A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire Read online

  He’ll make her pay...

  Until he learns of her innocence!

  Self-made billionaire Kaine Michaels has just given Gisella Drummond, daughter of one of New York’s most influential dynasties, a shocking ultimatum: use her spotless reputation to save his own or he’ll ruin her family for betraying him! Kaine knows Gisella wants him, and he knows how much pleasure he can give her! But uncovering sweet Gisella’s virginity makes Kaine want her for so much more than revenge...

  Turn the page and begin a seductive journey of revenge and desire!

  “I was attracted to you, so I kissed you. Is that so hard to believe?”

  “That passion was real?” Kaine mocked. “Come here, then.” He set aside his glass with a clink on a glass tabletop. “Let’s finish what we started.”

  His wolfish gaze wasn’t what scared Gisella. He wasn’t. It was herself and the foolish impulse in her feet that had nearly carried her forward on his command to do exactly what he said that terrified her. She still wanted to see. To feel.

  “I went to the auction for an earring. I kissed a man who interested me. I’ve since realized what a mistake that was.”

  “It was,” he agreed. “A big one.”

  She shouldn’t be shocked at how vindictive and ruthless he was. She’d already seen him in action.

  “Why are you being so heavy-handed?”

  “So that you understand all that’s at stake as we discuss terms.”

  She shifted, uncomfortable, and folded her arms. “What exactly are you asking me to do, then?”

  “You’re adorable. I’m not asking. I’m telling you that, starting now, you’re going to portray yourself as my latest and most smitten lover.”

  Canadian Dani Collins knew in high school that she wanted to write romance for a living. Twenty-five years later, after marrying her high school sweetheart, having two kids with him, working at several generic office jobs and submitting countless manuscripts, she got The Call. Her first Harlequin novel won the Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First in Series from RT Book Reviews. She now works in her own office, writing romance.

  Books by Dani Collins

  Harlequin Presents

  The Secret Beneath the Veil

  Conveniently Wed!

  Claiming His Christmas Wife

  One Night With Consequences

  Consequence of His Revenge

  The Sauveterre Siblings

  Pursued by the Desert Prince

  His Mistress with Two Secrets

  Bound by the Millionaire’s Ring

  Prince’s Son of Scandal

  The Secret Billionaires

  Xenakis’s Convenient Bride

  The Wrong Heirs

  The Marriage He Must Keep

  The Consequence He Must Claim

  Bound to the Desert King

  Sheikh’s Princess of Convenience

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  Dani Collins

  A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire

  To my daughter Delainey, who was enlisted over Christmas to brainstorm an idea for a duet. “What comes in twos? How about something with earrings?” she suggested. Voilà!

  Honorary mentions also go to my husband, Doug, our son, Sam, and Delainey’s boyfriend, Alex, who were all sounding boards as I regularly asked, “What if...?”

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM CONTRACTED FOR THE SPANIARD'S HEIR BY CATHY WILLIAMS

  PROLOGUE

  “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, we’ve had a surprise offer for the entire estate by Mr. Kaine Michaels. A figure has been accepted by the family for the house and all the contents. We will not be auctioning individual items. Thank you for coming, but no further bidding will take place.”

  “What? No.” Gisella Drummond barely heard her own gasped words over the babble of discontent that rose from the crowd seated around her. They all let their bidding paddles droop in shock.

  She instinctively looked to the tall stranger who had appeared in the room moments ago. He had captivated her as he entered to confer with the officials on a small dais near the fireplace. He was sinfully sexy in a suede jacket worn with casual elegance over black jeans and a button shirt without a tie.

  Her first impression had been that his renegade appearance didn’t fit this setting at all. The Manhattan mansion was a gorgeous ode to French Renaissance style, full of antique furniture placed with care on fading silk rugs under crystal chandeliers. Marble columns held up the low ceilings, and heavy velvet drapes blocked out the view of Central Park. That man was too rough around the edges for such a pristine, refined space. Had he really bought it, lock, stock and barrel?

  Beside her, Mr. Walters cursed the man. He was one of her uncle’s longtime business associates, had asked after her family and had confided he intended to buy the house.

  Gisella was here only for an earring, but she was equally disappointed by this turn of events, probably more so. “Do you know him?”

  “He owns Riesgo Ventures.” Mr. Walters spoke with a disparaging sneer. “It’s a tech company out of San Francisco. If he thinks he’s earning any goodwill in this city with a move like that...”

  She was curious what else Mr. Walters knew about him, but through the confusion of people rising and talking, she saw Kaine Michaels was leaving.

  Urgency gripped her. She quickly excused herself and jostled as politely as she could through the milling bodies toward the door.

