Kidnapping the Brazilian Tycoon Read Online Free PDF

entertain me, granola girl.” A double entendre coated his words, and it caused the little hairs at the back of her neck to stand on end. She shuddered as he stared at her like he held more power chained to a bed than she did with her freedom. Focus.
    Crap . What was she going to do? Beads of sweat slicked her forehead. So much for leverage. How else could she convince him to help the Kwanis? Was all of this for nothing? “Isn’t it enough to fight modern genocide?” Her nervous tone betrayed her. She cleared her throat and gave herself a mental slap. “Clear conscience? Tax write-off? Good PR?” All of the above?
    He offered her a sour smile. “There is something I actually need.”
    “Anything.” She smoothed her sweaty palms on her tank top.
    “I need a bride.”
    Surprise zapped through her. “A bride?” she repeated, making sure she had heard him correctly.
    “My father’s health is deteriorating. He has a brain tumor. Doctors don’t expect him to live longer than a month. I’m returning to Brazil in a couple days. Since I know he’s long wished to see me married, I arranged to elope before going to Rio.”
    Elope…with Erika. Did he really think just any woman would work? Like generic soap brands in the supermarket.
    “I’m sorry about your father,” she whispered. With both parents alive and still married despite their rough patches in the past, she couldn’t fathom losing either of them. “But I’m sure he’d rather see you happily married than married to someone just for the sake of fulfilling an expectation.”
    “There’s more to it.”
    “Are you gay?” Why else would he need to arrange a bride? At this time and age, who cared? Perhaps his father was extremely conservative. Though the way he kissed her earlier… Her pulse fluttered. Bruno’s powerful masculinity was like an undiscovered source of energy, flaring up waves from miles away.
    Hearty laughter filled the room. “No, Addie, I’m not gay. Quite the opposite.”
    “You want to make a lifelong commitment just to show your dad some poor fool agreed to marry you?”
    “The reasons why don’t concern you. I’ve done things in the past I’m not proud of that deeply hurt my father and my family,” he said, pronouncing the words carefully as if he were trying not to reveal any more than necessary. “My father’s surgery didn’t work, and he’s decided to go on pain management treatment at home for his last weeks. He doesn’t have a lot to look forward to.”
    “How can I help? I don’t see any of my female friends agreeing to this.” She thought of her childhood friends from Texas or the few women she’d gotten to know in Brazil. How could she contact them with this weird proposal? They’d expect more from a potential husband than just a sense of duty.
    “I want you, Addie.”
    “Come again?”
    “I told my father I’d return to Brazil married. Since you’re such a selfless and altruistic person, there is nothing fairer than for you to step up.”
    His suggestion paralyzed her. “Me? I’m sure you probably know more suitable women.”
    “I do,” he said with a smile on his lips as if he’d already gotten his way.
    Thanks.
    “We’ll be leaving for Brazil tonight,” he continued, all boardroom-like. “I guess it’ll work out after all, Erika or no Erika.”
    “Don’t you care for her at all?” Her chest tightened. Stuart, Erika’s PA whom she had befriended to gather more info, had been adamant that Bruno and his then fiancée shared common goals only.
    “She’s a good woman.”
    “You don’t love her. How can you marry someone you don’t love?”
    He leaned back against the headboard and stretched his legs, crossing one over the other. “My captor is not only an idealist, but a romantic,” he mocked. “Aren’t I lucky?”
    She ignored his sarcasm and the effect of the man semi-sprawled on a bed had on her nerves.
    “You speak Portuguese, right?”
    She nodded.
    “I don’t have enough