Billionaire Bachelor: Alex: Diamond Bridal Agency, #3

By Melissa Stevens

Alex wants his brother off his back. Janie wants somewhere she feels safe. Can they discover that even thought they've each been hurt, there are still good things out there? 
 
Alex hasn't been off his property in months. He surrounds himself with people who don't react to his scars. Scars that only remind him of his failures. He failed to save his unit. He failed to die with them. Instead he was left looking like a monster. Desperate to get his brother to leave him alone about leaving the ranch, Alex turns to the Diamond Bridal Agency. He doesn't plan to keep her, only keep her around long enough to placate his brother. 

Janie escaped an arranged marriage and a life of servitude when she was a teen. Only to find that foster care wasn't a whole lot better.She's made it to adult hood and adjusted to life, but she hates being around too many people. When Diamond Bridal Agency offered her a contract with the promise that she wouldn't be forced into anything. She would have the opportunity to leave if things went bad, then she jumped at it. But was the man she'd been matched with more scared that she was? 

Buy Billionaire Bachelor: Alex to find out if Alex and Janie can help each other heal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melissa Stevens
• Release date: Oct 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386348856

Melissa Stevens

Melissa was born and raised in Arizona, she’s spent her entire life living across the southern half of the state. She’s found that, along with her husband and three children, she prefers the small towns and rural life to feeling packed into a city. She started reading at a very young age, and her love for series started early, as the first real books she remembers reading is the Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Through the years she’s found that there’s little she won’t read, and her tastes vary from westerns, to romance, to sci-fi / fantasy and Horror.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Dear Mr. Fortenberry,

After careful consideration of your requests and needs, the Diamond Bridal Agency is pleased to inform you that a bride has been located who matches your special requirements. All communications have been kept private, as is our policy. Communications from the agency will cease after this missive and we request, for the security of our other clients, that you destroy this message after reading it.

Your satisfaction is guaranteed. To comply with your request for haste and privacy, your bride will arrive on the 5th day of August, via private jet to the private landing strip on your ranch. Please do not hesitate to contact me should there be any issue with your bride. Her name is Janine Hamilton and she understands the stipulations of the contract as you set forth.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Alveda Creed, Diamond Bridal Agency.

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Alex stared at the letter in his hand and growled. He wondered how they’d managed to find someone willing to live out here, in the middle of nowhere Wyoming with little to no social interaction so quickly. He also wished he didn’t feel forced into something like this, but his brother’s threats still rang in his ears. If he didn’t get out more, start meeting people and even dating, then Dave would start fixing him up with blind dates. And going along to make sure Alex didn’t back out. Alex hated anything that made him go out and be seen, Dave knew that. But that hadn’t stopped him. His brother had made enough threats, and serious ones, that Alex had found a way around him. He’d done enough hacking around on the internet that he’d heard about the elite bridal agency, despite their attempts at secrecy, so once he made the decision, he’d contacted them. Not that they had an Internet presence. That had intrigued him. For a company that charged as much as they did, they were surprisingly difficult to find anything out about. Even for him.

He knew firsthand about the security, or lack thereof, of anything on the web, and when he’d discovered they didn’t do business electronically, even via email, he’d been intrigued. He was willing to put up with a stranger in his house, hell the house was big enough they’d never have to see each other if that’s what they wanted. He almost never saw most of the staff because they knew that’s what he wanted. But the one thing he couldn’t do was have his brother find out how he’d met his new wife. If Dave found out he’d gotten a mail-order-bride, he would never let Alex have any peace. And that’s all Alex wanted, to be left alone.

Dave swore Alex needed to interact with others more, that one day Dave was going to show up and find Alex had done himself in weeks earlier and no one had noticed because Alex didn’t let anyone in to see him. Alex knew better. While he chose not to see most of them often, he had a full staff. Mrs. Barrett would notice if she didn’t hear from him every couple days and he had people he spoke to almost daily. Some online, some over the phone, even a couple in person, like Mike, his ranch manager. Alex had no doubt that someone would notice if he disappeared. It was part of why he hadn’t done it a few years ago. Instead he’d buried himself in his work. Then he’d lived in a small apartment on the outskirts of Cheyenne, only answering the door for delivery people while wearing a hoodie that kept people from seeing his face.

He’d gotten a little better since then. But not by much. He didn’t cover himself like he used to, but he still didn’t like to be seen. He stood, pushing the wheeled chair away from the desk facing the bank of computer screens that nearly covered a wall. Most of the time this room was his sanctuary, but at the moment it made him claustrophobic. Needing more space, he got up, stalked out the door and down the short walk way to the living room. He stood in front of one of two huge windows staring out at the mountains that were closer than they looked. He’d been there, he knew. Damn these four walls, even as big as this place was, felt like they were closing in on him. Time to get out. At least for a while.

Chapter 2

Janine clutched the armrests on the airplane seat as the tiny plane touched the ground and took her first deep breath in three hours. Not that she’d been counting. She’d been too nervous to even let go of the seat. This was only her second time in an airplane and the first time in one this tiny. She hoped she’d never have to do it again.

The plane slowed to a stop then the door on the side opened and she knew it was time to get up. It took her a moment, but she took a deep breath, picked up her handbag and stood. She wasn’t sure what kind of life she was walking into, but she was pretty sure it had to be better than the one she’d left behind. Besides. Mrs. Creed had promised her that her new husband wouldn’t abuse her. Though Janine did wonder at some of the stipulations of the contract. No parties, no guests, no travel. Janie was more than okay with them, she’d been fearing having to dress perfectly and be a society hostess when she’d signed on with the agency, but somehow, they seemed to have found something that fit her inclinations. She was happy to have a safe home and be a homebody. Nothing more needed. Mrs. Creed had personally promised her that she’d had this man thoroughly checked out. He was nothing like what she’d left behind.

She stepped off the plane and squinted as she looked around, wishing she had a pair of sunglasses, then shook her head. There was nothing around. The plane had landed on a long stretch of bare ground surrounded by grass and…nothing.

Her shoulders fell and she wondered if her groom had changed his mind. She should have known the offer had been too good to be true. She was about to turn and climb the stairs in to the dreaded tiny aircraft when the pilot appeared at the door.

Ms. Hamilton? He frowned. Is something wrong?

There’s no one here. It appears I’ve been forgotten. She scanned the edge of the narrow dirt airfield again. Sure enough, no one had shown up in the last two minutes.

There’s a pickup on the other side of the jet.

Oh. Thank you. Now she felt like a total idiot.

Give me just a moment and I’ll have your bag.

Thank you. She waited while the man who had flown the craft she hated unloaded her bag then, dragging her bag behind her, she walked around the small jet. Sure enough, there it was. A pickup. It wasn’t quite what she’d been expecting, given the level of luxury she’d lived in in Dallas, and the plane she’d