  For a second, she thought she’d missed catching him. He wasn’t exiting through the front doors of the entry foyer, though. His long legs had carried him up the wide, carpeted stairs to the gallery. He was moving along it with an auction house official hurrying to keep up.

  She trotted up after him and pursued them down the hall. They paused at a pair of open double doors. The official spoke to the security guard standing watch.

  “This is Mr. Michaels. He has just purchased the house and all of its contents. You can allow him to take anything he likes.”

  “Just the one piece,” he said, indicating something on the clipboard in the official’s hand. “The rest can go into storage.”

  “Mr. Michaels,” she called, wanting one piece herself before everything was sent to a remote, humidity-controlled facility.

  He glanced back at her, then drawled to the guard, “Actually, you can go downstairs and show everyone the door.”

  The guard gave her a hard look, as if he meant to include her in his sweep.

  She held up a hand. “I only need a moment.”

  Kaine jerked his head to dismiss the guard, then glanced at the official. The other man nodded and moved quickly into what looked like a sitting room. The jumble of paintings and sculptures wore numbered tags. So did a handful of furniture and other items. This was clearly the staging area for the auction.

  The earring was probably among that collection, practically within rea
ch. Butterflies of excitement batted around her midsection.

  “Your moment is almost up,” Kaine said.

  She looked to him and lost her voice as she confronted his handsomeness up close. His dark hair was short and thick, his brows bold statements above golden-brown eyes. His swarthy cheeks were smooth, but underlined by a precise border of stubble along his jaw. A goatee framed a mouth too full-lipped and sensual for words.

  Men didn’t usually affect her. Not even very good-looking ones, but a funny squiggle in her midsection teased with intrigue, especially when his eyelids lowered in lazy, male appreciation.

  She extended her hand. “Gisella Drummond.”

  His relaxed demeanor altered. His expression tightened with dismay and he raked her with a more disparaging glance. It went down to her open-toed heels and came back to her snug top with the shoulder cutouts.

  When he met her eyes again, she felt the impact as though she had walked into an invisible wall, one that teemed with icy electrical currents. They wrapped around her and squeezed the breath from her lungs.

  He snorted in a way that suggested he couldn’t believe her gall.

  It was highly disconcerting. She was usually very well received by men. Not just for her various wealthy and respectable contacts, either. She was naturally blessed with the slender height and patrician bone structure seen in ads for swimsuits and makeup.

  Her beauty was as much hindrance as strength so she didn’t often use her looks for leverage, but this was battle conditions. She was on the verge of losing something she’d waited years to acquire.

  She tried to melt his sudden frost with a warm smile, but it felt forced.

  “I know who you are, Ms. Barsi.” He only looked at her hand, didn’t take it.

  She let it drop along with her smile. Her heart also seemed to slump uselessly for a moment before she gathered herself with affront.

  “I wasn’t trying to misrepresent myself. I use my father’s name.” Not that it should matter either way. Her family was complicated, but she was a Barsi in her heart, if not by blood. The Barsis were a well-regarded family here in New York. Counting herself among them was an honor.

  Yet it held no sway over him. If anything, her being one of them seemed to provoke a disdainful tic in his cheek.

  “Sir?” the official said, returning from the auction room. “You’re sure this is all you want for the moment?” He held a velvet box in his hands.

  “Yes.” Kaine moved into a nearby bedroom. His lip curled with distaste as he took in the canopied bed, the sitting area of ornate boudoir furniture and the heavy blue drapes framing a view over Central Park.

  Gisella followed, wishing she’d been able to leave work early enough for the guided tour. It was a one-of-a-kind home and prime real estate. Her parents had money, but no one in Gisella’s family was in a position to buy a house like this, especially if they didn’t love it, which Kaine clearly didn’t.

  The official handed him the velvet box. “I’ll have the paperwork ready for you to sign when you come downstairs. Will you consider private offers on anything?”

  “Everything but this. You can handle that for me?”

  “Of course, sir.” The official waited for Kaine’s nod of dismissal, then hurried out, leaving Gisella alone with him.

  Wait. He hadn’t bought a house to get one item, had he?

  Kaine tucked the velvet box into the pocket of his jacket without opening it.

  Gisella’s stomach swooped with dread. “What was that?”

  She moved with panic to where a makeup table and dresser top held a number of open jewelry boxes, all with numbered tags on them. She scanned for the earring she’d only ever seen in the catalog for this auction. Several pairs of earrings were on display, but no orphans.

  It wasn’t here. She scanned again, her sense of loss visceral. She was going cold with shock while a shot of adrenaline hit her heart, sending a stinging throb through her limbs. How could she be this close after so long and lose?

  “Was that an earring?” She swung around.

  He gave her a blithe smile. I know who you are, Ms. Barsi.

  She was fully taken aback. A wild suspicion came into her head and out her mouth before she’d had time to absorb how ridiculous it was. “You did not just buy a house to get that earring!”

