"City Girl in the Outback" by Ally Blake

Journalist Mackenzie has always craved recognition from her media mogul dad. Surely an exclusive on the notoriously private King’s billion-dollar empire would break through his indifference?

Except she comes up against brooding, broad-shouldered heir Fitz, who won’t give her a word, much less a story!

Still, city girl Mackenzie finds herself captivated by the outback’s charms...and by Fitz. But if his strong, silent nature is hiding deeper secrets, what will she choose?

Family loyalty, or the unexpected man of her dreams...

EXCERPT

Last day of Autumn, Kings Reach, Western Australia

Fitz King ran a finger beneath the bow-tie pressed to his throat as he eased his way through the glittering crowd filling his family’s big converted barn, while calculating when he might slip away from the ball into the cool, late autumn night.

Small talk was not Fitz’s thing—big talk neither, for that matter. The fact that he lived on his family’s cattle station in the heart of the Kimberley meant that usually wasn’t a problem. With the sheer number of guests who had descended upon Kings Reach in the hopes some King success might brush off on them, that evening he’d had his fill.

Breathing in as he slipped between two groups distracted enough not to notice him, he couldn’t catch even a whiff of the hay bales, spare bridles and saddles, and busted machinery that had filled the dusty corners of the barn a week before. Now gargantuan potted palms in golden pots stood sentry by the doorways, ivy and fairy lights wrapped around the criss-cross of support beams above, and dozens of dainty cocktail tables covered in bark-brown linens filled the space, each with a centrepiece stacked with sprigs of Sturt’s desert pea, fluffy tufts of mulla mulla, and shrubby Grevillea, as if they were fancy roses rather than scrub blossoms.

Fitz might have thought it was all a bit much, if not for the fact it was a celebration of his mother, and the many charities she’d championed during her life via the Eliza King Foundation, on the tenth anniversary of her passing.
When a federal MP caught Fitz’s eye, he let his gaze slide past and kept on walking. He’d have been perfectly happy talking shop with any of the locals—“local” being those who worked the millions of hectares of ruggedly challenging crop and cattle-grazing country in the north-west of Australia, or the visiting Elders from Gija Country with whom the King family enjoyed a long working relationship. But the ring-ins, their private planes and helicopters currently resting wing to tail in the Kings Reach airfield, could find someone else to talk at.

At least Hideaway Haven, the ecotourism adventure and experience business Fitz owned and ran on Kings Reach land, was booked solid for the next few weeks by those who’d decided to make a holiday of the opportunity. Not that there was ever a problem booking out, but the low turnover of guests would give his staff a breath.
When the band started up again, playing a jazzed-up Bowie classic, head down, Fitz eyed the nearest side door, only for his next step to falter when he spied a woman by the far wall, chin down, moves almost comically stealthy as she skirted the crowd in a near mirror to his own approach.

There were too many people milling between them to get a proper look, but he knew she was a stranger all the same. Half the people in the place were unknown to him, but he’d have remembered if he’d met her.
It wasn’t only the way her slippery-looking dark blue dress shimmered over her body when she moved, or the paleness of her skin that made him wonder if she’d ever seen sunlight, that had him pulling up short. It was the fact that she was so clearly on a mission and was not to be deterred.

When she paused, like a roo hearing the crack of a stick underfoot, then ducked behind a potted palm, Fitz coughed out a laugh of surprise.

Fingers appeared within the frond of the palm, then a pair of eyes filled the gap, only for a leaf to slip her grip and flick her in the mouth. Stepping out from her hidey-hole, the woman’s tongue swept over a pair of glossy red lips, checking all was well. Then, hands on hips, she looked to the sky for help.

Now this is entertainment, thought Fitz, a grin tugging at the edges of his mouth.

“Fitz King has made the right move,” accounted a familiar voice to his left, and Fitz glanced in that direction.
When he looked back towards the potted palm, the woman was gone. Dammit, he thought, with more enthusiasm than he’d felt all night.

“Diversification is the future.”

Fitz recognized the voice as coming from a cattleman, not much younger than he, who’d likely driven the several hours from his station to be there.

“Poppycock,” scoffed a bandy-legged gent older than Fitz’s own father. “Cattle’s the way. Waste of time and energy putting resources behind anything else. Fraser King, at least, ought to know better.”

