Harlequin Presents February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Sold to the EnemyIn the Heat of the SpotlightNo More Sweet SurrenderPride After Her Fall

by Sarah Morgan

  Miranda let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a sigh. Her shoulders dropped, and her head canted forward slightly, as if she’d let go of something very heavy, all at once.

  “I do,” she whispered. “I do love you.”

  And that was the last of his foundations turned into dust, just like that. Setting him free.

  He swept her into his arms and held her high against him, drowning in that look on her face, as if he was the man he’d always wanted to be. As if she saw him when no one else could.

  “I am a rough man,” he told her fiercely. “I made myself from fists and sheer will, and that is all I know. There were no ivory towers for me. No easy escapes. I’ve had to fight for every single thing I have, and most of what I lost.”

  She reached up her hand and held his face with it, her touch somehow healing, even as another tear tracked its way down her cheek.

  “I’ll fight for you,” she whispered.

  He lost himself then in the sweet, slick heat of her mouth. In the perfection of her arms around him, her body against his, the fact that she knew him better than anyone else in the world, and she loved him anyway.

  When he pulled back to breathe, they had found their way to the bed, and she wrapped herself around him as if she would never let him go.

  “I want more than two weeks,” he told her in a rush, things opening wide inside of him, like she was the light and all of his shadows were surrendering to her, one by one. “I want forever. Live with me. Marry me. I don’t care. I want everything.”

  She smiled at him, that beautiful smile that changed him from the inside out, and he understood. Finally, he understood.

  “I love you,” he said, and the words sounded stilted. Strange. As well they should. He’d never said them before. In any language.

  Or maybe it was that his life, his love, his heart—everything he was or wanted to be—hung there in those three small syllables and the woman who gazed up at him, her face scrubbed clean and her dark red hair a fierce tangle.

  Her smile deepened, changed. Made new worlds, and took him with her.

  “I know you do,” she said softly, and then she kissed him.

  Binding them together, like a tightly held fist, unbreakable and sure.

  Forever.

  * * *

  Eighteen months later, Miranda stood in her one-bedroom apartment in New York City, wrinkling her nose as she looked around at the bare white walls. The empty floors. She stood in the center of what had been her bedroom so long ago, when she’d been a completely different person. When she’d hardly known herself. When she’d fought her nightmares nightly and alone, instead of very rarely and with Ivan. She gazed down at the simple, elegant solitaire that he’d slid onto her finger only a week ago now, when she’d finally agreed to marry him after a very long campaign.

  Mostly conducted in bed, his preferred negotiation strategy.

  Miranda smiled. It was time to trust. It was time to let go of fear. It was time to officially move into the sprawling penthouse on Central Park West he’d bought to be near her during the Columbia school year. It was past time.

  There was no noise behind her, no sound at all, but she knew he was there. She always did. She turned slowly, and let the punch of his sheer physical presence move through her, as ever. He was big and dark, wearing a great black coat over jeans and a jacket, looking every inch the wealthy, famous man he was. Beautiful and lethal.

  And hers.

  “Second thoughts?” he asked, in an arrogant tone of voice that scorned the very idea.

  But she knew him so well now. She knew what he hid beneath all of that bluster.

  “Never,” she said.

  He smiled in that open, real way that still made her a little bit giddy, and nodded at the book she held in her hand.

  “A memento?”

  “It was stuck way back on the shelf in my closet,” she said, flipping it over in her hands. It was a hardcover copy of Caveman Worship, the book that had started all of this. A book of lies that had led her here to the only truth that mattered. “Maybe I should leave it here. I wouldn’t want you to feel you had to ritually burn it in on the terrace one night.”

  “Revert to my favorite judgmental professor of old, milaya moya, and I might burn you on the terrace instead.”

  “Promises, promises,” she said in a singsong voice, and laughed when he walked into the room and kissed her soundly, then pulled her against him.

  “How much longer will we stand here?” he asked quietly. “We have the rest of our lives to start living, and these ghosts are not invited.”

  Miranda looked at the book, and felt it all move through her—the things they’d been through. The things they’d put each other through. And what they’d managed to build together out of all of it. Her latest book had been about high fashion as a cultural conversation, and no one wanted to talk about it on television shows. She’d discovered that was a relief. Instead of using entertainment gossip as a way to bludgeon Ivan, she worked with his foundation instead, creating outreach programs for juveniles in homes with domestic abuse.

  And he made her forget herself whenever he touched her, and she was finally, perfectly safe. Much better than any fairy tale, she thought.

  “Let’s go,” she said. She went to throw the book on the floor. “I think we’re done with this.”

  But he stopped her, taking the book in his hand.

  “I want it,” he said, grinning at her. Happier and brighter in these last months than ever before. The man, he told her often, he’d always wanted to be. It made her feel like flying. Like they already were. Like together they were made of wings—and joy. “It’s my favorite work of fiction.”

