      Carole’s early ambition to become a nurse came to an abrupt end after only one year of training due to a weakness in her back suffered in the aftermath of a fall. Instead she went on to work in the computer department of a well-known stationery company.

      During her time there, Carole made her first attempt at writing a novel for Mills & Boon. “The manuscript was far too short and the plotline not up to standard, so I naturally received a rejection slip,” she says. “Not taking rejection well, I went off in a sulk for two years before deciding to have another go.” Her second manuscript was accepted, beginning a long and fruitful career. She says she has “enjoyed every moment of it!”

      Carole lives “in a most beautiful part of Britain” with her husband and children.

      “I really do enjoy my writing, and have every intention of continuing to do so for another twenty years!”

      His Bid for a Bride

      Carole Mortimer

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       About the Author

       Title Page

      PROLOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       EPILOGUE

       Copyright

       PROLOGUE

      IT WAS sexual attraction.

      Pure and simple.

      Except there was nothing pure or simple about the way Skye felt right now.

      She was hot and feverish, knew her eyes must be overbright, her cheeks flushed, each breath she took painful with the effort it took to complete even such an instinctive function. Her breasts were pert, nipples hard with arousal beneath the fitted pink sweater she wore, and as for the heated desire between her thighs—!

      She could feel all that—and yet she wasn’t sure she even liked the man responsible for all these totally new, confusing feelings.

      ‘Connor, I have no intention of selling Storm to you just so that he can break your beautiful daughter’s neck for her the first time she tries to show off riding him in front of her friends,’ Falkner Harrington now told Skye’s father scathingly.

      Falkner Harrington.

      Arrogant. Condescending. Mocking. Handsome as the Vikings represented by that unusual first name!

      Overlong blond hair, which should have looked ridiculous in this age of much shorter styles, merely added to this man’s already overt masculinity, the sharpness of his features; straight brows over hard blue eyes, his nose an arrogant slash, sensual mouth twisted with derision now, his chin square and determined—all these things merely emphasized the man’s untameable appearance.

      Her more conservative father, in his business suit, shirt and tie, Skye acknowledged ruefully, looked more like a domesticated cat facing the fierceness of a jungle feline.

      Her father shook his head smilingly. ‘Skye could ride before she could walk,’ he told the other man with dismissive affection. ‘Falkner, I promised to buy Skye an Arabian as an eighteenth birthday present,’ he added before the younger man could voice any more of the derision he made no effort to hide in that arrogantly handsome face. ‘More to the point, Falkner,’ her father added ruefully as he could obviously see the younger man’s disinterest in such a promise, ‘you and I both know that Storm’s unpredictable temperament just isn’t suited to the showjumping circuit.’

      Falkner Harrington, at thirty-two years of age, was one of the top riders of the world showjumping circuit, and had been so for the last ten years.

      But, as Skye also knew from numerous newspapers articles about the man, he was as much known for his prowess off the showjumping circuit as he was on it!

      But, nevertheless, he had some nerve talking to her father in that condescending manner—because her father’s whiskey company had been this man’s sponsor for the last seven years.

      She also didn’t like the fact that Falkner Harrington seemed to see her as some little rich girl who didn’t know one end of a horse from the other, merely wanted his precious Arabian as a fashion accessory to show off to her friends.

      ‘Skye?’ the younger man echoed mockingly, icy blue gaze flickering over her with scathing dismissal. ‘With a surname like O’Hara, wouldn’t Scarlett have been a more apt preface?’ he added derisively.

      The taunt, Skye was sure, had more to do with her almost waist-length copper-red hair, confined in a ponytail at the moment, than it did with her surname!

      Heated colour warmed her cheeks at this man’s deliberate rudeness; as if his own first name were so ordinary. Although, Skye had to admit, there was no denying how perfectly it suited his look of Viking fierceness…

      ‘My eyes are a sky-blue.’ She spoke for the first time, defensively, her voice husky, the slight Irish lilt making it more so.

      Eyes of the same clear blue met her gaze with bold amusement. ‘So they are,’ Falkner Harrington acknowledged mockingly, that gaze raking over her with merciless assessment now, taking in the rounded beauty of her youthful face, the pink sweater over pert breasts, denims fitting tightly over the long length of her legs. ‘And you’re almost eighteen,’ he echoed sceptically, obviously finding that very hard to believe.

      She was five feet six inches tall, not that short for a woman, her hair, when it wasn’t confined, a mixture of blonde, cinnamon and copper, her skin, now that she had at last passed through puberty, pale and flawless, her figure perhaps a little on the slender side rather than voluptuous, but there was time for that.

      There