Her betrayal made her daddy millions and tore Cason Harrison’s heart out, which is why he can’t believe his eyes that Londyn Harding is selling herself at an auction. Two weeks of her company is up for bid and nobody is winning her but him. Cason will take his revenge, but he can’t forget the rules: He can touch her only if she lets him.
Fast Deal
by Faye Avalon
Lola McBride doesn’t do one-night stands—until a blisteringly hot kiss from a lusciously sexy London nightclub owner has her rethinking that. Of course, Connor Fitzpatrick has no idea that she’s competing with him to purchase a local historic building. It’s a teeny lie of omission...that grows with each scorching encounter! And when Lola starts to fall for Connor, her deception might be the ultimate deal-breaker.
Cuffs
by Cara Lockwood
Tattoo artist Mags McHenry doesn’t believe in love or marriage. But when an incredibly gorgeous—and completely arrogant—banker steps into her shop, Mags knows she definitely believes in lust. Searing, addictive lust...and a desire to submit completely to Gael Quinn’s hungry, commanding touch. Gael is everything she craves. Everything she wants. And everything she hates. So why exactly is Mags falling for him?
Holiday Hookup
by Jamie K. Schmidt
Most people would kill for two weeks of relaxation. But being shipped off to navel-gaze at a health-nut resort in Maui is Blaine Stephens’s tofu-laden version of hell. Until curvaceous personal chef Selena Thompson shows him the most delicious—and seductive—way to unwind. But a tropical hookup may leave them craving something neither can afford.
Losing Control
by Rachael Stewart
PROLOGUE
THINGS YOU SHOULD know about me.
I don’t do trust.
I don’t do love.
I don’t do family.
I am me and I stand alone.
I run a billion-dollar empire and nothing can shake it.
Nothing can shake me.
Only I’m standing here at a double funeral, my brother and father both dead, and my collar is too restrictive, my chest too tight.
I shouldn’t care. Not when they pushed me out years ago. Took all that mattered to me in one fell swoop. The family business, and her. Alexa Harrington. My ex-fiancée. The only woman I have ever loved. Now my brother’s widow.
I run my finger along the inside of my collar, wishing the entire thing over. Wishing away the anger that still fizzes in my blood, the regret that shouldn’t exist, the feelings that should have died a death seven years ago.
I’m standing at the back of the church while the priest commands the room. Far enough away from my family—my mother and her. Far enough away not to cause a scene. Far enough away to remain anonymous, should I choose to. The room is full to the brim, row upon row of pews crammed with people. No one need know I am here—not if I’m quick enough.
Why I came is anyone’s guess.
A choked sob echoes through the rafters and I hone in on its source. My mother. She’s hunched forward, head bowed, body shaking in tune to her cries. In response my own body shudders and I tighten against it. I can’t breathe. I can’t swallow. My eyes burn—
Fuck this!
I am not going to cry.
I am not going to care.
Only, Mum is the reason I came. Her plea. Her message full of regret, begging that I at least pay my respects, say a last goodbye. And for what? My father didn’t deserve it—not when he made it so clear in life what a disappointment I’d been.
Well, screw you, Dad. I did it all and more.
She places a soothing hand upon my mother’s shoulder. I can see her perfect French-tipped fingers gently rub, can imagine her whispered words designed to calm. My gut twists and I plunge my fists inside my pockets, tearing my eyes away.
She plays the part well enough, dear sweet Alexa. Behaves as if she cares. But how can she really, when she simply followed the money after I left. Swapped me for my greater counterpart. It doesn’t matter what I’ve achieved since then. I will always feel inferior when presented with the past.
And that’s why I shouldn’t have come. Being weak is as alien to me now as the sentiment of love. I have no place for either in my life.
I have no place here.
I bow my head and start to move along the pew. I’m only four people away from the end, only a few strides from the exit, but it feels like a mile. It’s hard to breathe, to see straight. In my mind’s eye, the two coffins side by side at the front taunt me, my father and my brother’s bond surviving even in death, pushing me out, leaving the two women to suffer—one I’ve missed more than I care to admit, and one I loathe myself for ever having loved.
I feel suffocated, unstable, and something catches my leg. There’s a thud and I focus through the blur to see a hassock at my feet, a steadying hand upon my elbow that I can barely feel. I follow the arm, lift my gaze to meet an old man’s eyes.
