Australia's Most Eligible Bachelor / The Bridesmaid's Secret

There was something in his tone: in the depths of his brilliant dark eyes.

Eyes say more than words ever can.

What were hers saying? That she wanted to leap up, go to him, hug him, tell him she had missed him dreadfully in spite of all the wonderful times she’d been having?

Common sense won over. This was Corin Rylance. Dalton Rylance’s son and heir. A family worth billions. These were important people, who mattered. Corin was way out of her league.

There can be no future in this, Miranda thought. All you stand to gain is heartbreak.

Australia’s Most Eligible Bachelor

By

Margaret Way
The Bridesmaid’s Secret

By

Fiona Harper

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AUSTRALIA’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR

by Margaret Way

heralds the start of:

THE RYLANCE DYNASTY

The lives & loves of Australia’s most powerful family

Growing up in the spotlight hasn’t been easy, but the two Rylance heirs, Corin and his sister Zara, have come of age and are ready to claim their inheritance.

Though they are privileged, proud and powerful they are about to discover that there are some things money can’t buy…

Look out for Corin’s sister Zara Rylance’s story, coming soon!

…and stop by your favourite Italian restaurant as the Brides of Bella Rosa saga continues with:

THE BRIDESMAID’S SECRET by Fiona Harper

Australia’s Most Eligible Bachelor

By

Margaret way

MARGARET WAY, a definite Leo, was born and raised in the subtropical River City of Brisbane, capital of the Sunshine State of Queensland. A Conservatorium trained pianist, teacher, accompanist and vocal coach, she found her musical career came to an unexpected end when she took up writing—initially as a fun thing to do. She currently lives in a harbourside apartment at beautiful Raby Bay, a thirty-minute drive from the state capital, where she loves dining al fresco on her plant-filled balcony, overlooking a translucent green marina filled with all manner of pleasure craft: from motor cruisers costing millions of dollars, and big, graceful yachts with carved masts standing tall against the cloudless blue sky, to little bay runabouts. No one and nothing is in a mad rush, and she finds the laidback village atmosphere very conducive to her writing. With well over one hundred books to her credit, she still believes her best is yet to come.

Prologue

Brisbane, State Capital, Queensland.

Three years earlier.

FOR Miranda in her hyped-up state, everything seemed to be rushing at her: cars, buses, cabs, pedestrians. Even her blood was whooshing through her veins. The city seemed incredibly noisy—the pulse and beat of traffic, the mélange of sight and sound. Just to top it off, there was the threat of a late-afternoon thunderstorm, routine for high summer. Heat was vibrating rapidly to and fro between the forest of tall buildings, bouncing down on to the pavements. This was the norm: expectation of a brief, hectic downpour, then the return of a sun that admitted no rival. The overhead sky was still a dazzling deep blue, but there were ominous cracklings in the distance, the odd detonation of thunder and a bank-up of dark, silver-shot clouds with acid-green at their heart on the invisible horizon.

She was abuzz with adrenalin. Almost dancing with nerves. The humidity in the atmosphere did nothing to bank her intensity. The crowded street was thick with voices. People were milling about, smiling and chattering, happy to be going home after a long day at work; others were laden with shopping bags, feeling slightly guilty about blowing the budget on things they didn’t need; more held mobile phones glued to their ears, their side of the conversation loud enough to make the deaf sit up and take notice! Hadn’t they woken up to the fact mobile phones were a potential health hazard?

Of course there were dangers everywhere—even crossing the busy intersection. She could see the born-to-take-a-risk oddballs and the habitual stragglers caught halfway across the street at the red light. Ah, well! She couldn’t talk. Consider the dangerously risky move she was determined on making this very afternoon, given a stroke of luck? She only had one chance to get it right, but she had thought it through very carefully.

Over the last fortnight it had become routine surveillance, checking on the comings and goings of the Rylance men. Billionaire father Dalton Rylance, Chairman and CEO of Rylance Metals, one of the biggest metal companies in the world, and his only son and heir, Corin. Corin Rylance, twenty-five, was by all accounts the perfect candidate to inherit the Rylance empire. The Crown Prince, as it were. Super-rich. Super-handsome. Super-eligible. An opinion echoed countless times by the tabloids and gushing women’s magazines. That didn’t mean, however, the Rylances were nice people.

