Love By Proxy. Diana Palmer

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      When Amelia Glenn walked into Worth Carson’s boardroom wearing a trench coat and a belly dancer’s outfit, Chicago’s most powerful construction magnate was fit to be tied. But that didn’t stop Amelia from performing her entire act for the swarthy chairman of the board—complete with shimmering sequins and jingling bangles. So after Worth had Amelia fired, the last thing she expected was to be offered a job as a companion for his mother. But Worth hadn’t ignored her startling beauty. Now he was determined to bid for her on his own terms.

       Love by Proxy

       Diana Palmer

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

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      Dear Reader,

      Little did I know that when Amelia Glenn walked into my boardroom dressed as a belly dancer, that day would become the turning point in my life. Always a loner, content to keep my distance from people, Amelia’s personality opened my heart wider than her costume had opened my eyes.

      It wasn’t hard to become attracted to this woman. After all, her smile could warm the chilliest Chicago winds. Not only was she beautiful, but there was something inside her—a quality so precious it has no name—that turned a solitary bachelor into a man seeking forever. But winning this woman was a task harder than any business deal I had ever made.

      She didn’t look upon my wealth as a wonderful thing. She’d have rather driven her broken-down car than let me give her a new one. Amelia didn’t want handouts, she wanted my heart. And giving that to her was the riskiest thing I could ever do. But it was also the safest. For with Amelia, I knew my heart was under a very precious lock and key.

      Worth Carson

      Table of Contents

       One

       Two

       Three

       Four

       Five

       Six

       Seven

       Eight

       Nine

       Ten

       Eleven

      One

      Amelia Glenn tugged her beige trench coat closer around her body and tried not to giggle as she got off the elevator on the fourteenth floor of the Chicago office building. If only her fellow office workers at the agricultural equipment company could see her like this! The way that deathly dull job had been going lately, this was more a holiday than a favor for a friend.

      She heard her bangles bunch at her wrists with a metallic ring and had to stand very still until they stopped, aware of curious stares from the two businessmen who’d come up with her on the elevator. Wouldn’t they pass out if they knew what was under her coat!

      She walked down the hall looking for office suite 1411, where she was due to deliver a special message. Ordinarily, Kerrie did this particular one, but she was out sick and Amanda had been recruited by her friend Marla Sayers to fill in. Marla’s boyfriend was going to play a joke on his associate. It was only one message, after all, and Amelia did have the body for it, or so she was assured.

      She was lean and tanned from head to toe, with a figure that could have modeled bikinis year-round. Her long, dark hair swung thickly as she walked, and her pale, dancing eyes were framed by black lashes, in a face whose features were as perfect as a cameo. She could have passed for a teenager.

      There was, oddly, no one at the receptionist’s desk when she walked in. Perhaps she was at lunch. Amelia laughed and started toward the office door. She gathered her nerve, because she’d never done this particular stunt before, pinned a smile to her full lips and breezed in.

      Apparently there was a small conference going on. A big, very cold-looking man in a patterned shirt and no jacket was leaning over a graph of some kind on a huge oak desk. Around it were two shorter, paler men, hanging on every word. Amelia hadn’t expected Wentworth Carson to be so big. He was as formidable as Marla’s boyfriend had described him. All business, ice cold, nothing in him to attract a woman. Yes, she could have recognized him in a crowd. He wasn’t handsome, not one bit. He had a big nose and bushy eyebrows and a pugnacious chin, and he looked more like a wrestler than an executive. He fit her nebulous image of a construction magnate all the way down to his big feet.

      “Yes?” the big man asked coldly, looking up with eyes that were every bit as dark as the straight black hair that fell forward onto a broad forehead.

      Amelia smiled wickedly. “Message for you, sir,” she said. And she let the coat drop.

      The two men grouped around the desk stared, gaping, with appreciative smiles and big eyes. The bigger man stood erect and looked angry.

      Amelia had a passable voice—no threat to the Met, of course, put passable. She began to gyrate in her outlandish belly dancer’s costume to the tune of the birthday song, inching slowly closer to the big, dark man.

      He didn’t look very receptive. In fact, he looked as if he’d like to pitch her out the window. That was even better. She laughed huskily as she went closer, her hips twitching, her skirts flying, her arms uplifted with the small cymbals on her fingers to show the high, soft curve of her breasts in their metallic casings.

      “Happy birthday, honey,” she added at the end, and just for pure spite, she went on tiptoe to kiss him full on his hard, chiseled mouth with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.

      He kept his eyes open. His big body was rigid and he didn’t move, not an eyelash, not a finger, not a breath. His mouth was hard and slightly cool, and totally unresponsive. He allowed the blatant caress for an instant, and then his huge, warm hands caught her bare waist and set her roughly on her feet. They released her immediately, as if he didn’t like the feel of her taut, warm skin.

      “What the hell kind of joke is this?” he asked coldly.

      “It’s a birthday