  “It was the most expedient means of getting what I want before anyone else.”

  Shock hit in waves. He really had bought the house for the earring. And there were other people after her grandmother’s earring? Enough that he’d gone after it this aggressively? That made no sense. It was one earring.

  “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but it’s not that valuable. It’s not worth a house. Not this house. Why didn’t you just bid on it?”

  “Buying the house serves other purposes. And I don’t have time to play game shows all day. Shall we?” He waved to invite her to leave.

  “No.” She put out a hand, used to having control of most situations, but she was utterly at a loss. It was the stakes, she told herself. She had been hunting that earring for more than a decade. She had been so sure she would take it home today and now her stomach was knotting with gross disappointment.

  No. She straightened her spine, mentally smoothing the wrinkles from her normally smooth, aloof confidence.

  “I’d like to make you an offer for it.” He’d said he would take some, right?

  On everything but this.

  His expression grew both alert and satisfied. He cocked his head slightly, gaze scanning her features, taking his time studying her brow and cheekbones, her jaw and mouth. Almost as though he was memorizing them.

  “Why do you want it so badly?” he asked. “If it’s not that valuable?”

  She licked her lips self-consciously while a scent of danger had her heart doing one of those skips that showed up in movies as a jag of returned life on heart monitors. Her whole body suffused with tingling heat. The air between them crackled.

  “It has sentimental value for my grandmother.” And her grandmother was growing frail. Gisella wanted to put it in her pale, elderly hand before another health issue arose to alarm all of them.

  “You care about her very deeply.” He seemed to delve into her soul with his piercing golden eyes.

  “I do.” A lilt of hope infused the words as she sensed he was coming around. “She’s a very special woman.”

  “I’m sure you take after her.” It was a thick piece of flattery, something she knew better than to fall for. Even so, his smoky voice caused her to blush.

  It was inexplicable. He wasn’t going out of his way to stoke the sexual awareness between them. She was simply aware it was there. Intensely aware. She didn’t know why she was reacting to him so blatantly. She wasn’t even sure she liked him. He seemed quite arrogant and ruthless.

  But fascinating. She knew a lot of rich and powerful men. None radiated this innate confidence. None wore impervious armor that begged her to see if she could pierce it.

  Maybe if she’d had lovers, she would have found her sensual side long ago, but she had a silly pact with her cousin to wait for that elusive thing Rozalia kept insisting was real—love.

  Gisella had been humoring Rozi when she had made her vow of chastity. They’d been thirteen and sex had sounded ridiculous enough that Gisella had been happy to put it off. Until now, she hadn’t met a man who had tempted her enough to break her promise.

  But here she was, locking gazes in a staredown that filled her with anticipation. So much so, if he slid his attention downward, he’d see her nipples straining visibly against the lace of her bra and the light jersey of her top.

  “How much would you like for it?” she asked, struggling to stay on task.

  “It’s not for sale.”

  He sounded so firm, so smug, she scowled in consternation.

 
“Such a beautiful face shouldn’t wear such an angry frown.” He ambled closer and grazed her jaw with the side of his knuckle. “It might stay that way. Shall we go?”

  She ignored the way his light touch made her breath stutter and tightened her mouth with resolve. She was an only child, used to getting everything she wanted.

  “How can I persuade you to change your mind?”

  “You can’t.” His mouth pulled into a wicked grin. “But I’m tempted to let you try.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t use sexual favors to get what I want,” she informed him coldly. “If I kiss a man, it’s because I want to.” There. It was a dropped glove, but it was true. If she thought a man boorish, she told him so.

  If she found a man enthralling... Well, he was the first to fascinate her like this. She wondered if he might become her first in other ways. This power struggle was inordinately exciting.

  “Is that so,” he murmured. All the humor bled out of his expression, leaving it full of grave angles. He seemed to consider her words while the backs of his fingers continued to caress her throat where her pulse thrummed like a hummingbird’s wings.

  What was she doing? This was madness. He was a stranger. Voices were conversing in a nearby room.

  But she wanted him to kiss her. It wasn’t about the earring. He was unlike any man she had ever met. If he walked away and she didn’t at least know what it felt like to have his mouth on hers, she would always wonder.

  She stared into eyes that had become the incendiary gleam of liquid gold and dared him to make her day.

  His hand came back to her jaw, his touch firm as he bent his head.

  He claimed her mouth without ceremony, as if they’d been kissing like this every night for years. And, oh, did he know how to kiss.

  This was what she had sought all her life. A man who met her strong personality with an even stronger one. One who took her out of herself with a twist of his mouth against hers, parting her lips and sinking into a hungry, passionate ravaging that dismantled her even as he promised she would be safe in his strong arms.