Anger merged with her constant grief. Not nice was starkly true of the present Mrs Rylance—Leila—Dalton Rylance’s glamorous second wife. His first wife had died in a car accident when Corin Rylance was in his early teens and his sister Zara a couple of years younger. A privileged life cut short. A few years later Dalton Rylance had shocked everyone by marrying a young woman from the PR section at Head Office called Leila Richardson. A gold-digger and an opportunist, according to family and friends who didn’t know anything about this young woman, however good she was supposed to be at her job. Collective wisdom had it she hailed from New Zealand.

Yet the marriage had survived. With all that money behind it, why not? Always beautiful, Leila Rylance, polished to within an inch of her life, had become over a few short years a bona fide member of the Establishment. She might have been born into one of the best families herself. Except Leila Rylance must live her glamorous life always looking over her shoulder. Leila Rylance wasn’t who she claimed she was.

Leila Rylance was a heartless monster.

It took some nerve to tackle people like the Rylances, Miranda thought for the umpteenth time. She could get into very serious trouble. These were people who took threats and perceived threats very seriously. They had armies of people working for them: staff, bodyguards, lawyers, probably they even had the Police Commissioner on side. She had to think seriously of being arrested, restraining orders and the like—the shame and humiliation—only she was fired up by her massive sense of injustice. Seventeen she might be, but she was clever—hadn’t that tag been hung on her since she was knee-high to a grasshopper?

“Miranda is such a clever little girl, Mrs Thornton. She must be given every chance!”

That from a stream of teachers—the latest, her highly regarded headmistress, Professor Elizabeth Morgan, reeling off her achievements. Professor Morgan had great hopes Miranda Thornton would bring credit on herself and her school. She had done her bit. She had secured the highest possible score for her leaving certificate, excelling at all the necessary subjects she needed for her goal: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology. She had admittance to the university of her choice. She had the brain and the strong desire to become a doctor, but it would be hard, if not downright impossible, to get through the science diploma necessary for med school without money. She had long set her sights on Medicine.

“Where do you suppose that’s come from then, Tom? Our little Miri wanting to be a doctor?”

Her mother had often asked her father that question, wonderment in her tone. There was no medical background on either side of the family. Just ordinary working-class people. No one had made it to university.

But she had things going for her. She was resourceful. She had a maturity beyond her years. She coped well under pressure. That came directly from having looked after her mother for the last three years of her life battling cancer. The agony of it! To make it much worse, her death had come only a year or so since her hard-working father had died of a sudden massive heart attack. They had not been a young couple. Miranda was, in fact, a mid-life baby. Her mother had been forty-two when she fell pregnant, at a time when both her parents had despaired of ever producing a living child after a series of heartbreaking miscarriages.

Her childhood had been a happy, stable. They’d lived in a glorious natural environment. There had never been much money, and few of life’s little luxuries, but money was by no means essential for contentment. She’d loved and been loved, the apple of her parents’ eyes. Her parents had owned and run a small dairy farm in sub-tropical Queensland—the incredibly lush Hinterland behind the eastern seaboard, with the magnificent blue Pacific Ocean rolling in to its shores and only a short drive away. The farm had rarely shown more than a small profit. But they’d got by, working very hard—she included—to secure the best possible education at her prestigious private school for her final four years.

She would never forget the sacrifices her parents had made. In turn she had been fully committed to looking after them as they aged. Only now they were gone. And her world was lying in great jagged piles of rubble around her feet.

Her parents hadn’t been her parents at all.

They’d been her grandparents.

And no one had told her.

She had grown up living a lie.

Her heartbeat was as loud as a ticking clock, pumping so fast it was almost choking her. The sun flashing off windscreens temporarily blinded her. She blinked hard. Turned her head.

Then she saw him.

Eureka! She was close. Soooo close!

One had to fight fire with fire. She braced herself, lithe and as swift on her feet as a fleet fourteen-year-old boy. He was coming out of the steel-and-glass palace of Rylance Tower. The son. What a stroke of luck! She would know him anywhere. His image was etched into her brain. Who could miss him anyway? He was tall, dark, stunningly handsome with a dazzling white smile. The ultimate chick-magnet, as her friend Wynona would say. Could have been a movie star only for his layer of gravitas. Unusual at his age. But then he was a mining magnate’s son and heir, with a brilliant career ahead of him.

