Mistress Minded

Jane stared at Adam. “I didn't like it. It's one thing for me to pretend to be involved with you, but I'm not like those other women. I won't be dismissed and ignored when business crops up.”

“I don't know any other way to act.”

“I wouldn't have done what you did. I don't even know how. How do you do it, Adam? How do you turn off your emotions like that?”

“Believe me, you don't want to know.”

“I need something. Because if all that we did before was you scratching an itch…”

“It wasn't,” he said at last. “It meant too damned much. You should be grateful the phone rang. I leave nothing but destruction when it comes to personal relationships.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to another passion-filled month at Silhouette Desire—where we guarantee powerful and provocative love stories you are sure to enjoy. We continue our fabulous DYNASTIES: THE DANFORTHS series with Kristi Gold's
Challenged by the Sheikh
—her intensely ardent hero will put your senses on overload. More hot heroes are on the horizon when
USA TODAY
bestselling author Ann Major returns to Silhouette Desire with the dramatic story of
The Bride Tamer
.

Ever wonder what it would be like to be a man's mistress—even just for pretend? Well, the heroine of Katherine Garbera's
Mistress Minded
finds herself just in that predicament when she agrees to help out her sexy-as-sin boss in the next KING OF HEARTS title. Jennifer Greene brings us the second story in THE SCENT OF LAVENDER, her compelling series about the Campbell sisters, with
Wild In the Moonlight
—and this is one hero to go wild for! If it's a heartbreaker you're looking for, look no farther than
Hold Me Tight
by Cait London as she continues her HEARTBREAKERS miniseries with this tale of one sexy male specimen on the loose. And looking for a little
Hot Contact
himself is the hero of Susan Crosby's latest book in her BEHIND CLOSED DOORS series; this sinfully seductive police investigator always gets his woman! Thank goodness.

And thank
you
for coming back to Silhouette Desire every month. Be sure to join us next month for
New York Times
bestselling author Lisa Jackson's
Best-Kept Lies,
the highly anticipated conclusion to her wildly popular series THE M
C
CAFFERTYS.

Keep on reading!

Melissa Jeglinski
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

“P
asquale, you've done well,” Didi said as I materialized in front of her desk.

“Babe, call me Ray.” No one had lived who'd called me by my given name when I'd been on earth, but Didi was different.

I didn't like the body-disappearing thing, but it beat the alternative, which was me going to hell. I'd been a
capo
with the mob until I was betrayed by one of my lieutenants and killed. My dying prayer for forgiveness had brought me here to Didi—one of God's seraphim, some sort of high angel.

The deal I'd cut was to unite in love as many couples as enemies I'd murdered in hate. I was going to
be doing this gig for a long time.
Madon',
some days it wasn't half-bad, but Didi had a way of getting on my nerves and under my skin.

And when she was giving me a compliment I certainly didn't trust her. She'd sent me to earth in a woman's body one time. Not a hot-looking chick, either, but some old broad.

“There was a reason I was called Il Re on earth,” I said to her.
Il re
is Italian for “the king.” Yeah, I had the ego and the attitude to carry that off. Didi was always reminding me there was only one king up here, but after successfully uniting three couples, I'd decided to call myself the king of hearts.

“And that reason was…?”

“Don't be smart, babe. You know it's because I'm good at what I do.”

“What'd I tell you about calling me babe?”

“Did I call you that?
Madon',
I'm sorry, Didi. I know you don't like it.” I enjoyed giving her a hard time. She looked as if she'd been working in this office too long. Today she was wearing another one of her ugly suits. This one was the color of cooked salmon.

“What's up next?” I asked.

A large pile of colored file folders appeared on her desk next to the jar of Baci chocolates.

“Pick one,” she said.

So far I'd pulled from the top and the middle of the pile. I reached for a blue folder about three-
quarters of the way down and Didi took it from me. The remaining pile disappeared.

“So where am I going this time?” I asked. What I really wanted to know was if I'd be a man. But asking her that made me feel like a
babbeo.

She handed me the folder. The location was an island in the Caribbean. Life was looking up. And this couple, Adam Powell and Jayne Montrose, already worked together.

