Only on His Terms

The Accidental Heirs #1

by Elizabeth Bevarly

He's a rich bachelor. She's inherited his fortune. Let the fun begin! Only from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Bevarly!

Meet Gracie Sumner, reluctant Cinderella. When the down-to-earth Midwesterner learns her deceptively humble neighbor left her fourteen billion-with-a-b dollars, she doesn't know what to do. Especially when said neighbor's shunned heir, Harrison Sage III, stakes his claim.

Harrison is not amused, especially when the quirky gold digger gets under his skin. How can the sophisticated New Yorker let himself be attracted to the woman who stole his father's fortune? Soon a contested will turns into a contest of wills -- one whose outcome could very well be determined in the bedroom!

Genres: Romance, Harlequin, Category Romance

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

Elizabeth Bevarly was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky and earned her BA with honors in English from the University of Louisville in 1983. Although she can’t recall ever wanting to be anything but a novelist-oh, all right, she toyed briefly with becoming an archaeologist, until she realized how awful she looked in khaki and flannel, and there was a brief fling with the interior decorator thing, until she realized she had trouble distinguishing chintz from moiré, and… (Where was I? Oh, yeah. My brilliant career.) Anyway, her career side trips before making the leap to writing included stints working as a bartender, a waitress, a movie theater cashier, a soap-hawker for Crabtree & Evelyn, an apparel-hawker for The Limited, and a bridal registry consultant for a major department store. She also did time as an editorial assistant for a medical journal, where she learned the correct spellings and meanings of a variety of words (like microscopy and histological) which, with any luck at all, she will never use again in this life.

She wrote her first novel when she was twelve years old. It was 32 pages long-and that was with college rule notebook paper-and featured three girls named Liz, Marianne and Cheryl, who explored the mysteries of a haunted house. Her friends Marianne and Cheryl proclaimed it “Brilliant! Spellbinding! Kept me up past dinnertime reading!” Those rave reviews only kindled the fire inside her to write more.

Since sixth grade, Elizabeth has gone on to complete more than 60 works of contemporary romance. Her novels regularly appear on the USA Today and Waldenbooks bestseller lists, and The Thing About Men was a New York Times Extended List bestseller. She’s been nominated for the prestigious RITA Award, has won the coveted National Readers’ Choice Award, and Romantic Times magazine has seen fit to honor her with two-count ‘em TWO-Career Achievement Awards. Her books have been translated into two dozen languages and published in three dozen countries, and there are more than ten million copies in print worldwide. She has claimed as residences Washington, DC, northern Virginia, southern New Jersey and Puerto Rico, but she now resides back in her native Kentucky with her husband and son and two very troubled cats where she fully intends to remain.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good story. Gracie was stunned to discover that her neighbor was actually a very rich man who'd left her fourteen billion dollars in his will, with very specific instructions on what to do with it. Things got more complicated when his estranged son made his displeasure known.

Harrison is convinced that Gracie is a gold digger who conned his father out of his money, at least until he meets her. Then he's not sure what to think. She doesn't seem like the gold digger type, but what other explanation could there be?

There is a strong attraction between them from the beginning, but both try to resist it. Harrison doesn't trust her, and he's just too money oriented for her. Gracie is stuck in New York for awhile while things are finalized, and she ends up invited to stay at the home of Harrison and his mother. I loved seeing how that came about and Harrison's reaction to it. This begins a period of Harrison and Gracie getting to know each other.

Harrison grew up rich. For the first fifteen years of his life, his father was there, but not there. Harry the elder spent all his time working to make more money. The his father walked out on Harrison and his mother, disappearing from his life completely. Harrison followed in his father's footsteps, starting his own company and making boatloads of money of his own. He has a very cynical view of others, expecting everyone to be out for what they can get. Meeting Gracie completely confuses him.

Gracie is wonderful. Her love of vintage clothing just adds to her uniqueness, and I loved her effect on Harrison. She is the type of person who sees the good in other people and has a deep desire to help those in trouble. It made her perfect for what Harry wanted.

I loved seeing Gracie and Harrison showing each other the things each of them knows about Harry. Gracie had a hard time picturing the kind man she knew as a ruthless businessman. Then it was her turn to show Harrison the man she knew. I loved seeing her open Harrison's eyes to a whole different world. It was fun to see how her outlook on life began to change his. The dancing scene while they were in Cincinnati and how it pushed their attraction to each other over the top was wonderful. The heat and emotion they created that night was amazing. But the next morning, Harrison begins to panic over the intensity of what he felt, and when he finds out some information about Gracie, he confronts her about it. He makes the mistake of falling back into old habits and believing the worst, creating a rift between them. He knows he's being a jerk, but he can't seem to help himself. I loved seeing Gracie stand up for herself, even through the pain of what he says.

