Undeniable Demands

Undeniable Demands
Andrea Laurence

When Wade Mitchell finds himself face-to-face with Victoria Sullivan, he has to reconsider his usual tactics. Wade needs to buy something she owns, and he needs it now. Since he and Tori have enough heat to melt ice, it should be a done deal.But melting Tori's resolve is a harder task. She's not giving in to the man who once fired her. Yet Wade has to keep trying, because if he doesn't, he risks exposing a secret that could destroy his family. When all proper negotiation fails, seduction may be his only option.

“I never had any intention of bullying you, Miss Sullivan.”

Tori tried not to watch the soft curve of his lips as he spoke to her, but he was so close she had little choice. She remembered how she’d once fantasized about kissing those lips. Of course, that was before he turned on her and threw her out of his company onto her rear end. The surge of anger doused the old memories as her gaze met his.

“What then?” she asked, her voice laced with sarcasm. “Were you going to take your friend’s suggestion and seduce me? Certainly you’re so masterful in the bedroom that one good romp would change my mind, right?”

Wade moved a fraction of an inch closer to her. For a moment, Tori tensed, thinking he might be leaning in to kiss her. She wanted him to, and she didn’t. She pressed a gentle hand to his chest. She could feel his heart racing just as quickly as her own. He was not immune to his own game.

They were both playing with fire.

Dear Reader,

I’m so excited to share this book with you. Undeniable Demands kicks off my very first series—SECRETS OF EDEN. When I first started writing for Mills & Boon

Desire™, I immersed myself in the world of wealthy, powerful alpha males. My first two heroes had family money to help them start their business empires, so this time I wanted to write some self-made heroes. I wanted a group of men who had defied the odds, overcome tragedy and made themselves into the sexy alpha heroes that Desire readers know and love.

But everyone has some baggage from their past, and the heroes of SECRETS OF EDEN are no exception. The foster brothers share a dark secret that threatens not only their family and their livelihood but their chance to find love. At the same time, their secret is what brings Wade and Victoria together. And boy, do the sparks fly! The spunky environmental architect isn’t about to make anything easy for Wade, and it was fun to write about their tempestuous relationship.

I can’t wait for you to fall in love with the whole Eden family, as I have. If you enjoy Wade and Tori’s story, tell me by visiting my website at www.andrealaurence.com, like my fan page on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. I love to hear from my readers!

Enjoy!

Andrea

About the Author

ANDREA LAURENCE has been a lover of reading and writing stories since she learned her ABCs. She always dreamed of seeing her work in print and is thrilled to finally be able to share her books with the world. A dedicated West Coast girl transplanted to the Deep South, she’s working on her own “happily ever after” with her boyfriend and their collection of animals that shed like nobody’s business. You can contact Andrea at her website, www.andrealaurence.com.

Undeniable

Demands

Andrea Laurence

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To Vicki Lewis Thompson, Rhonda Nelson

and Kira Sinclair

You’re the best plotting partners a girl could have.

You helped me take the smallest kernel of an idea

and develop it into a great multibook series.

I look forward to many more years of creativity,

laughter and good food with my ladies.

One

Wade hated the snow. Always had. You’d think a man born and raised in New England would feel differently or leave, but he’d done neither. Every November when the first few flakes started falling, a part of his soul would shrivel up until spring. That was why he’d booked himself a trip to Jamaica for the week before Christmas. He’d planned to return to the Edens’, as always, for the holiday, but the frantic call he’d received from his foster sister, Julianne, had changed everything.

He had been loath to tell his assistant to cancel the trip, but perhaps if all went well, he could use the reservation after Christmas. He could ring in the New Year on a beach, drinking something frothy, with thoughts of his troubles buried deep.

Interesting choice of words.

The BMW SUV wound its way down the two-lane road that led to the Garden of Eden Christmas Tree Farm. Wade preferred to drive his roadster, but rural Connecticut in winter was just not the place for it, so he’d left it in Manhattan. The SUV had snow tires, chains in the back and enough clearance not to scrape on chunks of ice in poorly cleared areas.

Spying the large red apple-shaped sign that marked the entrance to his foster parents’ Christmas tree farm, Wade breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t realized until that moment that he’d been holding his breath. Even under the less-than-ideal circumstances, returning home always made him feel better.

The farm was the only home he’d ever really had. None of the other foster homes had felt like one. He had no warm memories of living with his great-aunt before that, nor of his early years with his mother. But the Garden of Eden was just that: paradise. Especially for an abandoned young boy who could just as easily have become a career criminal as a millionaire in real estate.