“No problem.”

“Don't start thinking about your tan yet, Pasquale. This one is different,” Didi said.

Hell, they all were. Didi had yet to give me one assignment that was easy. Matchmaking—Holy Mary!—was hard work.

“How?”

She smiled. My gut tightened. I didn't trust her when she was acting all happy.

“I'll be accompanying you this time.”

“
Madon',
is this some sort of punishment?”

“No, babe, it's your reward.”

She disappeared before I could respond. Freakin' matchmaker to the lovelorn was one thing. Partnered up with a prissy, bossy angel? Oh,
merda,
this was going to be one hell of an assignment.

A
dam Powell bit back a curse and tossed his cell phone onto the leather seat next to him. His plane was ready to leave, his guests would be here any moment and Isabella had chosen now to tell him that she wasn't getting what she needed from their relationship.

Frankly, he couldn't
give
her anything else. If diamonds, furs and a brand-new Jaguar weren't good enough, she'd have to look elsewhere.

Normally, being without a mistress wasn't any big deal. He was a grown man; he could live without sex. But the coming two weeks were important to his company. Adam had been trying to acquire La Perla
Negra Resort for the last five years and had been getting no where.

The owner, Ray Angelini, refused to sell his resort to anyone. Out of the blue, Adam had received a call last week inviting him to come to the resort to discuss the possibility of a sale. He had jumped at the chance.

Angelini had asked Adam to bring his wife, which had led to an awkward conversation. Angelini wanted a happily married couple to run the resort, as he and his wife had been doing for the last twenty years.

Adam had always believed in doing anything to close a sale, but pretending to be married was going too far. He told Angelini he'd bring the woman he'd been living with. Angelini had warned him that unless he believed Adam was a man who understood love and relationships there'd be no sale.

“I understand they're both a crock,” he muttered.

He left his seat in the back of the jet, exiting the plane. He'd have to make up some excuse for Isabella, and see if Jayne Montrose, his executive assistant, could find another woman who'd meet him in the Caribbean.

Damn, it was hot. New Orleans in the summertime was no one's ideal place to be. The humidity soaked into his skin. He threw his head back, breathing through his teeth. It reminded him of the days when he'd worked the swamp in his uncle's old pirogue, taking tourists for jaunts to see gators and swamp lilies.

God, he'd come a long way from that boy. He intended to go even further, and no woman was going to throw him off track for long.

“Ooo, someone looks pissed,” said Jayne, coming up behind him.

He'd hired Jayne because she was sassy and smart. She made life at the office flow smoothly, and in the downtime always made him laugh. “Don't give me any lip, Montrose. Isabella is not going with me and the Angelinis are due in less than fifteen minutes.”

“I'm sorry. I told you not to count on her,” Jayne said. She reached into the large bag she always carried and drew out a sheaf of papers. “I need your signature on these before I leave for vacation.”

“You can't leave on vacation until I find a woman to accompany me to the Caribbean.”

“Listen, boss, we've been over this before. I don't procure women for you,” Jayne said. She narrowed her eyes and handed him a Mont Blanc pen to sign the documents she'd brought.

Jayne wasn't a particularly tall woman, but she carried herself like an Amazon. Some of the hotel industries' toughest figures backed down when Jayne negotiated with them. Hiring her had been a stroke of genius, and Adam secretly feared someday she'd get tired of working for him and move on.

“I only asked you to get a phone number one time,” he said.

That
had been a big mistake. Jayne had almost quit
over the matter, and he'd had to do some fancy talking to convince her to stay. Jayne had a strong core of morality and integrity, and she'd do just about anything he asked her to as long as it didn't compromise her own values.

“Once was too many times as far as I'm concerned,” she retorted tartly.

Jayne was the best personal assistant he'd ever had. She'd been with him longer than any of her predecessors—almost eight months now.

He studied her as he signed the papers she put before him. Her short cap of brown hair was tucked behind her ears, framing her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were a cool blue, radiating both intelligence and humor most of the time. Her mouth, strictly speaking, was too large for her face. She should have had thin lips, but instead had a lush mouth that made men think of kissing her.