He’s vaguely familiar. We lived in a small village growing up, the village in which my parents still live—no, my mother still lives. He’s likely part of the community, and he’ll know everything there is to know about us. There were never any secrets. So it’s a surprise when I see sympathy shining back at me. Sympathy and compassion.
I feel as if I’m choking. I don’t need his sympathy—not when the cause of all my pain is so far removed from what he suspects. I give a brief nod and withdraw, my focus once more on the door. On sanctuary.
I push it open and break out into the pouring rain, the Irish weather the perfect accompaniment to my mood. All I need now is thunder to meet my anger and I’d almost believe God was on my side. Not that I believe.
What kind of God would take away not only a woman’s husband, but her son too? The better son? The worthy one?
I laugh at my cynicism, my twisted logic. My parents and my ex both deemed him better. I was almost ready to return, almost ready to prove my worth and face their disappointment, make them admit they were wrong.
I drag air into my lungs and look to the heavens.
Why?
The rain beats my eyes closed and I blink against it, seeking out the sun in the looming grey above.
Why now?
Is it the ultimate punishment for walking away? Is this what I deserve? No amends, no peace, no nothing?
I stagger forward. I can’t bear it any longer. I never should have come.
‘Damn you, Dad, for not believing in me.’ I rake my fingers through my sodden hair, feel the weight of my rain-laden jacket and the fabric of my shirt clinging to me like a second skin. I throw my head back and curse the heavens. ‘Damn you, Liam, for taking my all!’
‘And damn you for coming back at all.’
I stagger back. I don’t need to turn to know who it is. I’d know that voice anywhere. It haunts my dreams. My nightmares too.
I feel her presence as though it were the sun’s rays beating down my back, feel the hairs upon my neck prickling to greet it.
The door swings shut. I hear her footfall on the path amidst the pounding beat of the rain and I urge my body to move. My car is at the end of the path, my driver ready and waiting.
Damn you for coming back at all...
Her words echo through my hangover-ridden skull, each syllable chiming with the emerging headache.
‘Don’t you walk away from me, Cain. Not this time.’
I spin on my heel to confront the angel who ruined me. Angel? Demon, more like. My lungs contract on a rush of air. She is beautiful—blindingly so. Her skin is pale against the dark grey stone of the centuries-old church standing tall behind her, her auburn hair like a comforting shroud of warmth as it falls around a face that is far too hollow and drawn, her eyes too big within it.
She’s lost so much weight—too much. Just the slightest gust of wind and I fear
she’ll be gone. She’s so far removed from the carefree, curvaceous woman I left behind, and right now she looks shocked into stillness, when seconds before she was the one commanding me to pause.
‘You should go back inside.’
I say it, but I’m barely aware of the words. My voice sounds distant with the effort to ignore the racing of my heart, the twist to my gut, the pain.
Rain beads on her lashes, framing eyes that are so blue and look as haunted as I feel. She holds my own eyes trapped, her lips parted as rain rushes freely over them.
‘You’re getting soaked.’
Her eyes flicker, as though I’ve woken her up, and I can almost feel the shaky breath she takes, her chest shuddering in her simple black dress.
‘Where are you going?’
The strength has gone from her whisper-soft voice and she presses her hands to her abdomen in a strange gesture that leaves her looking every bit as fragile as her slight frame suggests. The urge to offer her comfort, to sweep the rain from her lashes, her face, burns through me—instinctive, possessive, and wholly unacceptable.
She’s not mine to warrant such care. She hasn’t been for so long.
‘I’m leaving.’ I clear my throat and reinstate the wall around my heart. ‘I never should have come back. Isn’t that what you were trying to say just now?’
‘I...’
She runs her teeth over her lower lip and I’m a prisoner to the move. Sent back in time. She used to do that when I teased her, when I turned her on. To remember it now is wrong—plain wrong—and yet my body reacts all the same. It seems my wall is not as solid as I’d like, and I don’t need that realisation to tell me it’s time I got the hell out of there.
‘You should at least speak to your mother before you leave.’
‘And say what?’
She shakes her head. ‘She’s just lost her son and her husband; don’t you think she needs you now more than ever?’
