Fashion exec RJ Gold hasn’t seen Grace Hopkins since she turned down his marriage proposal and walked out of his life. While he’s in Saint Lucia for his sister’s wedding, a run-in with his journalist ex is unexpected…as is the story she’s writing on the decades-long feud between his family’s fashion empire and a rival Manhattan house. Grace’s body is as delicious as RJ remembers…but he remembers too much to trust her again.
Grace knew seeing RJ would be awkward. It’s also intense…and red-hot! But she can’t afford distractions from her big break. This story will launch her journalism career to new heights, a dream she chose over RJ years ago. Still, she would rather work with him than against him… Except working together in paradise makes it impossible to ignore the tropical temptation at play!
As their explosive chemistry and rekindling feelings reach a fever pitch, RJ and Grace must decide—can second chances last, or is their desire on a deadline?
He tried blinking repeatedly, hoping that when he focused his gaze again, he’d be mistaken, but that hadn’t worked. Now the air froze in his lungs, causing his chest to constrict, and one strangled word tumbled from his lips. “Grace?”
She took a step back, her mouth opening slightly, then closing without a word. That’s how they stood for the next…he didn’t even know how many seconds had passed, and he didn’t dare speak again. As if she’d figured that out, she cleared her throat and finally spoke. “Hello, RJ.”
No, this couldn’t be. Was he sleepwalking? Hadn’t he just thought about his past relationship? Yes, and he’d pushed that memory way back to the place he’d buried it for the last ten years. Only now, it was right here, just a couple feet away from him.
Grace Hopkins. His Grace.
The first and only woman he’d ever loved, the woman he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Dragging a hand down his face, RJ shook his head as if that were going to clear all this away. She was still standing there wearing very short shorts that showed off the rich mocha complexion of her long, gorgeous legs. A white T-shirt fit perfectly against the curve of her breasts and a gold heart pendant dangling from a choker necklace brushed over the hollow of her throat.
“It’s good to see you again,” she said when it seemed she might be the only one capable of speaking at this time.
Memories tangled and fought inside his mind. Grace had been his everything. She was the first and only woman to claim his heart. A heart she’d held so tightly in the palm of her hand that she’d been able to crush it with one, simple word—no. Muted pain rested in the center of his chest.
He hadn’t seen her since that awful night years ago, but now she was here. It was Grace’s voice he heard, her smile he saw as her lips tilted slowly. She eased an arm from behind her back to wave her hand at him as if they were long-lost friends. He didn’t know what to say or do, which was uncharacteristically strange for him. Trying to get his mind right and act like he had some semblance of brain function, he gripped his phone tightly in one hand and nodded.
“What are you doing wandering around out here in the dark?” It wasn’t the most pressing question at the moment, but he was still working up the nerve to ask the other one.
She shrugged, shifting her weight from one foot to the next, and dropped her arms to her side. “Going for a walk, which actually seems like the same thing you were doing.” He should’ve expected the quick and snappy response. It was her signature and matched her ambitious and flirtatious personality perfectly. She loved to talk. Where some women might like cuddling after sex, Grace had been a talker. Those were the nights he’d learned so much about her. Unfortunately, the one time he’d needed her to be chatty, she’d clammed up and walked away from him for what he thought was going to be forever.
He had to ask her. It made the most sense that this next question come, he just didn’t know how he was going to feel about her answer. “It’s been a long time.” He dodged the bullet again.
“Yeah. It has.”
“You look…um…you look—” He noticed something else that made this entire scenario stranger. “Is that a vibrator?”
For all the latest news on A.C. Arthur books, giveaways, appearances and discussions Like A.C. Arthur’s Book Lounge on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/AC-Arthurs-Book-Lounge or follow her on Twitter @AcArthur
A.C. Arthur was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland where she currently resides with her husband and three children. An active imagination and a love for reading encouraged her to begin writing in high school and she hasn’t stopped since.
Working in the legal field she’s seen lots of horrific things and longs for the safe haven reading a romance novel brings. Her debut novel Object of His Desire was written when a picture of an Italian villa sparked the idea of an African-American/Italian hero. Determined to bring a new edge to romance, she continues to develop intriguing plots, sensual love scenes, racy characters and fresh dialogue–thus keeping the readers on their toes!
A.C. also writes small town contemporary romance as Lacey Baker. Visit her Amazon Author Page for details about her upcoming Hallmark Channel novelization, A Gingerbread Romance. amazon.com/author/bakerlacey
In the young adult arena, A.C. also writes under the name Artist Arthur. Visit her Amazon Author Page for details about available YA books. amazon.com/author/artistarthurbooks
A spill in the rapids hauls two strangers into a harrowing and romantic adventure.
Chuck Borgas is ready to get back in the jungle. A lost city and a team of archeological students are waiting for him in Guatemala. He is waylaid at the airport by a bizarre woman who latches onto him like she’s his long-lost buddy. Smoking hot women don’t usually throw themselves at him. Ever. Finally ditching the stranger, he realizes she has left a bag behind. One glimpse into that sack and Chuck knows he’s stepped into a heap of trouble.
Faith Sanders is part of a small task force returning smuggled artifacts to the Guatemalan government. Her team is ambushed by members of a drug cartel, but she manages to escape. Alone and determined to get the artifacts to their destination, she is forced to improvise as the cartel closes in on her. That improvisation lands her in the arms of a handsome stranger.
Realizing that she has jeopardized the man at the airport, Faith has to decide which is more important…saving his life, or completing her mission.
If they were after the bag—thanks to her, they knew where it was heading. There was no need to keep her.
Faith swallowed. What were the alternatives? Leave her on the side of the highway? She didn’t think men like this left loose strings. They left declarations. She had done her research on some of the most unsavory Central American cartels. They didn’t leave loose strings. They left bodies. Statements.