Since Adam had a zero-tolerance policy toward fraternization in the workplace, he tried to avoid looking at her mouth. But he wasn't very successful.

“Why are you staring at me?” Jayne asked.

“I'm not staring at you,” he said, signing the last of the papers.

He'd have to cancel the trip and stay home. There were other resorts in the Caribbean. None as elegant as La Perla Negra, but he'd find another property to buy.

“Listen, Jayne, I'm going to have to cancel your
vacation. Without Isabella, Angelini won't talk to me.”

Jayne's eyes narrowed again. “I haven't had more than a day off since I started working for you.”

“You can have time off in a week. I need you here to help me handle this. I'll make it worth your while.”

“How?”

“Name your price,” Adam said. Early on in life he'd realized everyone had a price. Especially for things they didn't want to do.

She rolled her eyes. “Let's handle it now. Get out your little black book and call another one of your lady friends.”

“I don't have a black book. That's a cliché and women don't like it.”

“You used to have one, right?”

“No,” he said. He'd never had a black book. He'd never had any problem remembering phone numbers. Strictly speaking, Jayne was right. He could probably make a few calls and find another woman, but he didn't want to. He was tired of the whole thing. And he'd been hoping that Isabella would prove to be different. That perhaps she'd fill that hole that had always been empty inside him.

None of them would be the right fit for this trip to the Caribbean, anyway. Angelini had to be handled carefully, and Adam didn't want to risk anything else going wrong. He needed someone who understood
what was at stake. The perfect solution would be for Jayne to go with him.

“Jayne?”

“Yes?” She shoved the papers he'd just returned to her into her bag. Her hair fell forward over one eye and she shifted the tote impatiently to her left hand, tucking her hair behind her ear again.

“Want to come with me and be my mistress?”

A flush spread up her neck. Her mouth opened the slightest bit and for the first time he noticed how creamy her skin was.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why not?” Aside from the phone number incident this was the first time Jayne had said no to him.

“I can't be your mistress—what about Powell International's policy toward fraternization?”

“You wouldn't really be my mistress. We'd act like we were involved. We're not really fraternizing. It would be business.”

“That won't work. I don't like to pretend to be something I'm not. I have to take these papers back to the office now, and I booked a nonrefundable airline ticket to Little Rock.”

“I'll reimburse your airfare and book you a first-class ticket for the week we return,” Adam said.

“I don't know…” She bit her lip and dug in her purse, pulling out a pair of sunglasses and putting them on. “No, Adam, I'm sorry, but I can't postpone my trip to Arkansas.”

“Jayne, you're my last hope,” Adam pleaded. “I've waited five years to talk to Angelini.”

 

Two hours later, Jayne didn't want to analyze the reasons why she was sitting next to Adam on his jet, bound for the Caribbean. He had said they'd work out the details when they arrived at the resort, which she didn't like. She was a planner. She liked every detail set in stone before she took any action. That way there were no surprises and she could better manage her own experiences.

She'd been determined to say no to Adam's request, but in the end she'd been unable to. So here she was, eating caviar, which she hated, and drinking Moët with the Angelinis. She'd been on Adam's corporate jet twice before, both times to make sure that his every comfort was seen to. In fact, she'd been there this afternoon, arranging for Isabella's luggage to be stowed in the bedroom at the back.

The Angelinis were a very odd couple. Didi was slim and wore a slightly baggy dress in a shade that didn't really flatter her. Ray was short, a little pudgy and balding, but smiled with an effortless charm that immediately put Jayne at ease. They'd invited her and Adam to call them by their first names.

Ray and Didi had flown to New Orleans to see Adam's operation firsthand. Jayne had given them a tour around the city and taken Didi shopping while Adam worked his magic, convincing Ray of all the
advantages of joining Powell International. Jayne had a bad feeling that she may have made the biggest mistake of her life in agreeing to come with Adam. She'd been falling in love with her boss since the first week she'd started working for him.