  * * * * *

  Pride After Her Fall

  By Lucy Ellis

  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

  Excerpt

  CHAPTER ONE

  NASH as a rule didn’t court publicity, so meeting with a publicist went against the grain. But this was for a charity event and he couldn’t very well say no.

  ‘I’ll meet her at the American Bar in the Hotel de Paris.’

  He checked his watch as he approached his low slung Bugatti Veyron.

  ‘I’ll be with Demarche until one. I can give her a couple of minutes in the bar. I’ll try to make it, but she may have to cool her heels.’

  It was one of the few perks of fame. People would wait. He hooked the door of the Veyron and idled for a moment, looking out over the calm Mediterranean water.

  Cullinan was talking about seating.

  ‘No, mate, don’t book a table. This is a five-minute job. Nobody will be sitting down.’

  Blue’s management team was headed up by John Cullinan, a savvy Irishman Nash had used in his early racing career when he was thrust onto the world stage. John had protected him from the worst of the media for over a decade and he trusted him to deal fairly with the public and handle the professionals.

  He’d need him in the coming weeks. There was already intense speculation about his future. He hadn’t said a word during the running of the Grand Prix here in Monaco in May, but somehow just his presence trackside with current Eagle heavyweight Antonio Abruzzi had sent the media into a frenzy. Not that it took much. Meat in the water and the piranhas swarmed. That was why this meeting with the construction firm Eagle was taking place in the p
rivacy of a hotel room and security barracudas on both sides had elaborate lock-down procedures in place.

  He ended the call and jumped into the Veyron, keen to get out of town.

  The flip of a wrist and he had the engine purring. His deep-set blue-grey eyes, which one female sports commentator had called ‘lethal blue’ as if they not only needed colour coding but branding, assessed the traffic and he pulled away from outside the corporate offices of the business that had been his heart and soul for five years.

  He had just tied up a deal with Swiss-based car manufacturer Avedon to produce Blue 22, and whilst every vehicle design was a rush this was the car he’d first conceptualised back in his racing days, when nobody would have taken him seriously if he’d spilled his guts on his future plans.

  Fortunately he’d never been overly chatty. Being raised by a mean drunk who’d seen a kid’s prattle as an excuse to deal out backhanders had bred in him the habit of silence. To the public he was notoriously impenetrable. ‘Self-contained,’ one journalist reported. ‘A cold sonafabitch,’ countered a disenchanted former lover.

  But, however else he was perceived, the world took him seriously nowadays even when they weren’t intrusively curious. At thirty-four, he’d survived as a professional in one of the most dangerous sports in the world for almost a decade before retiring in a blaze of glory—and unlike so many sports pros he’d parlayed his expertise and a passionate love of design into a second career.

  An extremely successful second career.

  One that overshadowed whatever fame he’d had as a driver—which had been his intention. He could command any price for his work and right now he was in demand—at the top of an elite field of specialists.

  Yet he was restless, there was no denying that, and several times in the last year he’d caught himself asking the fateful question: What next?

  But he knew the answer to that question. It was why the Eagle head honchos had flown in last night.

  Yeah, he wanted back in the game, but this time on his own terms. His twenties had gone past in a rush of track groupies and speed as he’d raced against the world’s best and outraced his own demons. He’d known when it was time to stop. He also knew this time it would be different. He wasn’t a boy any more. His feelings about racing had undergone a change. He had nothing to prove.

  The road cleared. He changed gear and took off up the hill.

  He had a date this morning up on the Point, with a genuine glamour-girl car who had it all over this newer model he was driving, and even the stumbling block of dealing with meetings all afternoon couldn’t dull the edge of what promised to be a very nice find. She was reported to be a sweet little number, with curves aplenty, an all-original and he was finally going to see what the fuss was about.

  She’d only recently come on the market, and Nash knew he’d have to move quickly, but he didn’t buy without handling the merchandise.

  He’d flown in to Monaco that morning after twenty-four hours in the air to hear the news that the owner had loaned her out but she’d be available to look at this afternoon. With the morning to kill he’d decided to take the opportunity to run up the hill and possibly rescue the poor thing from whatever indignities had been visited upon her overnight.

  The place overlooked the bay—nice and exclusive. But what address wasn’t exclusive in this town? The house had a little fame for being a silent-film actress’s hideaway in the twenties and he was a little curious to see it. He’d driven past many times, but this was the first occasion he’d had to turn in, idling at the gates—which, to his surprise, were wide open. Security was usually pretty tight in this neck of the woods.

  As he eased the sports car down the linden lined gravel drive he slowed to a creep, taking in the state of disrepair. Masses of flowering bougainvillaea couldn’t hide the fact that the old place needed a face-job.

  And then he saw her.

  Nash barely had his car at a standstill before he was out, slamming the door, advancing on the object of his desire.

  Sticking out of a flowerbed.

  A 1931 Bugatti T51, currently upended in a parterre of small flowered bushes. As if to add to the indignity one of its doors was hanging open.

  Every muscle in his body stiffened. He wasn’t angry. He was beyond anger.

