The Tycoon's Misunderstood Bride

Emotionally abused all her life by a domineering father, Emma thought she might have a shot at happiness after his death. But then she heard the terms of his will! She must marry Jason Montenegro and give birth to a son. Only then would he give her the location of her mother – a woman who Emma thought had abandoned her at the age of five, only to find out that she had been fighting for custody all these years.

Jason was livid that Emma’s father had information about his past and wouldn’t divulge the answer until he married Emma – a woman who’s reputation was worse than his own. And he had to produce a child with this woman?

So be it! He’d do anything to get that information, even marry a woman who had apparently slept with any man that crossed her path.

But as he got to know the gentle beauty, he discovered that she was nothing like her father. She was kind and sweet, generous to a fault. And he was falling in love with his enemy’s daughter!

Includes free introduction to the "Love By Acciddent" series - coming soon!

The Tycoon’s Misunderstood Bride
             
                                                          Elizabeth Lennox

Chapter
1

Emma watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground, the feeling of freedom seeping into her bones with every turn of the crank.  And she felt guilty.  But she couldn’t feel anything else for the man who had died.  He’d killed any soft feelings she might have had for him over the last twenty five years. 

The air was cold and the
freezing
mist that drizzled on the funeral attendees only made the whole
burial
ritual more uncomfortable.  There weren’t very many, Emma noted.  Only a handful in fact.  As she stole glances at the grave side mourners, she counted only about fifteen people.  Almost all of them were
employees of her father, the man who was
now being lowered into the frozen, unforgiving ground. 
Appropriate, she thought since her father had been hard, cold and completely unforgiving of any transgression, no matter how small. 

Emma knew that she should be feeling sorrow and grief
for the man who had raised her
but those emotions just wouldn’t come.  Hatred, anger, desperation and humiliation were the only feelings her father had engendered within her
while
he was alive.  And now that he had passed away,
the main emotion
she was feeling
was
relief.  And freedom.  A small portion of her heart was even having that painful emotion; hope.  It was small, tiny.  But as she passed by the
deep, heartless
grave and tossed dirt onto the coffin, and as each person passed by and did the same, that small light of hope grew. 

Was it possible that
the life she’d lived with her father was finally over?  Could she genuinely be free of his ridicule and harsh words? 

Emma breathed in a lung full of the cold, wintery air, letting her body absorb the fact that her father was finally dead. 

The possibilities for her future loomed up in her mind, crowding her imagination and jumbling that ray of hope into a larger light that was starting to fill her up.  She tried to tamp it down, knowing that each time she’d started to feel hope in the past, it had been mercilessly killed by some sort of diabolical scheme of her father’s. 

It didn’t matter that he was dead.  The fear that somehow, some way, he would figure out how to destroy that tiny bit of hope was there in the back of her mind, pressuring her to release the kernel
and give in to the depression
and frustration
that had been her life prior to his demise
. 
The
words he’d taunted her with over and over while he’d been alive came back to haunt her and if it weren’t for her early childhood, she might start to believe t
hem.  She had to hang on though!
  She had to survive and thrive, just to spite that mean, vindictive man! 

Her father
had tormented her from the moment her mother had left them twenty years ago, leaving a grief-stricken Emma to deal with the harsh father that had driven her mother away
with his cruel tirades and accusations
.  Emma remembered the screaming and the
allegations
but as a small child, she hadn’t understood them.
  She’d only understood the fear that had her hiding under her
blankets at night
, covering her ears as the fights raged on after she’d been put to bed. 

As an adult, she
understood
that her father had been
insanely
jealous of her beautiful mother, the red haired and intensely gorgeous Elizabeth, and his constant accusations of unfaithfulness had driven her away.  But why had
her mother
left Emma?  Of all the things that had hurt over the years, Emma knew that her mother’s abandonment had been the most painful. 

Her memories of her mother were bitter-sweet.  She had soft hands, a ready laugh, twinkling eyes and
continually
smelled of flowers.  In Emma’s mind, her mother had always been incredibly gorgeous, with lots of hugs and kisses at the ready for any hurt feelings or bruised knees.  Emma had been carefree during those days, knowing that her mother wou
ld always be there for her.

Not only did the five year old Emma lose her mother
on that horrible day
, but she’d also gained the
continuous
censure of her father. 
O
nce her mother had fled, Edward Mason the Third, Earl of Denton, had turned his anger and humiliating accusations onto his daughter who had turned out to be the spitting image of her mother, according to Edward Mason.

Oh, Emma knew that she wasn’t the raving beauty her mother had been although she only had one, stolen picture to remember her by. 
After
Emma’s mother had left, Edward destroyed all the other pictures of her that had been in the house, including a portrait that had been specially commissioned after their wedding by a world famous painter. 

Besides demoralizing and humiliating Emma on a continuous basis,
Edward Mason had been a bitter, evil man who had made millions of
pounds
by cheating and stealing in his business dealings.  Emma had overheard him on numerous occasions laughing in his study with one person or another about how he had cheated someone or lied to another in order to scrape another million
pounds
together. 
The first time she’d overhead his laughter she’d been horrified that he was so amoral.  She’
d been hiding from him that morning to avoid his wrath, which could be invoked for anything including a wisp of hair being out of place or her eyes looking happy. 

When she’d started to under
s
tand how unethical he was with his business dealings, she’d shunned away from that information.  Unfortunately, living in the same house with the man and hearing him brag about his felonious activities, it was hard to avoid
seeing
his truly
black soul
. 
It always amazed her that he’d never been caught.  He’d been so blatant about his business dealings, she would have thought that eventually someone would have figured out what an awful person he’d been and not done business with him.
She also didn’t understand why the authorities had turned a blind eye to all of his
tricks
. 

But in all the times she’d hidden away in a closet as a child or teenager, she never heard of anyone who had bested her father. 
He’d taken delight in bragging about his deeds. 

These thoughts and many others floated through her mind as the funeral progressed.  She didn’t hear the words, didn’t mourn the passing of the man so much as the passing of her life under his dictatorial and cruel parentage.  So when the final words broke through her contempl
ation, she was surprised that the ceremony
was finally over. 

The minister came over and took Emma’s hands, offering his condolences.  Then each o
f the other guests
who had attended the funeral, one by one, they came over and did the same before moving off to their vehicles and driving
away
. 

Emma accepted the
ir
words and hoped that her face wa
s appropriately somber.  But that strange
feeling was growing inside
of
her. 
Hope.
  Was it possible?  Could she actually have a life?  Was it possible that she could move on to something new?  Something fresh?  Something untainted by her father’s despicable mind? 
Could she actually be a reflection of her mother instead of carrying on her father’s legacy?  She’d had her mother for only five years and her father for twenty, minus the periods when she’d been away at
boarding
school.  She’d just have to recall her mother’s goodness and kindness, countering all of her father’s
heartlessness. 

One after another, the people stood in front of her, offering words of sympathy that Emma neither needed nor wanted but she nodded and smiled, eager to be off and consider the possibilities of what she could now do with her life. 

“Ms. Mason,” a strong, tanned hand
reached down and gently clasped
her cold white one.  The touch sent an electric shock through her fingers and Emma was so startled, she actually looked up, directly into the handsome man’s eyes.  He was tall!  Definitely over six feet.  His face was tanned with lines in the corners of his eyes as if he laughed a lot.  But his dark, black eyes weren’t smiling now.  They were looking at her as if he were trying to see into her soul
.  Emma’s mouth opened and she almost gasped, a tingle of fear shooting through her and she was afraid he might be able to read her small light of happiness. 

“My name is Jason Montenegro.  I worked with your father several years ago.  I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said. 

The words were spoken but Emma didn’t want them.  She wasn’t sorry, except for all the horrible things her father had done.  Not just to her, but to anyone around him.  “Thank you.  You have kind words,” she recited the same thing she’d been saying over and over again to the others as they’d passed by her.

Emma looked around but they were now alone except for the
bulldozer
operator who was waiting to push the remaining dirt onto the coffin and finalize the end of an evil man’s life. 

“Mr.
Montenegro
,” she replied, her fingers shaking and a shiver of awareness sped down her spine.  “
I think I do remember you.
  I believe you came to the hous
e several times for meetings with my father. 
What are you doing here?” she asked.  “It has been a long time,” she replied. 

“Yes, it has.”  Jason Montenegro looked down at the defeated beauty of Emma Mason, trying to determine if she mourned the passing of her father.  She probably didn’t know what a bastard he was, Jason thought.  And he wasn’t going to tell her.  He’d been called three days ago to
be told
about the death of Edward Mason
from the old man’s solicitor.  Something about Mason’s will and how Jason needed to be there for the reading
.  At the moment of the call, Jason considered simply disconnecting the line and ignoring the command performance for the reading of the will.  But something
had
stopped him.  It was the gentle innocence of Edward Mason’s daughter he remembered from twelve years ago. 

Edward Mason had given Jason his first job out of college and Jason had been thrilled, eager to learn the ropes of corporate takeovers and management.  Edward Mason had built an empire that had impressed Jason at twenty two. 
In those years, h
e ate, breathed and slept Mason
E
nterprises for two, long years before Jason understood exactly how Edward had made so many millions.  And
with that understanding,
Jason
found that he
had wanted nothing to do with it. 

Jason still remembered that rainy afternoon when Edward had ordered him to lie about a
target
company to the board of directors
in order to gain final approval for the acquisition
.  The rage that filled the office that afternoon when Jason had refused had been intense.  And when Jason tendered his resignation the following day, Edward had promised that Jason would never work in the industry again.

Now,
twelve
years later, Jason could have bought and
sold Edward Mason
several times over if he had the inclination.  Montenegro Industries was worldwide and Jason’s business acumen was reported on almost daily in one newspaper or another, depending on what country he was working in at that moment. 
His accomplishments had far outweighed Edward’s conglomerate, a fact which Edward had hated, Jason knew. 

Jason was just as ruthless as Edward Mason but the difference was that Jason never broke the law or lied.  He used intelligence and cutthroat business tactics but they were all ethical and always passed audits.  He had
,
in fact
,
become the darling of the business world whereas Edward Mason had burned too many people with his business practices and, recently, had become known in business circles as a pariah to be avoided.