What do you think?
Rate this book
The CEO's Accidental Bride
There was no way multimillionaire Zach Harper would split his inheritance with a stranger. Even if she was his "wife." What had supposedly been a prank Vegas wedding to Kaitlin Saville was very real. And now, according to his late grandmother's will, Zach's future was tied to Kaitlin...forever.
The CEO truly believed he could buy off his bride with a few million and a signed divorce decree. However, Kaitlin didn't want money. She wanted an opportunity only Zach could provide. So he offered her a job, vowing never to consummate their marriage. But some vows were meant to be broken....
The CEO truly believed he could buy off his bride with a few million and a signed divorce decree. However, Kaitlin didn't want money. She wanted an opportunity only Zach could provide. So he offered her a job, vowing never to consummate their marriage. But some vows were meant to be broken....
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 21, 2010
25 people are currently reading
225 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Dunlop
465 books149 followersBarbara Dunlop is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over sixty romance and romantic comedy novels, including the new Paradise, Alaska Romance series for Berkley and the recent Gambling Men series with Harlequin Desire. Published in multiple languages across a worldwide market, Barbara’s books have received numerous awards with a number of her stories optioned for film and television.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
February 4, 2014
Plot was ok, maybe even good, but the characters... I just wanted to shake them - both of them!
h is delusional: an architect who thinks to make a name for herself by not respecting a building & firm's history nor budgets and solvency!!!! (who wants to hire someone like that. She was a danger to any potential client, I couldn't get behind her)
H is completely self-centered : he doesn't get why h can't belive him after he tried to cheat her, manipulate her, stole from her, etc.!!!
h is delusional: an architect who thinks to make a name for herself by not respecting a building & firm's history nor budgets and solvency!!!! (who wants to hire someone like that. She was a danger to any potential client, I couldn't get behind her)
H is completely self-centered : he doesn't get why h can't belive him after he tried to cheat her, manipulate her, stole from her, etc.!!!
January 9, 2011
When a night of passion leads to an unexpected marriage, two people will find that the unexpected can be the best thing to ever happen to you.
Kaitlin Saville despises Zach Harper with everything in her. He is the root cause of all of her recent pains and suffering. She has just got fired from her job at a prestigious Manhattan architectural firm and it’s all Zach’s fault. Her reputation is ruined and she can’t get another job in her field in New York, so her only option is to move away. While planning her next move, Zach shows up announcing he needs help with a little problem.
Zach knows that there is some bad blood between him and Kaitlin but he can’t focus on that. He has just learned that his recently deceased grandmother has left everything to his wife; a woman that his attorney informs him is Kaitlin. During a recent work party in Vegas, a very drunk Kaitlin and Zach get married by Elvis, whom they had thought was playing around.
Kaitlin just wants a clean get away so she’ll divorce Zach but first she wants a little revenge and to see the cool and calm Zach in such disarray is enjoyable. However, her best friend and attorney, does a little digging and finds that Kaitlin is the owner of the Harper’s family company and she inherited a whole lot more than just a husband.
The story is one that has been done more times than I can count but the characters are what make this story so likeable and memorable. Once Kaitlin learns of her leverage, she negotiates a deal with Zach to be reassigned as his architect and to renovate the Harper building. Zach wants his grandmother’s memory to be respected and Kaitlin’s ideas of renovation are the total opposite. He enlists his friend and lawyer, Dylan, to help him take down Kaitlin. Their schemes will make readers laugh.
Zach’s family is descendents of pirates. They own an island right off the coast of New York and Zach takes Kaitlin and Lindsay (best friend/lawyer) there to see why it is so important to him to keep up with family traditions. The castle and pirates, I admit, threw me off a bit because I didn’t expect it in a modern day romance story or for the author to constantly make mention of them. It is also clear that the author favors prehistoric buildings or architect through her description of the scenery on the island. But it is as the island that Zach and Kaitlin will learn that it is so much more at stake than a silly war they got going on.
The side romance between Dylan and Lindsay adds more charm and humor to the story. Some of the most humorous lines came from them and at times their love/hate antics seems a bit immature but I easily gloss over that fact. Overall, I would recommend this book for those who want a surprisingly nice and quick read.
Kaitlin Saville despises Zach Harper with everything in her. He is the root cause of all of her recent pains and suffering. She has just got fired from her job at a prestigious Manhattan architectural firm and it’s all Zach’s fault. Her reputation is ruined and she can’t get another job in her field in New York, so her only option is to move away. While planning her next move, Zach shows up announcing he needs help with a little problem.