Several heads nodded, agreeing that breeding beef, moving it, and selling it was everything in these parts. And that Fraser, Fitz’s father, was indulging his youngest son.

If only they knew Fitz had been leading a nice life before his mother had fallen ill—surfing the world’s most glorious beaches, climbing the most unforgiving rock faces, leaping into the wild blue yonder, feeling life flow through every molecule in his body at every turn.

If only they knew how much his larger-than-life father had diminished, needing him, needing any one of his sons to come home, after Eliza had died.

If only they knew that his father’s agreement to lease Fitz the land on which Hideaway Haven ran was the only reason he’d agreed to come home for good.

But they would never know, for the Kings were as famous for closing ranks on private family business as they were for their unsurpassed generational success on the land. Which was why the conversation, thankfully, moved back to cattle.

Wait… There she was again.

The stranger had done a U-turn and was closer now. With her back to him, he could see that her dark hair was like a waterfall of mahogany silk, and when she looked sideways, the back of her dress fell in a low dip, revealing the most touchable looking moonlight fair skin.

Someone stopped her. A man, offering a hand in introduction. Fitz saw her shoulder rise, then with a determined shake of her head, she spun on her heel and walked in the other direction.

What the hell? he thought, following her at pace, utterly transfixed. But that was soon overtaken by a more pressing question: Who is she?

He knew many of the locals—having attended School of the Air at the same time with a few, such as Charlie Ashwell, who worked on the Reach on occasion and was playing drink waitress that night. Or from bachelor and spinster bush dances he’d crashed with his older brothers. He’d even dated a fair few when he’d first got his driver’s license, earning himself a reputation as a heartbreaker. When he’d finally cottoned on that the expectation for farm girls was to get married, have kids, and find future security in the merging of farming families, he’d never dated locally again.

The longest relationships he’d had since had been with Hideaway Haven and his horse. He just wasn’t a forever guy.
The stranger hesitated and turned, her face in three-quarter profile as something, or someone, across the barn caught her eye.

Fitz dared not check who that might be, lest she disappear on him again. There was also the fact that he was close enough now to note her mouth was a curious pout, as she nibbled at the inside of her lower lip. Her eyes lively, bright and full of mischief. He could all but feel her energy crackling under his skin. For the stranger was not only lovely, he was now certain she was up to no good.

Jewel thief? Industrial spy? Hitwoman? Only thing he was certain of was that he did not care.

When frown lines puckered over her nose as she looked around nervously, Fitz held his breath. Then, grabbing a bowl of chocolates wrapped in silver paper from a nearby cocktail table, she tipped every last one into her purse and snapped the thing shut, before slipping into the crowd and disappearing once more.

Fitz lifted his hands in frustration and looked about him to see if anyone else was getting a load of this. The “anyone else” he had in mind were his brothers, all of whom were at the ball that night.

It was a strange feeling, thinking of them in such a moment. As, while the King brothers had been tight growing up, this was the first time they had been under the same roof in over a decade. Not even their mother’s funeral had brought them all home in time.

Logan was easiest to spot as he was the tallest person in the room. Older than Fitz by a couple of years but older in the head by centuries, he was the King family lawyer. He lived on the other side of the country, in Sydney, and as Fitz saw it, found plenty of reasons to keep it that way.

Tom—second oldest—was currently chatting up Charlie and her drinks tray. The self-professed comedian of the family, Tom was the Kings Reach financial advisor. He also lived in Sydney with his daughter, Bea. Fitz had a soft spot a mile wide for the kid, and so as far as he saw it, Tom needed no excuse to do whatever she needed.

Then there was Jackson—the oldest of the King brothers. A builder of international hotels and the empire that came with them, Jack had made it clear over the years that he wanted nothing to do with Kings Reach. On one infamous occasion he’d told a journalist that he’d happily burn the place to the ground. Yet, somehow their father had lured him here for the ball, for there he stood, twenty feet away, chatting with a pair of Federal parliamentarians as if it was totally cool and normal.

While it should be a good thing, having them all there, for Fitz it meant there had been no avoiding the fact that there was one King brother who was not, and never would be again.

What would Will have thought of a night like this? His twin had been gone since they were both nine years old, so Fitz could only imagine a watery version of himself, which was just so unfair.