  He was appalled.

  But he was a man who had made self-control a byword. He reined in the fury—knew it needed to be directed where it could do some good.

  Coming towards him was a rotund man in garden greens, shaking his arms towards the sky as if inviting divine intercession.

  ‘Monsieur! Un accident avec la voiture!’

  Yeah, that was one way of putting it.

  And that was when the shouting started.

  CHAPTER TWO

  LORELEI St James came awake with a languorous stretch, sliding her bare arms over silken sheets, revelling sensuously in the luxurious comfort. She made a ‘mmph’ sound, rolled over and buried her face in the pillow, prepared to sleep away the day, if that were possible—only to hear a deep male voice raised in anger somewhere outside her bedroom terrace.

  Ignore it, she decided, snuggling in.

  The voice lifted.

  She snuggled a bit more.

  More shouts.

  She wrinkled her nose.

  A crash.

  What now?

  Sighing, Lorelei pushed her satin sleep mask haphazardly up her forehead and winced as she copped an eyeful of bright Mediterranean sunshine. The room did a rinse-cycle spin around her—no doubt the product of too much champagne, inadequate sleep and enough financial trouble to sink this house around her ears.

  She shoved thoughts about the latter to the back of her mind even as her heart began to beat the band, and she felt about for a glass of water to ease the Sahara Desert that was her throat this morning. She was greeted by a clatter as she clumsily knocked her watch, her cell phone and a tangle of assorted jewellery to the stone floor.

  Easing herself into a sitting position, pushing the fall of chin-length blond curls out of her eyes, Lorelei wrinkled her nose and held on to the mattress as the room did another gentle spin.

  I will never drink again, she vowed. Although if I do, she revised, only champagne cocktails...and at a pinch G&T’s.

  As if sensing she was at her most vulnerable, the phone on the floor gave a judder and began to vibrate. Her heart did that annoying leap and race thing again. She made a pained face. When the phone rang nowadays there was usually somebody angry on the other end...

  To dissuade her from getting out of bed it stopped, but the muted sound of male voices coming up from below her terrace lifted to a crescendo. This was what had woken her. Men shouting. Some sort of altercation going on.

  Surely she didn’t have to deal with this, too? Not today...

  But without the catering staff from last night there was only Giorgio and his wife, Terese, and it was unfair to expect them to deal with interlopers. They’d had a lot of them in the past few weeks—all of them creditors, hunting her down now that her father Raymond was banged up in a low-security prison.

  As if she had a cent to her name after two years of legal fees.

  It wasn’t that she was exactly ignoring her problems—she preferred to think of it as delegating responsibility. She’d deal with the phone calls later, and the emails and the lawyers who wanted her signature on a mountain of documents. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. It was just such a nice day. The sun was shining. She shouldn’t ruin it. One more day in paradise and then she’d pay the piper.

  Just one more day...

  And then she remembered. Not only did she have a client booked in at noon, she had an appointment this afternoon at the Hotel de Paris. It was about her grandmother’s charity: the Aviary Foundation. Every year they hosted an event to raise money for
cancer research.

  This year the feature was a one-day vintage car rally, and a famous racing driver would be giving kids struggling with cancer the pleasure of a spin around the track in a high-powered vehicle. Their usual publicist was ill, and the foundation’s president had personally asked her to do the meet-and-greet with their guest celebrity.

  She squeezed her temples. She hadn’t even done any research. What if he expected her to know his stats? She could barely balance her own chequebook...

  Last year they had lined up a Hollywood actor who famously had a home here in Monaco. Now, that one would have been easy—watch a few films, gush... Everyone knew actors had egos like mountains. Frowning, she contemplated racing-car drivers. Weren’t they kind of like cowboys? She pictured swagger and ego in equal dimensions. Blah.

  Reaching for the eau de nil silk evening gown crumpled at the foot of her bed, Lorelei tugged it over her head. Really, she was happy to do the meet-and-greet—she’d do anything the Aviary Foundation asked of her—just not today...

  She gave a shriek as something small and furry tunnelled its way onto her lap, claws digging into her flesh.

  ‘Fifi,’ she admonished, pulling the silk to her waist, ‘behave, ma chere.’

  Lifting her beloved baby, she buried her face in a ball of white fluff.

  ‘Now, be good and stay here. Maman has things to attend to.’

  Fifi sat up expectantly in the pool of white silk sheets, curious eyes on her mistress as she opened the French doors and went to step outside. Lorelei doubled back as she remembered she wasn’t wearing any underwear. She wasn’t prudish about her body, but she knew Giorgio was conservative and she didn’t want to embarrass him unnecessarily.

  Belting her robe at the waist, Lorelei wandered out onto the terrace. It was going to be another one of those perfect early September days, and she inhaled the briny breeze filled with lavender and rosemary scents from the garden. She most definitely didn’t want to go and sort this out. As she weaved her way down the stone steps, pulling her sunglasses into place, she told herself that whoever it was couldn’t do anything worse than yell at her.