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Chapter 1

Marlowe Colton had always thought that one of the perks of being the president of Colton Oil was having her very own private, luxurious en suite bathroom installed within her rather cavernous office

An en suite bathroo her very own private nervous breakdown as she stared at a slaring pink plus sign

Her breathing grew shorter and more erratic as she continued to stare at the awful, incri until it had twisted itself into a hard, painful knot

Marlowe realized that she eating even as she felt a cold chill shooting down her spine and passing over every part of her body

And the nausea was back In spades Any second now, she was going to throw up

Again

“No, you’re a Colton,” she told the unusually pale blonde looking back at her in theto throw up You’re not!” she insisted

Marlowe blinked back tears They weren’t tears of joy, or tears of sorrow What she felt stinging her eyes were angry tears Angry tears that were aimed at no one but herself

How could she have let this happen? One stupid ing and now here she was, in the throes ofsickness

It wasn’t possible

It wasn’t

And yet the stick in her hand told her it was all too possible

It was a reality

The white stick had come out of the discarded white box that was now haphazardly sitting on the edge of the sink The pharmacist had assured her that this product was supposed to be the best, the nancy test on the market She truly doubted that it had made a mistake

Besides, if she was being conant had been in the back of her mind for the last six weeks Ever since she had lost her head and her iron grip on her eood looks and charms that she had been all but bred to hate Because the o had a father who hated her father, and that feeling was very, very mutual

What in the na? Marlowe silently demanded of her reflection

That was just it—she hadn’t been thinking For once in her career-driven life, she hadn’t been thinking at all, just feeling Or at least telling herself that she’d been feeling Feeling an overwhel attraction to a man she had viewed as the enemy for as far back as she could remember

This hat ca to behave civilly toward soht did not deserve to be treated with any sort of respect

All of her life, Marlowe had done exactly as expected of her—and then some She was a Colton, and Coltons were supposed to behave a certain way At least Payne Colton’s daughter was supposed to behave in a certain way

She closed her eyes, fighting another strong, rising wave of sto nausea as it tried to claw its way up her throat

If only she hadn’t gone to that stupid energy conference

Or, at the very least, if she hadn’t spent sowith Bowie Robertson, president of Robertson Renewable Energy Company, over proposed pipelines and the environument went on and on relentlessly until everyone else at the conference had withdrawn for the night That left just the two of theument on their own

How heated words had sone—or had that been two bottles?—she still really wasn’t clear about But so the line, their different philosophies and the eternal ongoing rivalries that defined their lives had just soet in the way of a very real and exceedingly strong attraction that hadbetween the

Marlowe could reether after that One of those bits and pieces had included a very strong desire to be, for once in her life, swept away, for the space of at least that one isolated evening

An evening that becahts about rivalries, corporate profits and even the ever-increasing concerns about green energy being a threat to her family’s oil company

Just one carefree evening, that was all she had wanted, Marlowe thought

And now this stick and itsa price for those frivolous few hours of passion she had spent