Zach knows that there is some bad blood between him and Kaitlin but he can’t focus on that. He has just learned that his recently deceased grandmother has left everything to his wife; a woman that his attorney informs him is Kaitlin. During a recent work party in Vegas, a very drunk Kaitlin and Zach get married by Elvis, whom they had thought was playing around.
Kaitlin just wants a clean get away so she’ll divorce Zach but first she wants a little revenge and to see the cool and calm Zach in such disarray is enjoyable. However, her best friend and attorney, does a little digging and finds that Kaitlin is the owner of the Harper’s family company and she inherited a whole lot more than just a husband.
The story is one that has been done more times than I can count but the characters are what make this story so likeable and memorable. Once Kaitlin learns of her leverage, she negotiates a deal with Zach to be reassigned as his architect and to renovate the Harper building. Zach wants his grandmother’s memory to be respected and Kaitlin’s ideas of renovation are the total opposite. He enlists his friend and lawyer, Dylan, to help him take down Kaitlin. Their schemes will make readers laugh.
Zach’s family is descendents of pirates. They own an island right off the coast of New York and Zach takes Kaitlin and Lindsay (best friend/lawyer) there to see why it is so important to him to keep up with family traditions. The castle and pirates, I admit, threw me off a bit because I didn’t expect it in a modern day romance story or for the author to constantly make mention of them. It is also clear that the author favors prehistoric buildings or architect through her description of the scenery on the island. But it is as the island that Zach and Kaitlin will learn that it is so much more at stake than a silly war they got going on.
The side romance between Dylan and Lindsay adds more charm and humor to the story. Some of the most humorous lines came from them and at times their love/hate antics seems a bit immature but I easily gloss over that fact. Overall, I would recommend this book for those who want a surprisingly nice and quick read.
January 25, 2018
Little disappointing to be honest.
I didn't like him I was bored of meek and feeble her. I just wasn't that interested in either of them.
I think he was a scummy person and she was someone that felt like she had been wronged and really why would they fire someone for losing one pitch? That would happen a lot more than it wouldn't so why does this matter? I don't get it. It doesn't work like that.
I didn't like him I was bored of meek and feeble her. I just wasn't that interested in either of them.
I think he was a scummy person and she was someone that felt like she had been wronged and really why would they fire someone for losing one pitch? That would happen a lot more than it wouldn't so why does this matter? I don't get it. It doesn't work like that.
February 20, 2017
How two educated people can get trapped in a Vegas wedding and not realize it for what it is, I will never understand. But, I have to admit, it makes for the best romance stories!
So, they got married and didn't know, and now they need/want to get a divorce, but life is so much more complicated than that - especially when it's about money. And family.
I liked the idea of Kaitlin working for Zach, but her revenge plans were a bit too much. And I wasn't even sure just how much of it was her and how much of it revenge. The clash of her modern versus his traditional made me think they could never learn to get along.
Somehow they did in the end.
I absolutely loved Zach's family history and the frequent pirate references. Made my day!
So, they got married and didn't know, and now they need/want to get a divorce, but life is so much more complicated than that - especially when it's about money. And family.
I liked the idea of Kaitlin working for Zach, but her revenge plans were a bit too much. And I wasn't even sure just how much of it was her and how much of it revenge. The clash of her modern versus his traditional made me think they could never learn to get along.
Somehow they did in the end.
I absolutely loved Zach's family history and the frequent pirate references. Made my day!
January 17, 2011
This is one of the best romances I've read in years. What I loved most about it was the way it blended a purely contemporary tale with the best aspects of an historical romance...with pirates! Every girl loves a good pirate tale. Even when he is wearing a Saville Row suit.
Kaitlin Saville had really paid for a drunken indescretion. At a Harper corporate party for their high-end clients in Vegas, Kaitlin had drunkenly participated in a mock wedding pairing her with the big man himself, Zach Harper. In front of a flamboyant Elvis impersonator the two said the "I do's" to the guffaws of the crowd. Kaitlin was an architect whose avant guard designs were up for consideration for the Harper corporate HQ and if chosen would make her career. Success was everything to Kaitlin because she was an orphan, raised in foster and group homes and now faced life alone, without anyone to help her if she stumbled.
Her unbeloved "husband" of that mockery of a wedding not only turned down her design, but the powerful man's disapproval caused her firm to fire her. Now she couldn't get a job renovating a bathroom in NY and it was all his fault. Never having had a home, her apartment in New York meant a lot to her. Having to leave the city to find work where nobody ever heard of the villinous Zach Harper, just about broke her heart. It also meant leaving her best friend, Lindsay, the closest thing she had to a sister. She was weeping in her boxes when Zach showed up at her door and told her the astonishing news. They were really married! "Elvis" had filed the papers they'd signed as a joke at a party. He offered her two million dollars to divorce him.