Well, he wasn’t the only one going places, she thought. Her whole body was shaking with nervous energy. She hadn’t been exactly sure she could deal with the father anyway. He was a hugely important man and purportedly ruthless. The odd thing was she had no real desire to potentially cause a breakup in his marriage. The son would do, whiz kid that he was, by far the less problematic proposition. Sometimes you just got lucky!

She watched the silver Rolls slide into the loading zone outside the building as per usual. The grey-uniformed chauffer stepped out smartly—God, a uniform, in this heat?—going around the bonnet of the gleaming car to be at the ready to open the rear door for the supremo’s son.

Couldn’t he open it himself, for goodness’ sake? Well, it did give the chauffeur a job. Every nerve in her body was throbbing with a mix of anticipation and a natural fear of the consequences. She had to get to him, speak to him, if her life was to go forward as she and her grandparents had planned. She watched Rylance dip his splendid crow-black head to get into the back seat of the car. This was the crucial moment. She seized it, taut as an athlete at the starter’s gun. Before the chauffeur could make a move to close the door, she literally sprang into the vehicle in one excited leap, the wind lifting her skirt and showing the full length of her legs, landing in a breathless heap against the shoulder of her target, who was playing it very cool indeed.

“Hi there, Corin!” she cried breathlessly. “Remember me? The Beauman party? Didn’t mean to scare you, but we have to talk.”

Those kinds of words usually made young men sit up and pay attention.

The chauffeur, well-built, probably ex-army, leaned into the Rolls, concern written all over him. “You know this young lady, Mr Rylance?”

She smiled up at the grim-faced man, who appeared on trigger alert. “Of course he does. Don’t you, Corin?”

Recognition didn’t light up his brilliant dark eyes. “Convince me.”

His speech was very clipped—blistering, really. Before she knew what he was about his lean, long-fingered hand snaked out, ran deftly but with delicacy over her shoulder, then down over her bodice, sparking her small breasts to life. She was shocked to the core, her entire body flooded with electricity. Even her nipples sprang erect. She prayed he didn’t register that. He continued to frisk her to her narrow waist, cinched as it was by a wide leather belt. Mercifully he stopped there. Not a full body search, then. She was wearing a short summer dress, well above her knees. Sleeveless, low-necked. Nowhere to hide anything. Nowhere decent anyhow.

He grabbed her tote bag and handed it over to the grim-faced chauffeur. “Check the contents, Gil.”

“You’re joking!” she railed. “Check the contents? What are you expecting, Corin? A Taser? I’m absolutely harmless.”

“I don’t think so.” Rylance kept a firm hold on her while the chauffeur swiftly and efficiently searched her bag.

“Nothing here, sir,” he reported with a note of relief. “Usual girly things. And a few old snapshots. Shall I send her on her way, or call the police?”

“And tell them what, Gil?” Her voice, which had acquired a prestige accent from school, was laced with sarcasm. “Your boss has been waylaid by a five-three, hundred-pound seventeen-year-old he doesn’t seem to remember? Why, a twelve-year-old boy could wrestle me to the ground. Trust me, Corin.” She turned a burning scornful glance on Rylance. “You don’t want anyone else in on our little chat, do you? Tell your man to pull over when we’re clear of the city. Then Gil here can go for a nice stroll. A park would be fine. There’s one on Vine.”

Women were always chasing him. Hell, it went with the territory. But never had one taken a spectacular leap into his car. That was a first. He couldn’t believe it. Not even after years of being hotly pursued. It was the money, of course. Every girl wanted to marry a billionaire, or at the very least a billionaire’s son. But this was a kid! She’d said seventeen. She could be sixteen. Not sweet. She looked a turbulent little thing, even a touch dangerous, with her great turquoise-green eyes and a fiery expression on her heart-shaped face. A riot of short silver gilt curls clung to her finely sculpted skull. She had very coltish light limbs, like a dancer; she was imaginatively if inexpensively dressed. Had he met her anywhere at all, he would definitely remember. No way was she unmemorable. And she had beautiful legs. He couldn’t help but notice.