Twenty-six. She was twenty-six years old. A trainee. Was that an excuse for stupidity? For mistakes?
Her knowledge of the language was passable, but she couldn’t decipher the low timbres of the exchange in the front seat. The man in the passenger seat turned his head to leer at her. Perspiration or hair gel plastered his black hair back from a high forehead.
“When we get the skulls back, we chop you head off so it can join them.”
Lovely.
Faith crossed her arms to try and conceal the tremors racing through her limbs. They had not handcuffed her. She searched the back seat and grimy car mats for something she could attack them with. Reading her thoughts, the man hefted the barrel of his gun over the seatback, aiming it at her.
“No, no, señorita.” He wagged the gun back and forth. The motion drew her attention to a tattoo poking out from beneath his shirt sleeve. The snout of a pig was exposed.
Faith sucked in a quick breath. The Cerdo Loco cartel.
“I threw the bag in the garbage at the airport,” she vowed futilely.
Gel-head sneered, revealing the tip of a badly yellowed tooth.
“We saw you get on the bus with it,” he claimed. “We saw da man you got on with. We go to Tikal where the bus goes. We find the man. We find the bag. We chop your head off.”
USA TODAY bestselling author, Maureen A. Miller worked in the software industry for fifteen years. She crawled around plant floors in a hard hat and safety glasses hooking up computers to behemoth manufacturing machines. The job required extensive travel. The best form of escapism during those lengthy airport layovers became writing.
Maureen’s first novel, WIDOW’S TALE, earned her a Golden Heart nomination in Romantic Suspense. After that she became hooked to the genre. In fact, she was so hooked she is the founder of the JUST ROMANTIC SUSPENSE website.
Recently, Maureen branched out into the Young Adult Science Fiction market with the popular BEYOND Series. To her it was still Romantic Suspense…just on another planet!
Title: Broken Hearts Author: M. O’Keefe Genre: Contemporary Romance
Ronan.
His name thrums through me like a heartbeat.
I climbed out of the smoldering crater of my life only to find myself back in the middle of a slow-motion trainwreck. I’m hunted, torn between my past and present, ripped apart by two warring families. My husband is dead, and his killer is the only man who’s ever felt the deep well of emotion I keep hidden from the world.
Ronan.
Vicious and scarred—his rough touch is seared into my skin, but his soft caresses are what break down my walls bit by bit. Until there’s only me left. My soul in his bloody hands, and my broken heart beating just for him. Only him.
Ronan.
My shadowy protector, my phantom lover—kiss me or kill me, I don’t care. As long as you’re the one who does it.
“Poppy?” he asked, close enough I could feel his breath against my face. The heat of him against my hurt arm. I couldn’t step in or back. Or away. I was stuck there in that doorway with him. One more question on my lips.
“Was fucking me part of your job too?”
“I never fucked you.”
“You know what I mean,” I said, wanting the truth, even though I knew it would hurt.
The wind howled.
“Yeah,” he said. “You were part of my job.”
“There,” I said and smiled with all my teeth. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Poppy.” He reached for me, but finally, I stepped away into the room. The fire was hot, and the room swam a little around me. I stumbled, my knee suddenly buckling, and he grabbed me by my elbow, keeping me on my feet.
“You need to go back to bed,” he said quietly. I wondered, looking at him, what doorways he’d walked through in his life and what he’d left behind in the process. Everything, I imagined. Ronan just kept walking, taking nothing with him through life.
That’s not important. You need to focus on what’s important.
“You didn’t shoot me.” It wasn’t a question, but I would say nothing else to him if he didn’t answer me.
“No,” he confessed. “I didn’t shoot you. Theo Rivers made an impossible shot.”
“If I wanted to leave, would you let me?”
“You’re hurt.”
“Am I free to leave?” I looked him right in the eye with all the bravery I hadn’t felt around him before.
“No. Not until we know what’s happening. Not until we have a plan.”
“I’m a prisoner?”
“The Morellis want you dead or alive,” he said. “I’m not sure why you’d want to leave.”
“Why?” What in the world did I mean to them dead or alive? “There’s got to be a mistake.”
“The Morellis don’t make mistakes.”
“Everyone makes mistakes.” I had no idea why I was arguing like this. “Can’t we just talk to someone? Eden Morelli! I could talk to her—”
“You’re not talking to any Morellis.”
“It’s all just . . . a little intense, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Poppy. It’s intense.” He was laughing at me. Not on the outside. On the outside, he was the same Ronan, deep and unreadable. But inside, I could tell he was having a good chuckle at my expense.
I sighed, suddenly exhausted.
“Come on,” he said, putting a hand under my left elbow like I was eight years old or an invalid.
I flinched away from him. “I don’t need your help.”
He humored me all the way back into the bedroom. “Of course not.”
I had seven million more questions, but the adrenaline was gone, and I limply climbed into the bed that wasn’t mine. My mind was fuzzy from the pain meds. I could ask all of them, but they were all extensions of the only question that mattered. The only question I had the strength to ask as my eyelids drooped and my body went heavy.
“Why?” I whispered. Why did Ronan shoot the senator? Why did Theo drug me? Why did the Morelli family want me dead or alive? Why did he save me?
He tucked blankets around me. If I had the strength, I would push him away. Fuck you, Ronan, I thought, my mind drifting toward sleep. Fuck you.
“I don’t know why,” he said. “That’s what’s killing me.”
M. O’Keefe is the darker, more dangerous pen name of bestselling author Molly O’Keefe. She is the USA Today Bestselling author of the Everything I Left Unsaid series and the upcoming Stolen Hearts. To find out more visit www.molly-okeefe.com