Kaitlin didn't want his money.(Don't they all say that? Who ARE these women?) She wanted her career back. When her lawyer best friend Lindsay looks into it, she discovers there was more to it than that. Zach's grandmother left Harper Industries not to her beloved grandson, but to his WIFE. Her. She now controlled Zach's empire. She used that as a lever to gain carte blanche over the design of his building. She was going to build a show-stopper to firmly reclaim her career. If she got what she wanted, she'd divorce him.
Zach, a man from a long line of millionaires, was driven by respect paid to family tradition which meant not changing the building overmuch. Kaitlin, driven by no connection to tradition was inclined to change it down to its foundations. And he couldn't stop her, not if he wanted her to eventually sign the divorce papers and give him back his company. He tried to trick Kaitlin, outwit, outflank and even seduce the balance of power back into his control. He even got his best friend Dylan to help with some of the more underhanded attmepts.
Both Zach and Dylan's families sprang from pirates. Their families shared an island off of NY's coast. While Zach fully admitted his family wealth began by piracy, Dylan stoutly mantained his family was respectable and any rumors of piracy in his family's past were untrue. Lindsay, irked by Dylan's attempts to help Zach undermine her friend, became obsessed with making him admit the connection. Piratical family traditions come out in the seduction of these two ladies by their modern day corporate pirates blending the best aspects of historical romance with a contemporary tale.
The characters are finely honed, believable (except the not wanting 2 million dollars) and you see both sides. The author's love of buildings is evident in her rich descriptions of the marvelous settings. There was humour, strong women, roguish men, an eccentric aunt, a bleak cemetary on a wind-swept island during a storm with a hero coming to the rescue. Not on the white stallion you'd expect. It was a golf cart but still...!
The book was near prefection, in fact, the only quibble I have with it is the mistake of referring to her "Vishashi" shoes. I think she may have been trying to say "Versace".
Give yourself a Christmas present. Read this book.
Kaitlin Saville had really paid for a drunken indescretion. At a Harper corporate party for their high-end clients in Vegas, Kaitlin had drunkenly participated in a mock wedding pairing her with the big man himself, Zach Harper. In front of a flamboyant Elvis impersonator the two said the "I do's" to the guffaws of the crowd. Kaitlin was an architect whose avant guard designs were up for consideration for the Harper corporate HQ and if chosen would make her career. Success was everything to Kaitlin because she was an orphan, raised in foster and group homes and now faced life alone, without anyone to help her if she stumbled.
Her unbeloved "husband" of that mockery of a wedding not only turned down her design, but the powerful man's disapproval caused her firm to fire her. Now she couldn't get a job renovating a bathroom in NY and it was all his fault. Never having had a home, her apartment in New York meant a lot to her. Having to leave the city to find work where nobody ever heard of the villinous Zach Harper, just about broke her heart. It also meant leaving her best friend, Lindsay, the closest thing she had to a sister. She was weeping in her boxes when Zach showed up at her door and told her the astonishing news. They were really married! "Elvis" had filed the papers they'd signed as a joke at a party. He offered her two million dollars to divorce him.
Kaitlin didn't want his money.(Don't they all say that? Who ARE these women?) She wanted her career back. When her lawyer best friend Lindsay looks into it, she discovers there was more to it than that. Zach's grandmother left Harper Industries not to her beloved grandson, but to his WIFE. Her. She now controlled Zach's empire. She used that as a lever to gain carte blanche over the design of his building. She was going to build a show-stopper to firmly reclaim her career. If she got what she wanted, she'd divorce him.
Zach, a man from a long line of millionaires, was driven by respect paid to family tradition which meant not changing the building overmuch. Kaitlin, driven by no connection to tradition was inclined to change it down to its foundations. And he couldn't stop her, not if he wanted her to eventually sign the divorce papers and give him back his company. He tried to trick Kaitlin, outwit, outflank and even seduce the balance of power back into his control. He even got his best friend Dylan to help with some of the more underhanded attmepts.
Both Zach and Dylan's families sprang from pirates. Their families shared an island off of NY's coast. While Zach fully admitted his family wealth began by piracy, Dylan stoutly mantained his family was respectable and any rumors of piracy in his family's past were untrue. Lindsay, irked by Dylan's attempts to help Zach undermine her friend, became obsessed with making him admit the connection. Piratical family traditions come out in the seduction of these two ladies by their modern day corporate pirates blending the best aspects of historical romance with a contemporary tale.