So who the hell was she and what did she want? He had a fleeting moment when she put him in mind of someone. Who? No one he knew had those remarkable eyes or the rare silver-gilt hair. He was certain the colour was real. No betraying dark roots. Then there was her luminous alabaster skin. A natural blonde. Then it came to him. She was the very image of one of those mischievous sprites, nymphs, fairies—whatever. His sister, Zara, had used to fill her sketchbooks with them when she was a child. Zara would be intrigued by this one. All she needed was pointed ears, a garland of flowers and forest leaves around her head, and a wisp of some diaphanous garment to cover her willowy body.

They rode in a tense silence while he kept a tight hold on her arm. No conversation in front of the chauffeur. Some ten minutes out of the CBD the chauffeur pulled up beside a small park aglow with poincianas so heavy in blossom the great branches dipped like the tines of umbrellas. “This okay, sir?” The chauffeur turned his head.

“Fine, thanks, Gil. I’ll listen to this enterprising young woman’s story—God only knows what that might be—then I’ll give you a signal. I have a dinner party lined up for tonight.”

“Of course you have!” said Miranda, still trying to recover from the shock of his touch and his nearness. She understood exactly now what made him what he was. He even gave off the scent of crisp, newly minted money.

The chauffeur stepped out of the Rolls, shut the door, then made off across the thick, springy grass to a bench beneath one of the trees. If Gil Roberts was wondering what the hell this was all about he knew better than to show it. He believed Corin implicitly when he said he didn’t know the girl. He had been with the family for over twelve years, since Corin Rylance had been a boy. He had enormous liking and respect for him. Unlike a couple of his cousins, Corin was no playboy. He did not fool around with young girls, however enchanting and sexy. Maybe it had something to do with one of his cousins? A bit of blackmail, even? She had better not try it. Not on the Rylances.

“So?” Corin turned on her, his tone hard and edgy. “First of all, what’s your name? You obviously know mine.”

“Who doesn’t?” she retorted, not insolently, but with some irony. “It’s Miri Thornton. That’s Miranda Thornton.”

“Amazing—Miranda! Of course it would be.” He didn’t mask the sarcasm.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She stared at him with involuntary fascination. She was experiencing the weirdest feeling there was no one else in the world but the two of them. Imagine! Was she a total fool? She almost forgot what she was about with those dark eyes on her. God, he was handsome. The glossies were right. Up close and personal, his aura was so compelling it had her near gasping. It wasn’t simply the good looks, it was the force field that surrounded him. It had picked her up with a vengeance. For the first time she felt intimidation.

“You’re a smart girl,” he was saying.

“Not a little twit?”

He ignored that. “Well educated, obviously. Miranda—Prospero’s daughter?”

Deliberately she opened her eyes wide. “Got it in one. The Tempest.You know your Shakespeare. From whence did Corin come?” she asked with mock sweetness. “Coriolanus? Noble Caius Marcus?”

“Cut it out.” His tone was terse. There was a decided glitter in his eyes, so dark a brown they were almost black. “I don’t have time for this. What’s it all about? You have exactly five minutes.”

“Give me one,” she retorted smartly, hoping she looked a whole lot more in control of herself than she was. “May I have my bag?”

He frowned at her. “What is it you want to show me?” He didn’t oblige, but drew the tote bag onto his lap. Gil would have checked carefully, but there were always surprises in life. This extraordinary young woman didn’t exactly look unstable or wired. He could see the high intelligence in her face, the keenness of her turquoise-green regard. She was nothing like all the well-connected young women he knew. The pressure was on him from his father to pick out a suitable bride. Annette Atwood was highly suitable. But did he honestly believe in love?

“Photographs.” Miranda’s mind was momentarily distracted while she focused on his hands. He had beautifully shaped hands. Hands were important to her.

“That’s nice!” He didn’t hide the mockery.

“I’d hold the nice until you have a look at them,” she warned. “Don’t think for one minute it’s porn. Good old Gil would have spotted that, and I don’t deal in such things. I was very well brought up. Go on—pull them out. They won’t bite you.”

“The cheek of you!” he gritted. “You know what I’d really like to do with you?” He was uncomfortably aware his body was coiled taut. Why? She was pint-sized. No physical threat at all. What did he want to do with her? Why was he giving her the time of day? Actually, he didn’t want to think it through. She was so young, with her life in front of her. Despite himself he felt a disturbing level of attraction.

“Throw me out onto the street?” she was suggesting. “You could do it easily.”

“Maybe I will at some point.” He withdrew several photographs from a side pocket in her well-worn bag. They looked old, faded, turning up at the edges. He narrowed his dark eyes. “What exactly are these? Photographs of Mummy when she was a girl?” He was being facetious. Until he saw what he had in his hand.

God, no! This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t her. The girl in the photographs didn’t just bear a strong resemblance to his stepmother. She was Leila—unless she had an identical twin.

“How clever of you, Corin,” Miranda said, making an effort to conceal her own upset. “They’re photographs of my mother when she was a year younger than I am now.”

His expression turned daunting for so young a man. Shades of the father, Miranda supposed. “Just be quiet for a moment,” he ordered.

Miranda knew when it was time to obey. She and Corin Rylance had polarised positions in life. She was a nobody. He was on the highest rung of society. Heir to a great fortune. He could cause her a lot of grief.

“So what’s your game?” He shot her a steely glance, the expression in his fine eyes in no way benevolent.

“No game.” She turned up her palms. “I’m deadly serious. We can keep this between the two of us, if you like. I’m certain from what I know of my birth mother—your stepmother—that she hasn’t confided her sordid little story to another living soul. Least of all your father.”

“You want money?” The stunning features drew tight with contempt.

“I need money,” she corrected.

“Aaah! A big difference.” The tone was withering.

“I think you can spare it.”

“Do you, now?” His tone all but bit into her soft flesh. “So I’m to look after you indefinitely? Is that the plan? Well, let me help you out here, Miranda, as you’re barely out of school. Blackmail is a very serious crime. I could turn you over to the police this afternoon. It would only take one call.”

“Sure. I’ve risked that,” she admitted. “But you won’t be doing your family any favours, Corin. Don’t think I’m not ashamed to have to ask you. I have to. My mother—your stepmother, your father’s wife—owes me. I can’t go to her. I loathe and despise her. She abandoned me when I was only a few weeks old.”

“You can prove it?” His voice was harsh with unsuppressed emotion. “Or is this some highly imaginative ploy to make money?” The flaw in that was he could well see Leila doing such a thing. The only person Leila cared about was herself. Not his father. Although his father, business giant that he was, was in sexual thrall to her.

“I’m not stupid,” Miranda said. “I’m not a liar or a con artist. Of course I can.” She had to swallow hard on a sudden rush of tears. “I was brought up by my grandparents—my mother’s parents—believing I was theirs. A change of life baby. Both of them are now dead. My grandmother very recently. She told me the truth on her deathbed. She wanted to make a clean breast of it. The last years of her life were terrible. She died of cancer.”

His expression softened at the very real grief he saw in the depths of her crystalline eyes. “Miranda, I’m sorry, but your mother must have had a reason for doing what she did. That’s if these photographs are of my stepmother. People do have doubles in life.” Even as he said it he knew it was Leila.

“You know in your bones they are,” Miranda told him bleakly. “I even look a teeny bit like her, don’t you think?”

“Not really, no. Maybe the point to the chin—although Leila’s is less pronounced.”

“So I must have my father’s colouring.” There was a yearning note in her voice he picked up on. “Whoever he might be. She never would say. Anyway, I have a whole scrapbook if you want to see it. My birth mother was adored. My grandparents were lovely people. Yet she cut them—her own mother and father—ruthlessly out of her life. I didn’t matter at all. Good gracious, no. I was just a huge mistake. You know how it is. She wasn’t going to allow an unwanted baby to ruin her life. She ran away and never came back. Not even a postcard to say she was okay.”

“You’re sure about that?” he asked grimly. “Your grandmother mightn’t have told you everything. People have secrets. Some they take to the grave.”

“Tell me about it,” Miranda countered with real sadness. “I loved Mum—Sally—my grandmother. I nursed her. I was with her at the end. She told me everything. Not a pretty story. I had to forgive her. I loved her. She was so good to me. Yet the person I had trusted more than anyone else in the world had lied to me. God, it hurt. It will always hurt.”

