Anna DePalo - CEO's Marriage Seduction / His Style of Seduction - CEO's Marriage Seduction / His Style of Seduction

CEO’s Marriage Seduction by Anna DePalo

“You want a baby, so I’ll give you a baby,”

Griffin said evenly, making sure to hold her gaze. “I’m the guy who created your present problem, and I’ll fix it.”

A half laugh escaped Eva, her expression disbelieving. “Isn’t it a bit much to be volunteering to fix it this way?”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that part?” he responded.

“There’s no spark between us.”

“I disagree.”

The words hung in the air between them, and he could tell she was remembering the kiss they’d shared at her apartment, just as he hadn’t been able to forget it, either.

She laughed again, but it came out a trifle forced. She attempted to step around him. “Griffin, be serious – ”

“I am,” he said, blocking her with his arm.

She looked up at him mutely. Her lips parted.

“Why don’t we kiss and put it to the test?”

His Style of Seduction by Roxanne St Claire

“You’re a master of seduction, Jackson Locke,” Lily said.

“I’m not going to seduce you,” he said softly. “I just want to know your secret.”

“My secret?” Her heart kicked a little, and not just because of the way he looked.

He tugged gently at her hair. “Your secret. I know you have one.”

“Everyone has secrets, Jack.”

“I mean the secret you are trying so hard to hide. There’s something about your past that makes you evasive. And tonight, you’re going to tell me what it is. Now, as a matter of fact.”

All she could do was stare at him. Because when she opened her mouth, the truth was going to come out and she was going to tell him the one thing she’d never admitted to anyone.

And that, she realised with a wallop of her heart, was his real secret weapon.

ANNA DEPALO

ROXANNE ST CLAIRE

www.millsandboon.co.uk

by

ANNA DEPALO

discovered she was a writer at heart when she realised most people don’t walk around with a full cast of characters in their heads. She has lived in Italy and England, learned to speak French, graduated from Harvard, earned graduate degrees in political science and law, forgotten how to speak French and married her own dashing hero.

A former intellectual property lawyer, Anna lives with her husband and son in New York City. Her books have consistently hit the bestseller lists and Nielsen BookScan’s list of Top 100 bestselling romances. She has won a Romantic Times BOOKreviews Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First Series Romance and she’s been published in over a dozen countries. Readers are invited to surf to www.desireauthors.com and can also visit Anna at www.annadepalo.com.

Dear Reader,

Sometimes we can’t see that love is nearby… until the right circumstances intrude.

Eva Tremont is determined to marry the right man. But figuring out who’s right and who’s wrong proves to be trickier than she imagined. As Eva discovers, behind Griffin Slater’s cool, steady exterior lies a sexy, passionate man.

I hope you enjoy Eva and Griffin’s story!

All my best,

Anna

For Angelica Compagnone

One

“I’m going to marry him.”

The wrong man .

No, the right man , Eva corrected herself, irritated for even momentarily adopting her father’s negative perspective.

True, there was no gut feeling of rightness , of destiny , but then she told herself to stop being illogical.

How many times during her party planning career had things seemed off before proceeding without a hitch? She’d also seen what should have been perfect events erupt into flaming disasters.

No, there was no predicting the future, she decided, even as she met her father’s annoyed and disbelieving gaze.

Marcus Tremont stood and slapped a hand on the massive oak desk before him. “Damn it, Eva! Are you out of your mind? Carter Newell is a fortune- hunting snake. You won’t get a penny from me!”

Her lips tightened, but she refused to show how her father’s words hurt. She’d come from work today—Mondays were her slow days—to meet her father in his wood-paneled library at the family estate in exclusive Mill Valley. She’d girded herself for this battle.

“Fortunately,” she responded, “we don’t need a penny from you. Occasions by Design is doing very well.”

Her reputation in the Bay Area as a party planner had grown in the past several years. She was regularly called on by many of San Francisco’s high- profile society hostesses, as well as by well-known philanthropic organizations.

Her father raked his hand through his shock of gray hair. “What you see in Carter Newell, I’ll never understand.”

They’d been over this ground before, each time with the same result. Somehow, though, now that her engagement was a reality, she’d hoped today would be different.

Unlike her father and his kind, work wasn’t Carter’s mistress. Instead he made her a priority.

“Carter loves me,” she said simply.

Her father’s brows snapped together. “Or your bank account.”

She ground her teeth. Her father had always been wary, suspicious even, when meeting her boyfriends. She supposed it was because she was an heiress and an only child. But with Carter, the initial wariness had never eased. Of course, she’d never gotten close to the altar with any of her prior boyfriends….

“Does Carter even have a job?” her father continued. “Refresh my memory, Evangeline. What’s his line of work again?”

Her father knew very well what Carter did for a living, but Eva decided to play along with his game. “Carter is an independent financial consultant.”

She’d thought, the first time she’d mentioned it months ago, that Carter’s profession at least would meet with her father’s approval. Marcus Tremont respected getting a return on his dollar.

Instead her father’s response had been lukewarm. And when she’d started hinting she was considering marrying Carter, her father’s reaction had taken a sudden nosedive.

“Baloney,” her father pronounced, echoing his skepticism on previous occasions. “A trumped-up title to provide window dressing for his real occupation as an heiress hunter.”

“Carter comes from money!” Despite her best intentions, they were revisiting previous arguments that had gone nowhere. She felt a headache coming on.

“He came from money,” her father countered. “He makes a show of managing other people’s money since he doesn’t have any of his own.”

That did it . “You’re impossible! Just because the Newells aren’t as wealthy as they once were, you think Carter is a fortune hunter!”

Even as she spoke, she regretted that she so frequently fell back into sounding like an adolescent when dealing with her father.

“Trust me on this, Eva. There’s nothing more tenacious than a person who’s trying to hold on to his economic perch in life and avoid a nasty fall.”