It wasn't his Cajun good looks that drew her, though his thick black, curly hair made her fingers tingle to touch it. Or his wealth, because she'd grown up in a world where money was the only factor in happiness. Or his intelligence, because she'd graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Business School and counted some of the smartest people in the world among her friends.

No, what drew her to Adam Powell was the way he held himself apart from everyone. In her heart she recognized the lonely soul that mirrored her own. But she'd been content to not do anything about it, just secretly dream of her boss and continue working for him.

This trip changed everything. She should have said no. She
would
have said no if any man but Adam had asked her. She'd be on her way to Arkansas right now. She would have accomplished a week's stay in another of the fifty states and be well on her way to achieving her current travel goal to see all of them.

The Angelinis were talking quietly together. Adam put his arm around her, drawing her close to him. He pressed a kiss against the top of her head and she froze. She wasn't going to survive two weeks of this.
Her hand shook and a drop of champagne spilled from her glass.

“Relax,” Adam whispered against her temple.

She tried, but she couldn't. He took the champagne flute from her and put it on the table next to his chair.

Then he lifted her hand to his mouth and licked the spilled liquid from her skin. Shivers of white-hot desire spread throughout her body. Adam watched her with those crystal-gray eyes of his.

She saw something there that told her the lust she felt wasn't totally one-sided. Did that mean he had deeper emotions where she was concerned? Was she willing to risk her heart to find out?

She wasn't sure. She'd never been much of a risk taker. She liked to plan and slowly, methodically, move toward her goals.

But she was edging nearer to thirty, and marriage, which had always seemed not important, was becoming more and more a focus for her. She'd tried to make it to the altar once and fallen short. Adam was here now and she knew she might regret it later, but she was going to use the time they had together to explore her fantasies and maybe come out a winner. There wasn't a goal she'd set for herself that she hadn't achieved without planning and hard work.

Decision made, she rested her head on his shoulder. She wasn't sure how to handle Adam. He wasn't like the other men she'd dated. Those relationships had been based on common interests and some really
good sex, but none of those relationships had an eighth of the intensity she'd just experienced with Adam's mouth on the back of her hand.

He held her loosely and she closed her eyes, pretending to rest. But closing her eyes was a huge a mistake. She was overwhelmed by Adam. His warm hard body cradled hers. His fingers made idle patterns on her shoulder. And his scent—that spicy, woodsy, masculine scent—surrounded her.

Jayne opened her eyes and stood up. There wasn't an action plan big enough, safe enough, for her to put Adam in it. She wasn't going to be able to do this. Despite the fanciful dreams she'd harbored, she knew that if she and Adam had any kind of personal relationship it would end eventually and she'd be out of a job. Jayne looked around the plane and felt the walls closing in on her. Didi and Ray sat across from her, smiling warmly. Suddenly Jayne stood up.

He raised one eyebrow in question, and she said, “I have to—”

“Change? Yes, you do.” Turning to Ray and Didi, he said, “I hope you'll excuse us. Jayne hasn't had a chance to change from her day at the office.”

“Of course,” Ray said with a smile.

Jayne wondered what exactly she was going to change into. Isabella had about three inches in height on her and at least six inches in bustline. None of her clothes were going to fit.

Adam used his hand on her waist to guide her to
ward the back of the plane. Once they were inside the bedroom, he let her go and ran a hand through his hair.

“God, this is a mess. I don't think they're buying us as a couple.”

“It's not going to help when I come out wearing this outfit.”

“Don't worry about the clothing. I had a wardrobe delivered while you ran back to the office to drop off the papers.”

She glanced at the bed for the first time and realized it was covered in boxes. She was touched. She knew it was the same thing he did for every one of his mistresses, and it shouldn't matter. But no man had ever bought her clothing before. Adam had an eye for women's bodies and had mentioned to Jayne that nine times out of ten he was right on the mark. He'd guessed her size to prove it.

“You can use Isabella's suitcases for your clothes. I'll leave you to change.”

“Adam?”

“Yes?”

“I'll do my best to make this work.”

“I know you will,
chère.
”

“
Chère?
” Her heart beat too fast when he called her that in that throaty, masculine way of his.