“I imagine it would.” He studied her downbent face. She had a lovely mouth, very finely cut. Leila’s mouth was positively lush. This girl wore no lipstick. Maybe a touch of gloss. “I expect your grandmother thought it was best at the time. Then it all got away from her. Where did you live?”

She told him. “The Gold Coast Hinterland, Queensland.”

“A beautiful area. I know it well. So your grandparents were farming people?” he asked with a frown. “According to Leila she was born in New Zealand.”

“She was. And just look at how far she has come.” Miranda gave a theatrical wave of her hands. “Married to one of the richest men in the country. You can bet your life she didn’t want any more children. She’s only thirty-three, you know. But children would only cramp her style.”

True of Leila. “The woman you claim is your mother told my father she wasn’t able to have children,” he volunteered.

“I think you can take it she’s a born liar. Anyway, your father has you and your sister. You’re the heir.”

“You bet your life I am.”

“Don’t look at me!” She slumped back against the rich leather upholstery. “I don’t want to muscle in.”

“I thought you did.”

He had very sexy brackets at the sides of his mouth. “No way!” She shrugged, unsettled by his proximity. In a matter of moments this stranger had got under her skin. Definitely not allowed. “What I want—what I need—is to have the financial backing to get through med school. I’m clever. Maybe I’m even cleverer than you.” She held up her hand. “Okay, joke! But I scored in the top one per cent for my finals.”

“And there I was, only winning a few spelling bees.”

“Not so.” She sat straight. “You were awarded a university medal. You have an Honours Degree in Engineering. You also have a degree in Business Administration.”

“Go on—what else?” he asked caustically.

“Listen, Corin. I did my homework. It was necessary. I’m not asking for a fortune, you know. I’ll get a part-time job. Two if I have to. But I must attain my goal. It’s what my par—my grandparents lived and worked for. I was the one who was to be given every chance. Only they both went and died on me. That’s agony, you know.”

He regarded her for a moment in silence, all kinds of emotions nipping at him fiercely. This girl was getting to him. And she had done it so easily. “Your story has to be checked out very thoroughly,” he said. “You might tell me how, given there wasn’t much money in the family, your mother got away? Everyone needs money to survive. She was just a schoolgirl. How did she manage?”

“I daresay she blackmailed my father,” she said, bluntly rephrasing the explanation her grandmother had offered.

“So it runs in the family, then?”

She winced, her turquoise-green eyes flashing. “Don’t make me hate you, Corin.”

He laughed, very dryly. “That’s okay. Hate works for me, Miranda.”

Some note in his voice sent a shiver down her spine. “Miri, please.”

He continued to scan her face. “I prefer Miranda.”

She was locked into that brilliant regard. “You’ll find I’m telling the truth right down to the last detail. My grandparents didn’t know who fathered Leila’s child. But, whoever it was, his family must have had money. Someone must have given it to her. Although she took everything she could lay her hands on from her parents, including much needed money that was awaiting banking.”

“It’s a terrible story, Miranda, but not rare,” he said. “Young people—girls and boys—go missing all the time, for any number of reasons. It must be heartbreaking for the caring parents.”

“Leila obviously didn’t care about them. There was no abuse, no excessive strictness, only love. You know, I’ve been thinking of you—your father and you, certainly Leila—as the enemy,” she confessed. “You’re not so bad.”

“You don’t know me,” he said.

“I know you bear a noble name. The Corin bit anyway. I like it. I don’t even mind being allied with you, or your part of the enemy. But you can’t be slow about this, Corin. There are lots of things to be taken care of. I don’t have another damned soul in the world to appeal to.”

“And I’m supposed to care?” He was out to test her.

“But you do care, don’t you?” She was looking into his eyes as if she was reading his mind. “Leila may have cast a spell on your father, but I bet she didn’t cast any spell on you or your sister.”

Nothing could be truer. They had disliked and distrusted Leila even before she had married their father. Now they hated her. “So you think this will give me an advantage?” Of course it would. But he knew he wouldn’t use it. Not yet, anyway. His moment would come.