The Edens changed everything. For him and every other child who had come to live there. He owed that couple his life. They were his parents, without question. Wade didn’t know who his father was and had only seen his mother once since she dropped him at her aunt’s doorstep as a toddler. When he thought of home and family, he thought of the farm and the family the Edens had pulled together.

They were able to have only one child of their own, their daughter, Julianne. For a time it seemed that their dreams of a house bustling with children who would help on the farm and one day take over the family business had been dashed. But then they decided to renovate an old barn into a bunkhouse perfect for rowdy boys and started taking in foster children.

Wade had been the first. Julianne had been in pigtails when he arrived, dragging her favorite doll behind her. Wade had been in his share of foster homes, and this time just felt different. He was not a burden. Not a way to get a check from the state. He was their son.

Which is why he wished he was visiting them for another reason. In his own mind, disappointing his parents would be the greatest sin he could commit. Even worse than the one he’d committed fifteen years ago that got him into this mess.

Wade turned the SUV into the driveway, then bypassed the parking lot and took the small road behind their large Federal-style house to where the family kept their cars. It was nearing the middle of the afternoon on a Friday, but even so, there were at least ten customer cars in the lot. It was December 21—only a few days until Christmas. His mother, Molly, would be in the gift shop, pushing sugar cookies, cider and hot chocolate on folks while they waited for Ken or one of the employees to haul and bag their new tree.

Wade felt the sudden, familiar urge to start trimming trees and hauling them out to people’s cars. He’d done it for all of his teenage years and every Christmas break from Yale. It came naturally to want to jump back into the work. But first things first. He had to take care of the business that had brought him here instead of the warm beaches of Jamaica.

Julianne’s call had been unexpected. None of the kids were very good about calling or visiting their parents or each other like they should. They were all busy, all successful, the way the Edens had wanted them to be. But their success also made it easy to forget to make time for the important people in their lives.

When Julianne had shown up at the farm for Thanksgiving with little warning, she’d been in for quite the surprise. Their father, Ken, was recovering from a heart attack. They hadn’t called any of the kids because they didn’t want them worrying about it or the crippling hospital bills.

Wade, Heath, Xander, Brody—any of the boys could’ve written a check and taken care of their problems, but Ken and Molly insisted they had it under control. Unfortunately, their solution was to sell a few plots of land they couldn’t use for growing trees. They couldn’t understand why the kids were so upset. And of course, the kids couldn’t tell their parents the truth. That secret needed to remain buried in the past. And Wade was here to make sure it stayed that way.

If he was lucky, he could take one of the four-wheelers out to the property, buy the land back from the new owner and return before Molly could start wondering what he was up to. He wouldn’t keep the purchase a secret from his parents, but he’d certainly rather they not fret over the whole situation until it was done.

Wade found the house empty, as expected. He left a note on the worn kitchen table, slipped into his heavy coat and boots and went out to grab one of the four-wheelers. He could’ve driven his SUV, but he didn’t want to pull up in an expensive car and start waving money around at people.

Heath and Brody had both made visits to the farm since Julianne broke the news. Digging up as much information as they could, they found out that the person who had bought the smallest parcel of land was already living out there in some kind of camper. That sounded positive to him. They might need the money more than the land. But if they thought some rich guy was bullying them to sell it, they’d clamp down. Or jack up the price.

Wade took the four-wheeler down the well-worn path that went through the center of the farm. After selling eighty-five acres, the Edens still had two hundred acres left. Almost all of it was populated with balsam and Fraser fir trees. The northeastern portion of the property was sloped and rocky. They’d never had much success planting trees out there, so he’d understood why Ken had opted to sell it. He just wished his father hadn’t.

By the time he rounded a corner on the trail and neared the border of the Edens’ property, it was a little after two-thirty. The sky was clear and blue and the sun’s rays pounded down on the snow, making it nearly blinding despite his sunglasses. He slowed and pulled out the new surveyor’s map Brody had downloaded. The eighty-five acres that his parents had sold were split into two large tracts and one small one. Comparing the map to the GPS location on his phone, he could tell that just over the rise was the smallest, a ten-acre residential property. He was fairly certain this was the one he was after.

Wade refolded the map and looked around for any familiar landmarks. He’d deliberately chosen a spot he would remember. There had been a crooked maple tree and a rock that looked like a giant turtle. He scanned the landscape, but it appeared to him as though all the trees were crooked, and all the rocks were buried under a foot of snow. It was impossible to know for sure if this chunk of the property was the right one.

Damn. He’d thought for certain that he would know the spot when he saw it. That night fifteen years ago remained etched in his memory no matter how hard he tried to forget it. It was one of those moments that changes your whole life. Where you make a decision, right or wrong, and have to live with it forever.