His Black Sheep Bride Read Free

fortune.”
    â€œIt’s been at least a decade since I was young enough to be bankrolled, as you put it,” she countered. “I support myself these days—by choice.”
    He raised his eyebrows. So Tamara’s image of an independent woman was more than mere show.
    â€œI think the word bitter applies to different circumstances—like going through three divorces,” she said pointedly.
    â€œAnd yet, the viscount strikes me as someone who’s far from unhappy with life. In fact, he’s such a romantic, he’s trying to get you to walk down the aisle.”
    â€œWith you?” she scoffed. “I think not.”
    His eyes crinkled with reluctant admiration, even if it was at his expense. “You’re a blunt-spoken New Yorker.”
    She arched a brow. “A woman after your own heart, you mean? Don’t you wish!”
    â€œMy first marriage proposal, and turned down flat.”
    â€œI’m sure it’ll do no damage to your reputation,” she replied. “You media tycoons do know how to spin a story.”
    After a moment, he gave a bark of laughter. “For the record, what makes me an undesirable marriage partner?”
    â€œWhere do I begin? Let me count the ways…”
    â€œGive me the five-second news bite.”
    â€œI understand why my father would want a son-in-law like you…”
    He looked at her inquiringly.
    â€œYou’re both peers of the realm and press barons,” she elaborated.
    â€œAnd those are bad characteristics?”
    â€œBut I also know why I don’t want a husband like you,” she went on without answering him. “You’re too much like my father.”
    Back to that topic, were they? “Would it help to point out I don’t have three ex-wives?”
    She shook her head. “You’re wedded to your media empire. The news business is your first love. You live and breathe for wheeling and dealing.”
    â€œI suppose the existence of ex-girlfriends isn’t enough proof to the contrary?” he asked wryly.
    â€œAnd what reduced them to ex status?” she probed.
    He cocked a brow. “Maybe things just didn’t work out.”
    â€œThe key word there being work, ” she returned. “Namely yours, I assume. My father lives and breathes the media business, even at the expense of people who love him.”
    He let the conversation lapse then, since it was clear they were at loggerheads. She hadn’t said it, but it was clear she included herself among the victims who’d fallen by the wayside on the road of her father’s ambition.
    They danced in silence, but from time to time he glanced down at her averted face as she scanned the dancing and milling guests, looking as if she was searching for some escape.
    She was quite a challenge. She was obviously marked by her parents’ long-ago divorce and her father’s overweening ambition, and unwilling to repeat her parents’ mistakes.
    He might have admired her unwillingness to sell herself short in the romance department. But as it happened, in these circumstances, he was the man who was being judged as not quite up to snuff.
    With little effort, Tamara evoked all his latent ambivalence. He himself was the product of an ill-fated marriage betweena British lord and an American socialite. So he had firsthand experience with free-spirited women who didn’t adapt well to marrying into the tradition-bound British aristocracy.
    His mother had named him after Mark Twain’s most famous character, for God’s sake. Who’d ever heard of a British earl named for someone conjured by a quintessential American author?
    For a moment, Tamara made him doubt what he needed to do in order to get his hands on Viscount Kincaid’s media holdings.
    Then his jaw hardened. He’d be damned if he’d worked this hard to get to where he was only to be stymied by a few inconvenient