Sherryl Woods - Temptation

#1 New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods reunites a mother and daughter and demonstrates that real love knows no limits

Callie Smith’s quest for success far from her Iowa roots has caused a rift with her hardworking family. And with neither her Wall Street career nor her marriage going as planned, she starts to question the choices she’s made.

But when charismatic network president Jason Kane pursues her to save a failing soap opera, her life is soon full of more twists than a TV story line. Suddenly she gets to know a whole new side to her mother, and also has the opportunity to save a friend’s life. Most unexpected of all, she leaves heartache behind and tunes in to the love of a lifetime.

Praise for #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author

“Sherryl Woods returns with her usual wit and style in this latest tale of romance and suspense. Don’t miss out on the newest winner by Ms. Woods.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Woods is a master heartstring puller.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Sherryl Woods writes emotionally satisfying novels about family, friendship and home. Truly feel-great reads!”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Woods really knows what readers have come to expect from her stories, and she always gives them what they want.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Love, marriage, family, and forgiveness all play an important part in Woods’s latest richly nourishing, holiday-spiced novel.”

—Chicago Tribune on A Chesapeake Shores Christmas

“Warm, complex, and satisfying.”

—Library Journal on Harbor Lights

Temptation

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

Sherryl Woods

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Friends,

For a very long time I reported on the television industry, and from that day to this I’ve been a self-confessed soap opera fan. Temptation was written with much love and respect for a genre of programming that networks have treated very shabbily in recent years.

More than that, though, it’s a story of a woman coming to grips with the many unexpected changes in her life, building a new relationship with her estranged family and forging even stronger bonds with the people she loves.

I hope you’ll enjoy this chance to catch up with a book that means a lot to me, and that Callie’s story will make you laugh, shed a tear or two and sigh with satisfaction as she makes her way into an even brighter future.

All best,

Sherryl

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

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

1

Jason Kane had finally seen a woman he wanted and no one in the whole incompetent world of television seemed to know who she was.

Okay, that was a slight exaggeration, he admitted as he replayed the brief scene. Surely some of those idiots on the set of Within Our Reach, his network’s failing soap, knew her. She’d just sashayed across the screen in today’s episode, wearing a formfitting uniform and displaying more shapely leg than any cop he’d ever seen on the streets of New York.

Unfortunately, they hadn’t deigned to give her a credit. He’d run through the crawl listing the actors a half dozen times to no avail. He’d checked with the casting people, who seemed to have a vague recollection of the walk-on part but not the actress who’d gotten it. He’d had his secretary on the phone to the producers for the past hour. All she’d discovered was that the woman seemed to be a friend of someone connected to the show. That someone, whoever it was, had called in a favor to get her the tiny, nonspeaking role. Given the lack of a Social Security number on record, she apparently hadn’t been paid a dime.

He played the video again, second-guessing himself, wondering if perhaps his initial reaction—okay, his first dozen reactions—had been aberrations. He homed in on her in the crowded scene, just as he had every other time. His body tightened with masculine appreciation, just as it had before. His pulse kicked in...again. His gut instinct, said to be the best in the entire television industry, went on red alert as he studied the close-up image enlarged to three times life-size on the giant screen before him. Her cute little tush and long, long legs might have aroused his most basic carnal instincts, but it was that image on the screen that had held his cooler, more professional fascination.

Her blond hair feathered softly around a delicate face so exquisite it would have had Marlene Dietrich in her prime weeping with envy. Her mouth was a lushly sculpted work of art. Her eyes, an impossible shade of vivid, summer-sky blue, were capable of such intense scrutiny he knew without a doubt that she could render a man weak with no more than a glance. In that bit part as a cop, every movement of her body, every expression that crossed her face, had hinted subtly of intriguing interrogation techniques.

So, he thought with yet another sigh of pure, heartfelt satisfaction, it hadn’t been a fluke. She had a rare quality that eluded most women, no doubt about it. Even more important for television, the camera was able to capture it.

At thirty-five Jason Kane was a connoisseur of women, just as he was of fine wine and gourmet cuisine. He’d had to cultivate the latter, but his appreciation of women was pure instinct. He admired their beauty, reveled in their intelligence and enjoyed their sensuality, though not always in that order.

In his capacity as president of TGN—Trans-Global Network—he had been surrounded by some of the most gorgeous stars in the world. He’d worked with some of the brightest and most ambitious females ever to grace an executive suite.

And he had slept with... Well, the indiscreet truth of it was, he had slept with more than his share of the most incredible, most inventive, most incendiary ladies ever to don—or slide out of—a negligee.

But not a one held a candle to the charisma of that anonymous blonde whose perfect face was frozen on the giant screen in his office. Mysterious and a little sad, she fascinated him even more deeply than she affected his libido. His determination to have her doubled. He would pursue her as relentlessly as he had every other important acquisition he’d made in his life. There was no question in his mind that he would succeed.

“That,” he snapped to the three junior executives who had been frantically scribbling notes all during the last-ditch strategy meeting to save the failing soap, “is what that show needs to drag it out of the ratings gutter.”

When no one else had been able to devise a plan to rescue the show, Jason had taken it on himself. It was exactly the sort of challenge he loved. Hiring an unknown and making her a star would be the kind of bold, unexpected move he’d built his reputation on.

“Work with the producers,” he instructed. “Get her under contract, long-term. Tell the writers I want her on-screen in a story line so hot it’ll give the censors heartburn. Tell ’em to get her out of that uniform.”