Harlequin Desire January 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 by Maisey Yates (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .txt) 📕

about herself, not about anything. Because it had brought her here. To this man, to his arms.

And that was truly the greatest prize of all.

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ISBN-13: 9781488070334

The Rancher’s Wager

Copyright © 2021 by Maisey Yates

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidentsare either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at [email protected].

Harlequin Enterprises ULC

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Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada

www.Harlequin.com

She lifted her veil as she made her way toward him, and his heart slammed into his chest.

“I love you! I cannot go through with this wedding.” She leaped into his arms. He instinctively placed his hands on her waist as she clung to him.

“What the…” But he didn’t finish what he was going to say because she pressed her lips to his and all rational thought left his brain. His arms tightened around her and the silence of the stunned crowd matched the skip in his heartbeat.

She broke the kiss a bare second after it had begun, leaving him feeling shorted.

“Do not say a word.” Her warm breath teased his ear, rousing a fire in his belly. “If you tell them you have the wrong wedding, my brothers will beat you to a pulp for kissing me. I suggest we take advantage of the surprise and run.”

* * *

Running Away with the Bride

by Sophia Singh Sasson is part of the

Nights at the Mahal series.

Dear Reader,

Fear is one of the most powerful emotions we feel when we fall in love. It’s often hard to trust another person not to break our heart, to let them peer into our soul and hope that they like what they see.

Divya is a traditional Indian woman who was ready to get married to a suitable Indian boy until a wedding crasher makes her realize she wants more out of life. But when she pictured her future husband, he was tall and dark, not white and sandy blond with eyes the color of the Caribbean Sea. It’s about more than looks—it’s about whether he can understand her culture and her family. Can he understand who she really is?

For Ethan, his heart is already in pieces and he can’t trust Divya not to shatter it further. He’s going to have to decide whether she’s worth the risk.

I hope you enjoy this book and the pieces of my Indian heritage that I’m sharing with it.

To get free book extras, visit my website at sophiasasson.com and please follow me on BookBub, @sophiasinghsasson.

I love hearing from readers, so please find me on Twitter (@sophiasasson) or Facebook (sophiasassonauthor) or email me at [email protected].

Enjoy!

Sophia

Running Away with the Bride

Sophia Singh Sasson

Sophia Singh Sasson puts her childhood habit of daydreaming to good use by writing stories that will give you hope, make you laugh, cry and possibly snort tea from your nose. She was born in Mumbai, India, and has lived in India and Canada. Currently she calls the chaos of Washington, DC, home. She’s the author of the Welcome to Bellhaven and State of the Union series. She loves to read, travel to exotic locations in the name of research, bake fancy cakes, explore water sports and watch Bollywood movies. Hearing from readers makes her day. Contact her through sophiasasson.com.

Books by Sophia Singh Sasson

Harlequin Desire

Nights at the Mahal

Marriage by Arrangement

Running Away with the Bride

Harlequin Heartwarming

State of the Union

The Senator’s Daughter

Mending the Doctor’s Heart

Welcome to Bellhaven

First Comes Marriage

Visit her Author Profile page at Harlequin.com, or sophiasasson.com, for more titles.

You can also find Sophia on Facebook, along with other Harlequin Desire authors, at Facebook.com/harlequindesireauthors!

To all those who have been afraid to go

for what they really want.

Acknowledgments

This book, and the entire Nights at the Mahal

series, would not have happened without my

awesome editor, Charles Griemsman, and my

agent, Barbara Rosenberg.

Most of all, thank you to my readers.

Your reviews, emails and letters keep me writing.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

CHAPTER ONE

“Stop this wedding!”

Ethan Connors searched the stage on the back lawn of the Mahal Hotel where a mandap had been set up. The couple was seated on floor-level settees under a pergola-like structure in front of a small fire. A priest dressed in loose orange clothing chanted and threw things into the fire, making it crackle and smoke.

Ethan wished he’d paid more attention to the wedding sequence the one time he’d been to an Indian wedding with Pooja. He had no idea