Turning to leave, when the need for fresh air suddenly became necessary, Fitz spun, only to run smack into someone. Apology ready on his lips, he reached to catch them as they teetered, only to find himself looking into the face of The Stranger.

You, he thought, as a pair of dazzling hazel eyes blinked up at him.

She knows who I am, Fitz realised, when her eyes widened and she sucked in a breath on a quick gasp. And the need to know who she was, what she was up to, drowned out every other thought.

When her top teeth clamped down on her bottom lip, and she seemed to melt a little in his hold, again he thought, You, only this time it was an amorphous thought, bringing with it the strongest urge to let his hands slide down her arms, reach around her back, and find that soft bare skin as he drew her slowly closer.

When the vision threatened to run away with itself, Fitz figured an introduction was the more gentlemanly way to go. He opened his mouth to ask the stranger’s name, when someone called his.

“Fii-iitz! Yoo-hoo! Fitzy!”

Fitz looked to the caller to find a local farmer’s wife, her daughter trailing apologetically in her wake.
And he felt the stranger gently untwist herself from his light embrace.

No, no, no, he thought, turning back in time to catch her giving him one last heart-stopping look, the kind that made men go into battle, conquer kingdoms, carve faces onto the bows of ships, before she spun away and melted into the crowd.

When Fitz’s phone buzzed in the inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket, he was so not in his own skin he actually flinched. Yanking the thing free, he saw Tom had sent a message on the rarely used brothers’ group chat. For the first time in years his brother was sending out an SOS.

Fitz strode through the crowd till he found Tom and Logan out the side door of the barn, where light from inside spilled out onto the back lawn, before it was swallowed by the winter’s eve night.

M O R E B O O K S

CITY GIRL IN THE OUTBACK

I T A L I A N S O F V E R M I L L I O N
DATING DEAL WITH THE ITALIAN
FAKE DATING THE ITALIAN HEIR

ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID
SECRETLY MARRIED TO A PRINCE (aka OUTBACK PRINCESS)

B I L L I O N - D O L L A R B A C H E L O R S E R I E S
WHIRLWIND FLING TO BABY BOMBSHELL
FAKE ENGAGEMENT WITH THE BILLIONAIRE
CINDERELLA ASSISTANT TO BOSS'S BRIDE
(winner of the 2024 ROMANTIC BOOK THE YEAR Award for Best Short Contemporary)

THE WEDDING FAVOUR
THE MILLIONAIRE'S MELBOURNE PROPOSAL
DREAM VACATION, SURPRISE BABY
BROODING REBEL TO BABY DADDY
CRAZY ABOUT HER IMPOSSIBLE BOSS
A WEEK WITH THE BEST MAN
HIRED BY THE MYSTERIOUS MILLIONAIRE
AMBER AND THE ROGUE PRINCE
RESCUING THE ROYAL RUNAWAY BRIDE
TELL ME TRUE
LOVE ME TENDER
RESISTING THE MUSICIAN
KISS ME QUICK
HER HOTTEST SUMMER YET
THE DANCE OFF
FAKING IT TO MAKING IT
THE SECRET WEDDING DRESS
50 DAYS WITH ROSE
PIPPA BARED ALL
THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
THE WEDDING DATE/THE ROGUE WEDDING GUEST
MILLIONAIRE DAD'S SOS
GETTING RED-HOT WITH THE ROGUE
DATING THE REBEL TYCOON
A NIGHT WITH THE SOCIETY PLAYBOY
THE MAGNATE'S INDECENT PROPOSAL
STEAMY SURRENDER (Encore coming soon!)
GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS (Encore coming soon!)
HIRED: THE BOSS'S BRIDE
FALLING FOR THE REBEL HEIR (Encore coming soon!)
MILLIONAIRE TO THE RESCUE (Encore coming soon!)
BILLIONAIRE ON HER DOORSTEP
MEANT-TO-BE MOTHER
WANTED: OUTBACK WIFE
A FATHER IN THE MAKING
THE SHOCK ENGAGEMENT
A MOTHER FOR HIS DAUGHTER
HOW TO MARRY A BILLIONAIRE
MARRIAGE MAKEOVER
MARRIAGE MATERIAL
THE WEDDING WISH

F R E E R E A D
SUMMER LOVIN’
TALL, DARK & FETTUCINI

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