CHAPTER ONE
Surrender to the Ruthless Billionaire
Abby Green
Indebted to the billionaire...
And he will collect!
Nessa must appeal to notorious tycoon Luc’s better nature to exonerate her brother of theft. But Luc is the most merciless—and sinfully attractive—man Nessa’s ever met! Until the debt is settled, he’ll hold her as his captive. And when undeniable attraction overwhelms them both, it becomes clear that Nessa’s innocence is the real price to pay...!
I’d like to dedicate this story to my go-to Equestrian Experts, Peter Commane and Nemone Routh. Any inaccuracies are all my own fault! And I’d like to thank Heidi Rice, who gave me the moment of inspiration I needed while walking down Pall Mall in London. x
NESSA O’SULLIVAN HAD never considered herself capable of petty crime, and yet here she was, just outside a private property, under the cover of moonlight, about to break and enter to steal something that didn’t belong to her.
She grimaced. Well, to be accurate, she wasn’t really going to be breaking and entering, because she had her brother’s keys to his office in the Barbier stud farm offices. Luc Barbier. Just thinking of the owner of this stud and racing stables made a shiver of apprehension run through Nessa’s slim frame. She was crouched under an overhanging branch, on the edge of a pristine lawn in front of the main reception buildings. She’d left her battered Mini Cooper a short distance away from the gates and climbed over a low wall.
Nessa’s own family home was not far away, and so she knew the land surrounding this stud farm very well. She’d played here as a child when it was under different ownership.
But any sense of familiarity fled when an owl hooted nearby, and she jumped, her heart slamming against her breastbone. She forced herself to suck in deep breaths to calm her nerves, and cursed her hot-headed older brother again for fleeing like he had. But then, could she really blame Paddy Junior for not standing up to Luc Barbier—the intimidating French enfant terrible of the thoroughbred racing world, about whom more was unknown than known?
His darkly forbidding good looks had rumours abounding...that he had been orphaned by gypsies, and that he’d lived on the streets, before becoming something of a legend in the racing world for his ability to train the most difficult of horses.
He’d progressed in a very short space of time to owning his own racing stables outside Paris, and now he owned this extensive stud farm in Ireland attached to another racing stables, where his impressive number of successful racehorses were trained by the best in the world, all under his eagle-eyed supervision.
People said his ability was some kind of sorcery, handed down by his mysterious ancestors.
Other rumours had it that he was simply a common criminal who had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, and had managed to climb out of the gutter to where he was now by using a fluke talent and ruthless ingenuity to get ahead.
The mystery of his origins only added to the feverish speculation surrounding him, because along with his racing concerns, he had invested in myriad other industries, tripling his fortune in a short space of time and securing his position as one of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs. But racing and training remained his main concerns.
Paddy Jnr had talked about the man in hushed and awed tones
