Free The Blackmailed Bride by Kim Lawrence

door—Charles Anderson, with his cherubic countenance, did not look like most people’s image of a sober judge. ‘ Dad! Come in… please! ’ she added, with a harassed glance in her mother’s direction.
    After first assuring himself his daughter didn’t look near death’s door, Charles Anderson smiled. ‘Well, what have you been up to, pumpkin?’ he began heartily as he approached Kate’s bedside, his arms extended.
    Kate blinked, embarrassed by the way her eyes filled weakly with tears at the casual endearment; Dad hadn’t called her that for years.
    â€˜Charles, don’t go near her, she’s infectious!’ his wife shrieked in alarm.
    â€˜Nonsense, Lizzie, since when was a knock on the head infectious?’ Charles Anderson returned, dismissing his wife’s appeal.
    Kate on the other hand, saw the good sense in what her mother was saying; she certainly had no desire to ruin everyone else’s holiday.
    â€˜Actually, Dad…’ she stopped, losing track of her train of thought as her attention was fatally distracted by the figure silently entering the room behind her father.
    The younger man had to be at least six four or five to be able to dwarf Charles Anderson’s burly figure. His autocratic air might make sense now but it didn’t make it any less obnoxious to Kate.
    As a man born to wield power, Javier Montero certainly fulfilled all the criteria. He was arrogant, overbearing and insufferably rude. An unashamed aristocrat, who smugly imagined an accident of birth gave him special rights and privileges, decided the woman who made a point of never judging people on appearances!
    Mentally pulling his character to shreds gave her a temporary respite from examining in any depth the worrying fact she found his presence electrifying.
    Kate wasn’t the sort of person who normally had a problem laughing at herself or her mistakes when the circumstances warranted it, but there were limits! When she thought about how terrified she’d been, her blood boiled. No doubt he’d been having a laugh at her expense all night.
    Amongst the things she’d said that made her squirm now, the recollection of the earnest advice she’d given him on reforming his criminal life stood out as particularly cringe-worthy!
    Kate constructively converted her embarrassment to anger as she glared with distrust and dislike at Javier’s distinguished profile. Why the hell hadn’t he just come out and explained who he was, like any normal person, instead of letting her blather on and on?
    Javier wasn’t surprised by the to-hell-with-you look in those velvety exotically slanted eyes as they met his—head on, of course. He’d already worked out that K. M. Anderson was an impetuous, head-on sort of female. This characteristic made her very different from most of the women he knew, women who often said what they imagined he wanted to hear. Though there was nothing remotely predatory about this Kate—in fact, if anything, she gave the impression of being unaware of her own attractiveness—she was undoubtedly intelligent and strong-willed.
    As much as he admired these traits, Javier wasn’t normally sexually attracted to women who possessed them. Perhaps the allure in this case had something to do with the fact these characteristics came wrapped in the sort of body he’d always admired—athletic without being muscular, curvaceous without being lush, he decided appreciatively as his eyes skimmed her recumbent form.
    He acknowledged her antagonism with the very faintest of wry smiles that suggested to the seething Kate he was enjoying every second of her discomfort.
    Childishly determined not to be the first to look away, she didn’t know how long the silent eye-to-eye combat continued, but she was relieved and immensely grateful when Conrad Latimer’s timely intervention gave her a legitimate excuse to look away.
    â€˜It