The ending is fantastic, with Harrison making amends in a really great way. I loved seeing how he changed. His words to Gracie were sweet, and he was so worried that she wouldn't forgive him. The epilogue was terrific and the perfect wrap up for the story.

[Marsha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have you ever read a literary character so immediately repellant you wished you could somehow reach into the book and slap him/her hard? That’s the feeling I got when I read about Harrison Sage III. Without knowing the first thing about Grace Sumner, he pegs her as a “trashy, scheming, manipulative gold digger” who tricked his dead father into willing her 14 billion dollars in his will. She becomes wounded. I would have been breathing fire.

Hold on to your hats, ladies, because it gets worse. Harrison’s lawyer is thinking of bringing an appeal stating that Gracie transmitted an STD to the late Harrison Sage II, thus addling his mind and inducing him to make that ridiculous settlement. At this point, Gracie would have been within her rights to sue the man for slander, especially since the lawyer makes this horrific announcement in a room filled with attorneys, the mistresses, ex-wives, widow, legitimate and illegitimate offspring of the late, great Harrison Sage II.

But, wait, there’s more! You would think from Harrison Sage III’s desperate attempts to get his hands on Gracie’s $14-billion windfall that Harrison and his mother were going to be kicked to the curb, barefoot, penniless and homeless. But it turns out junior has his own fortune, becoming a millionaire before he was 25. By the time he crosses paths with Gracie, he has several million dollars to his name.

So it seems the indignant, blame-shifting, name-calling Harrison Sage III has pots of money. He just wants to get his hands on more. He’s not content with being a millionaire. He wants to be a billionaire and, if that means raking up dirt against a woman he doesn’t know or launching a scandalous lawsuit against her, then so be it. Guess that makes him the trashy, scheming, manipulative gold digger, huh?

However, Gracie isn’t the vindictive sort. Rather than throw off this nasty money-grubbing bastard, she spends time with Harrison. She gets to know him, gets him to know her. More importantly, she gets him to know the late cold-blooded, moneymaker Harrison Sage III, the man who abandoned his son and current wife for so many years, the man Gracie knew as Harry Sagalowsky, a man kind, giving, charitable, thoughtful and caring.

That, in the end, is what redeems this novel. The romance left me fuming and chomping at the bit. I found it hard to dismiss my initial impression of Harrison Sage III and I couldn’t forgive him the way Gracie could. But his gradual realization of the man his father had been, the mental journey of a son learning to forgive his father and understand himself were enough to soften me towards this romance.

[Bea Tea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I've finally found an author who writes billionaire romances, not to idolize the rich but to bring them back down to earth through heroines that are turned off by excessive wealth.

This is my second book by this author and it didn't disappoint. A rags to riches and back to (sorta) rags again story, with a strong theme of money cannot buy you happiness or love. What I love is how the h, who had inherited 14 billion dollars from an old man friend, is horrified and scared by this windfall. She doesn't want it, that sort of money is obscene and disgusting to her. She is charged with giving it away to charitable foundations, which is a relief to her but utterly inconceivable to the old man's disposed heir, who does all in his power to discredit and sully the h.

I really loved the scene when the H is showing off his $7000 coffee maker - most romance authors would do this with the intention of wowing the h (and the reader)with how expensive it is, and how rich the H is. Not this author, the h is *disgusted* that a coffee maker could cost so much and seethes at how that sort of money would be life changing to a lot of normal, everyday, non-billionaire people. The H is baffled, he doesn't get how the h isn't impressed by money, lol.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Bevarly does it again.
I am an admitted fan of Elizabeth Bevarly's romantic fiction and this sweet, fun Harlequin Desire is no exception.
Gracie Sumner, a kind-hearted mid-western young woman befriended her neighbor in no way knowing that he would leave her a billion dollar fortune. Now to figure out what to do with that kind of money... after she disentangles herself from the lawsuit contesting the bequest.
Her late neighbor's estranged son, who is having NONE of the too-good-to-be-true Gracie's gold digging ways.
The chemistry between the couple flares, as do emotions regarding parent/child relationships and the romance builds from there.
An another excellent romance from EB - grab it and spend the evening with a smile on your face.

[Harlequin Books]

"This rags-to-riches love story is touching and sweet while exploring the variations of family, the importance of trust and the complications of falling in love" (RT Book Reviews).

Miniseries: The Accidental Heirs

[Dewi · Rating 2 out of 5]

urmmm... a bit boring for me.

[Hasnamezied · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were many things I didnt like in this book.One of them is too much details , you can skip whole texts without makeing any difference.