The characters are finely honed, believable (except the not wanting 2 million dollars) and you see both sides. The author's love of buildings is evident in her rich descriptions of the marvelous settings. There was humour, strong women, roguish men, an eccentric aunt, a bleak cemetary on a wind-swept island during a storm with a hero coming to the rescue. Not on the white stallion you'd expect. It was a golf cart but still...!
The book was near prefection, in fact, the only quibble I have with it is the mistake of referring to her "Vishashi" shoes. I think she may have been trying to say "Versace".
Give yourself a Christmas present. Read this book.
May 24, 2017
D2062 Jan11 Kaitlin Saville, an orphan, discovers from Zach Harper that the Elvis impersonator that married them was legitimate. His late grandmother's will has left everything to his wife, Kaitlin.
Kaitlin is an architect, the one he fired because he didn't like plan to renovate his building. She blackmails him into getting back her job if he wants a divorce. This job is what she's worked for with no family to support and encourage her. Lindsay, her friend, helps her get around Zack's tricks to get the divorce and her out of his life. A trip to his grandmother's home changes them both.
Good life change story.
Kaitlin is an architect, the one he fired because he didn't like plan to renovate his building. She blackmails him into getting back her job if he wants a divorce. This job is what she's worked for with no family to support and encourage her. Lindsay, her friend, helps her get around Zack's tricks to get the divorce and her out of his life. A trip to his grandmother's home changes them both.
Good life change story.
February 22, 2011
The plot just seemed a little far-fetched.
September 16, 2012
Meh. This was another freebie download from the library's digital audiobooks. It lulled me back to sleep after an episode of insomnia.
October 4, 2012
Not what I expected... Strange and unusual in my mind...
June 15, 2013
Didn't care to much for the characters.
August 9, 2022
Silhouette Desire along with Harlequin Temptation and Blaze were my go-to category romances in high school and this was my first in 20+ years so....this was a bit of a disappointment.
I was feeling nostalgic and needed a book by an author from the Territories for @carmenreadsromance's challenge and Barbara Dunlop from the Yukon fit the bill perfectly.
This had a promising start with the accidentally married in Vegas trope complicated by the grandma leaving half the company/fortune to his wife for reasons so he needs a divorce ASAP, but the fact that she was an architect that he'd gotten fired after he rejected her proposed plans for his company's head office so she was blackmailing him to get the job back with a random $10M gone missing from grandma's charity for underprivileged children thrown in for kicks that had no resolution just kind of made this a mess. Clearly going back to 2011 was not a good idea, and perhaps I should've read one of Dunlop's more recent titles.
I was feeling nostalgic and needed a book by an author from the Territories for @carmenreadsromance's challenge and Barbara Dunlop from the Yukon fit the bill perfectly.
This had a promising start with the accidentally married in Vegas trope complicated by the grandma leaving half the company/fortune to his wife for reasons so he needs a divorce ASAP, but the fact that she was an architect that he'd gotten fired after he rejected her proposed plans for his company's head office so she was blackmailing him to get the job back with a random $10M gone missing from grandma's charity for underprivileged children thrown in for kicks that had no resolution just kind of made this a mess. Clearly going back to 2011 was not a good idea, and perhaps I should've read one of Dunlop's more recent titles.
April 18, 2020
Esperaba algo mejor. Empezó muy bien. Un toque algo único eso del testamento de la abuela Sadie, me gustó el inicio del libro, nada más. Después de eso se vuelve algo aburrido. Lectura corta y con final feliz.
June 3, 2018
Funny & cute.
September 26, 2023
I didn't like it. Np.
September 21, 2025
se lee como un bocadillo de media tarde
El drama de casarte sin saber que te casaste y que encima influye altamente en tu empresa.
Giros y mucho amor con final feliz asegurado
El drama de casarte sin saber que te casaste y que encima influye altamente en tu empresa.
Giros y mucho amor con final feliz asegurado
April 25, 2018
Sweet, with good dialogue and a lovely feel
December 20, 2012
awesome story.... i have never read such a cute story.....
February 3, 2015
I loved the best friends in this story. Very entertaining read.
July 6, 2015
4.5
it was really nice. full of conversation, heritage and emotions <3
it was really nice. full of conversation, heritage and emotions <3
January 19, 2011
This was a great short story, it was perfect for the doctor's office!!!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews