Cindi Myers - Her Secret Treasure

Sandra looked into Adam’s eyes, feeling the familiar surge of arousal he so often called forth. He fascinated her, frustrated and confused her. He couldn’t be good for her, but she couldn’t stay away from him.

As he pulled her into the welcoming shadows, she draped herself around him, her lips locked to his in a kiss that made her forget everything short of her own name. Adam’s hands slid down her back to cradle her bottom, and he pulled her closer still.

“Let’s go to your yacht, where we can be alone,” she said in a voice made low, husky by his kisses.

Without a word he took her hand and led her down the beach to explore a different world—one of shadows and secrets and sex….

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Dear Reader,

I had so much fun on Passionata’s Island with the characters in At Her Pleasure that I couldn’t wait to revisit the island in this book. There’s just something about sun, sand, sex—and pirates!

As part of my research for this book, I visited the Titanic exhibit that has been touring throughout the United States. One section of this exhibit was devoted to the process of locating and salvaging the ship’s wreckage. I was amazed at the hard work that went into recovering and preserving artifacts. And several years ago I was lucky enough to tour an exhibition devoted to the pirate ship Whydah, a wooden sailing vessel much like the one I imagined for Passionata. Both of these exhibits, I hope, helped me bring my own shipwreck to life.

Many thanks also to my friend and fellow author Emily McKay, who helped me with my many questions about diving. Any mistakes in this book are mine, not hers.

Of course, once all the research was done, it was time to put my imagination to work. That’s where the real fun began. I hope you’ll enjoy Adam and Sandra’s story as much as I did. Let me know what you think by e-mailing me at cindi@cindimyers.com, or write to me in care of Harlequin Enterprises, 225 Duncan Mill Rd, Toronto, Ontario, M3B 3K9, Canada.

Cindi Myers

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

Cindi Myers’s dreams of sailing away to an island paradise with her own swashbuckling pirate have been quashed by rampant seasickness and a tendency to sunburn easily. So she settles for drinking umbrella cocktails and letting her imagination run wild on the sun-washed beaches of her books.

HARLEQUIN BLAZE

168—GOOD, BAD…BETTER

180—DO ME RIGHT

215—ROCK MY WORLD *

241—NO REGRETS *

274—FEAR OF FALLING **

323—THE MAN TAMER

333—MEN AT WORK

“Taking His Measure”

360—WILD CHILD †

419—AT HER PLEASURE

HARLEQUIN ANTHOLOGY

A WEDDING IN PARIS

“Picture Perfect”

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

1182—MARRIAGE ON HER MIND

1199—THE RIGHT MR. WRONG

HARLEQUIN NEXT

MY BACKWARDS LIFE

THE BIRDMAN’S DAUGHTER

HARLEQUIN SIGNATURE SELECT

LEARNING CURVES

BOOTCAMP

“Flirting with an Old Flame”

HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

1498—A SOLDIER COMES HOME

This one’s for Tammy

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

THE DREAMS HAD BEGUN on her first visit to the island—strange nighttime fantasies she could never clearly recall, which left her confused and strangely aroused. Sandra Newman was not a person who indulged in superstition or whimsy, but those island dreams haunted her, leaving her with the sense that understanding them would reveal the secret to unfulfilled longings she hadn’t realized she possessed.

The memory of those dreams was with her now, as her yacht sailed within sight of the palm-covered atoll. Passionata’s Island was named after the female pirate who had headquartered there in the early days of the eighteenth century, a pirate queen known for her successful attacks on merchant ships that ventured too near her sanctuary, and acclaimed for her skill as a seductress.

“Jonas, I want a good shot of the island as we approach,” she directed her cameraman, who obligingly aimed his handheld video camera over the ship’s bow. “I’m thinking this is our opening,” she continued. “Maybe with some mysterious music and a voice-over talking about the reputed curse on the island.” Oh, yes, this place even had a curse. Talk about a made-for-television story. Passionata was a tragic-romantic figure who had left behind treasure worth millions—perhaps even billions—of dollars. She smiled, imagining the network head, Gary Simon’s eyes popping when he saw the numbers for audience share when Sandra Newman Presents Passionata’s Treasure, aired next fall. He’d be tripping all over himself to offer her a new, more-lucrative contract.

As the yacht rounded the reef at one end of the island and headed toward the deeper harbor on the west side, two other vessels already anchored there caught Sandra’s attention. The larger one, the Caspian, was unfamiliar to her. The ship bristled with cranes, lifts and a flotilla of smaller dinghies and motorboats.

The smaller ship was anchored nearer the island—a graceful sailing yacht with a white hull and gleaming teak deck. The sight of it made Sandra’s pulse race a little faster.

Right on cue, a burly blonde dressed in nothing but faded blue swim trunks emerged from the cabin to watch her approach. She couldn’t decide if she was glad to see that Professor Adam Carroway had arrived safely, or annoyed that she was going to spend the next few months in close proximity to the aggravating academic. The memory of the intense yet brief affair they’d enjoyed months ago added to her ambivalence about him.

Adam was a single-minded professor who focused on his quest for the Eve, Passionata’s flagship that had sunk in 1714. While he was working, he neglected everything else, even forgetting to eat, and wearing the same worn clothes for days at a time. He was also a supremely masculine, energetic lover, very different from the smooth, sophisticated men she preferred. So why did she find Adam Carroway so…distracting? For whatever reason, the scruffy professor stirred something in her. She’d enjoyed the few days—and nights—they’d spent together when he’d visited her in Los Angeles last year. They’d parted as friends, with no talk of the future.

But now the future was here, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about seeing him again. Yes, it might be fun to pick up where they left off and enjoy a summer fling. Yet Adam had a way of getting to her that no other man had. She’d never admit that to him, but maybe it would be better in the long run to keep things strictly business between them. Allowing herself to be vulnerable had never brought her anything but trouble.