Melissa James - Dangerous Illusion

Beth clenched her fists even as her body swayed toward Brendan. Oh, how she ached to take what he so freely offered, but though he didn’t know it, she was fighting for his very life. The life he’d all but laid at her feet just now. And she wouldn’t—couldn’t—risk his life. “Just get out, McCall.”

As if her words hadn’t affected him, he strolled to the door. “Lock it after me, babe. I’ll be watching from outside—got to keep the princess safe.”

She’d done what she could to save him. Now he had a chance of staying safe and alive…and she couldn’t allow herself to want any more than that.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to another month of excitement and romance. Start your reading by letting Ruth Langan be your guide to DEVIL’S COVE in Cover-Up, the first title in her new miniseries set in a small town where secrets, scandal and seduction go hand in hand. The next three books will be coming out back to back, so be sure to catch every one of them.

Virginia Kantra tells a tale of Guilty Secrets as opposites Joe Reilly, a cynical reporter, and Nell Dolan, a softhearted do-gooder, can’t help but attract each other—with wonderfully romantic results. Jenna Mills will send Shock Waves through you as psychic Brenna Scott tries to convince federal prosecutor Ethan Carrington that he’s in danger. If she can’t get him to listen to her, his life—and her heart—will be lost.

Finish the month with a trip to the lands down under, Australia and New Zealand, as three of your favorite writers mix romance and suspense in equal—and irresistible—portions. Melissa James features another of her tough (and wonderful!) Nighthawk heroes in Dangerous Illusion, while Frances Housden’s heroine has to face down the Shadows of the Past in order to find her happily-ever-after. Finally, get set for high-seas adventure as Sienna Rivers meets Her Passionate Protector in Laurey Bright’s latest.

Don’t miss a single one—and be sure to come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romantic reading around, right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

is a mother of three living in a beach suburb in county New South Wales. A former nurse, waitress, store assistant, perfume and chocolate (yum!) demonstrator among other things, she believes in taking on new jobs for the fun experience. She’ll try almost anything at least once to see what it feels like—a fact that scares her family on regular occasions. She fell into writing by accident when her husband brought home an article stating how much a famous romance author earned, and she thought, “I can do that!” Years later, she found her niche at Silhouette Intimate Moments. Currently writing a pilot/spy series set in the South Pacific, she can be found most mornings walking and swimming at her local beach with her husband, or every afternoon running around to her kids’ sporting hobbies, while dreaming of flying, scuba diving, belaying down a cave or over a cliff—anywhere her characters are at the time!

For my dad, who loved James Bond and spy books and movies. He would have loved to be tall, dark and dangerous, like McCall—well, you were dark, anyway.

You would have liked this book, Dad.

My deepest thanks goes to Marg Riseley, who stepped into the breach to read this one for me, and reminded me of points I’d forgotten; and to Olga Mitsialos, thanks once again for being reader and suggestion person extraordinaire.

To both ladies, your constant support was invaluable—especially when I needed help cutting this book down.

And my undying gratitude goes to my editor, Susan Litman, for helping make this book what it is now, by fabulous revision suggestions and always being there to plotstorm with me. These Nighthawks wouldn’t be the people they are without you!

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

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Renegade River, Bay of Islands, New Zealand

It was her.

Oh, yeah, it had to be. No other woman had ever roused that knife-edged core, gut-gnawing hunger, scraped with a burning need to hold and protect. Scraped, not mixed. It never blended, like something meek or tame. Nothing about his reaction to her was tame. One look and his veneer of social graces shed like molted skin to reveal the raw male animal beneath, hungry and hot, savage and needing.

Instant obsession.

McCall stood five feet from the round, cross-beamed window beneath an intricate and beautiful sign like something straight out of Middle Earth, proclaiming her to be:

Elizabeth Silver, Potter of Excellence.

He watched her working at her wheel, her face—that unforgettable blend of lush South American exotic and haunting English-rose beauty—filled with gentle concentration.

He’d loved her trademark auburn curls, but the new, almost boyish style, a cropped mop of raven hair, only intensified her surreal loveliness. The haunting star-queen—everything else faded away, submerged beneath the power of the dark azure eyes in that amazing face.

Even in quiet repose without a trace of makeup, it was definitely her face. The unique light and dark, serenity and turbulence, so-intense-it-slammed-you-in-the-guts beauty that had launched a million magazines and spawned male fantasies beyond count from the time she was fourteen. The unsmiling waif.

She’d smiled for him.

They’d met while shooting promo pics for a navy recruitment drive, and he’d immediately seen the wistful, shy girl inside the haughty model. And within hours, he was in so deep he’d never really found his way out.

He could still see her lying beneath him, drugged by his kisses, her swollen mouth smiling with innocent desire…driving him, the guy his SEAL team called The Untouchable, to his knees. All he knew was, he had to have her—but he couldn’t make love to her while they met in secret. She’d asked him to wait until they revealed their relationship to her wealthy parents. Touching and kissing, making promises during stolen meetings. I can’t tell my parents about us yet, Brendan…but I will soon, I promise…I promise.

That damn word still yanked his chain. Yeah, she’d gone slumming with him all right. She’d wanted a holiday from the jet set, and he’d made it clear he was happy to be her slave for as long as she wanted him.

But within six months she’d returned to her uptown life, hit the high-class party circuit—and then more dubious gatherings. Hanging on the arms of the rich and infamous with men of evil reputation. Yet she’d still seemed so damn innocent, above it, or beyond it all. Always, she seemed apart from the angst and lusts of life, as if she’d fallen from a star.

Until the day she’d married arms and drugs dealer Robert Falcone, she’d still been his. Though his world was her exact opposite—a world peopled by pimps, black-market traders of weapons and human flesh, while he infiltrated and busted their filthy deals with his trained undercover teams—he’d been fool enough to believe she’d come back to him.