Marriage of Convenience

By Matilda Martel

Miranda Barnes is beautiful, young and rich, but she stands to lose her very large inheritance if she doesn't marry the spoiled, libertine son of her father's closest business partner, the obnoxious, womanizer Oliver Renaud.
Both unhappy with being forced together, Oliver keeps making things worse and Miranda keeps getting revenge--two people couldn't be more poorly suited for one another.
On their own in London, they are content to have an open marriage, until they discover they're in love for the first time in their lives--just not with each other!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matilda Martel
• Release date: Dec 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463038383

Matilda Martel

Matilda loves many things---her husband, dachshunds, cats, the two terrible Chihuahuas who live with her, Paris, New York, a few select friends and family, Nutella, books, lots and lots of books, and writing sweet, steamy romance for nerdy girls-- because that's who I am.If you like your romances steamy but sweet. Sexy, but on the shorter side. With smart and sassy heroines who fall for soulful Alphas- then you might like my books.I write A LOT of OMYW, cause that's just my bag. But no matter what kind of story it is, my ladies are always adored and my endings are always HEA.Please head to my blog: www.matildamartel.com, to learn what's in the final stages and will be coming out soon!Want a free Ebook? Join my mailing list to get my monthly newsletter at : www.matildamartel.com/mailinglist/

Book preview

Chapter 1

Miranda Gets Engaged

I’d like to say it was my father’s fault, but deep down I knew it wasn’t. He didn’t force me into this wedding. No one held a gun to my head. I could have gone to live with my grandparents in Florida or found someone on my mother’s side to take me in, but the plain and simple truth was— I didn’t want to be poor. I didn’t want to have to struggle and grow accustomed to working 40 to 50 hour work weeks just to have enough money to survive and save for college. Nothing about that kind of life was familiar to me and I feared I wouldn’t know how to survive. My entire life had been spent living a life of convenience and luxury. Faced with the prospect of losing it all at the age of 19, I chose to do whatever was asked of me and agreed to marry Oliver Renaud. Please remember this if at any time you feel sorry for me.

Oliver and I have known one another since I was a very young girl. His father and my father were business partners for ages until their companies split and became more prosperous on their own. When I say more prosperous, I mean they went from being millionaires to billionaires. He was 10 years older than me, tall and fit with dark brown hair, bright blue eyes, a chiseled jaw line and movie star good looks. There was nothing wrong with him physically, he was just a colossal asshole and it was a condition I didn’t believe could ever be cured. No one liked him, not even his family, but as the younger of the two Renaud brothers he was going to run the smaller end of the business in London and they wanted him married before they shipped him off across the Atlantic.

I became a part of this equation when Mr. Renaud realized it was going to be much harder to unload his libertine son than he previously anticipated. After years of publicly pissing his life away on alcohol and women, there were no decent girls from good families who would touch him with a ten-foot pole, no matter how enticing he made it for them. Fortunately for him, my father owed him an enormous favor. Early in their careers, he’d bailed my Dad out of a very sticky situation that could have cost him his business and his marriage to my mother. My father promised he’d repay him one day by returning a favor- and he did. I was that payment. Announcements went out, a church was booked, a gown was ordered and invitations were mailed for the wedding of Oliver Reginald Renaud to Miranda Isabelle Barnes.

There was no misunderstanding. This was a marriage of convenience and if that wasn’t clear before, he made that very clear the night of our rehearsal dinner, less than 16 hours before our wedding. Other than some dinners with our parents, we had spent absolutely no time together. He had no interest in being alone with me and wanted to make sure I didn’t have any expectations of romance after we were wed. Now, I am not an unattractive girl. Forgive me for sounding immodest but I like to think I’m pretty and I work hard at the gym to ensure I’m fit and not just skinny. I’ve got long brown hair, my mother’s huge green eyes, her enormous 32DD tits and although I’m a bit on the short side, I’m curvy in all right places. This prick brushing me off was a deliberate act of spite. If I were him, I’d want to fuck me.

Things got ugly fast for us. Unfortunately, I’d made the foolish mistake of not losing my virginity to my college boyfriend and the thought of losing it to Oliver made me sick to my stomach. Thankfully, he saved me from that obligation. Although we’d hardly spoken, he made sure to ask me one very important question during our rehearsal dinner. As he chewed on a bloody piece of meat, he turned to me and sneered, I hope you’re not a virgin, because I’m not interested in deflowering you tomorrow night.

I was too shocked to show anger or outrage, but the gauntlet had been thrown. Inside,