What can I say? It’s been seven years with barely a word spoken. My mother’s plea to return has come from her grief. Her forgiveness has come from the same place. My eyes sting. I’m on shaky ground. Any moment now the tumult of emotion will out and I’ll crumble.
But I can’t.
I won’t be weak—least of all in front of her.
‘I’ll call on her tomorrow...when we can talk in private.’
She gives a shaky nod and I drag my eyes away, force my feet to move once more.
My unspoken warning is clear: Make sure you’re not there.
* * *
I watch him walk away, my shoulders easing with every step he takes. The rain is pounding down, streaming off my face. It’s a welcome distraction from the pain that swells inside. It mingles with the grief, the hurt of losing Liam, of losing his father too. I wish I could be numb to it; heaven knows I’ve had enough thrown at me over the years.
My hands throb and I tear my gaze from his retreating form to stare at where my palms press tight against my abdomen, nursing the invisible wound beneath.
I’ve always known this day would come—part of me hoping for it, the other dreading it like the plague. But it is good he’s returned—for his mother’s sake. Marie has lost everything; he’s all the blood family she has left.
And then there’s me. An orphan, an outsider. Welcomed into the loving arms of the O’Connors when Cain brought me home to meet them all those years ago. I was fifteen and alone. And they took me under their wing, gave me a place to run to, a place where I felt loved, and that love never waned.
His did, though. Cain’s. The boy who became the man I believed myself in love with, was destined to marry, have a family with.
My hands clutch tighter. He’s the man who gave me the family I always wanted and then crushed me by walking away.
I look back up and see him stumble as he reaches the kerb, the downpour making the ancient path from the church unstable. I feel my hand reach out on instinct and snatch it back. He doesn’t deserve my worry, my aid, and he certainly doesn’t deserve the flicker of awareness that rippled through me the moment his glittering grey gaze collided with mine.
I felt his presence the second he walked into the church. It was the same as always—the strange flutter, the sudden awakening in my body. Almost as though I’ve been programmed from birth to detect him, to seek him out, with the rows upon rows of people between us doing nothing to douse it.
And Marie felt it too, in her own way. I saw her turn, saw the hope spark in her eye, a flash of something other than the grief she’d worn for the last few weeks. Waiting for the bodies to be fished from the sea, the plane crash to be investigated, the confirmation that the freak weather was to blame.
I couldn’t stop myself chasing after him. It didn’t matter that the service was still underway, that Marie needed my comfort. The fear that he would walk away and leave her with nothing, not even a word, drove me to follow him.
She deserved something, anything—no matter the cost to me of coming face to face with him again.
Seven years ago, he broke my heart, ripped it from my chest and left me with nothing...
No, that’s not true.
He left me with a child—our child.
My hands are claw-like on my belly now, the nausea swelling thick and fast as the reminder rips through me. More death, more grief, more pain.
Thunder rumbles overhead, the sound vibrating through my skull, waking me up. At least I made my feelings clear, my curse falling easily from my lips on the tail-end of his. But then he turned and I was incapacitated with the rush of...of love, anger, betrayal, pain—more than anything, the pain.
A pain that he reflected back at me, blazing from him so strong I couldn’t breathe through it. His masculine beauty, only intensified by his torment.
I think of the last time I saw him. Seven years ago. The lines etched in his face, nothing to do with age back then and everything to do with his anger. At life, his family...me.
I look at him now and a movement further down the pavement draws my eye. There’s a driver waiting, the rear door of a sleek black car open. I know it’s for Cain. I know of his wealth—hell, everyone knows of his success. Not many know the price he paid for it, though. The price we all paid.
But I do.
And that’s why he doesn’t deserve my attention. I’ve done what I came to do. I have his assurance that he will visit his mother tomorrow.
So go back inside and say goodbye to those who’ve always stuck by you...
I take a breath and smooth my shaky fingers over my face to sweep away the rain that I know is mixed with tears, then turn back.
Maybe he has a heart after all.
Shame it’s taken him seven years to find it.
Not that I care.
I will never care for him again.
Copyright © 2020 by Rachael Stewart
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ISBN-13: 9781488062308
As You Crave It
Copyright © 2020 by Juanita Margot Critch
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 article
s and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are 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.
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As You Crave It Page 17