“It’s Been A Long Time Since I’ve Been Interested In A Woman,”
Quade Said. “Yet The Instant I Saw You In My Bedroom…”
“You were interested?” Chantal’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Oh, yeah. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve replayed that first encounter. Those satin sheets sliding across the floor. You leaning over the bed. The creaking mattress.”
“So…” Her gaze drifted to his lips, and it might have been his imagination, but she seemed to drift closer, too. When he breathed, his senses swam with her scent. “Where does that leave us?”
“Do you want there to be an us?” he asked.
“Do you?” she countered.
“I don’t know,” he said, smoothing his fingers down the length of her arm before he stepped away. “Hell, I can’t even make up my mind if I like you or not.”
Dear Reader,
Get your new year off to a sizzling start by reading six passionate, powerful and provocative new love stories from Silhouette Desire!
Don’t miss the exciting launch of DYNASTIES: THE BARONES, the new 12-book continuity series about feuding Italian-American families caught in a web of danger, deceit and desire. Meet Nicholas, the eldest son of Boston’s powerful Barone clan, and Gail, the down-to-earth nanny who wins his heart, in The Playboy & Plain Jane (#1483) by USA TODAY bestselling author Leanne Banks.
In Beckett’s Convenient Bride (#1484), the final story in Dixie Browning’s BECKETT’S FORTUNE miniseries, a detective offers the protection of his home—and loses his heart—to a waitress whose own home is torched after she witnesses a murder. And in The Sheikh’s Bidding (#1485) by Kristi Gold, an Arabian prince pays dearly to win back his ex-lover and their son.
Reader favorite Sara Orwig completes her STALLION PASS miniseries with The Rancher, the Baby & the Nanny (#1486), featuring a daredevil cowboy and the shy miss he hires to care for his baby niece. In Quade: The Irresistible One (#1487) by Bronwyn Jameson, sparks fly when two lawyers exchange more than arguments. And great news for all you fans of Harlequin Historicals author Charlene Sands—she’s now writing contemporary romances, as well, and debuts in Desire with The Heart of a Cowboy (#1488), a reunion romance that puts an ex-rodeo star at close quarters on a ranch with the pregnant widow he’s loved silently for years.
Ring in this new year with all six brand-new love stories from Silhouette Desire….
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Quade: The Irresistible One
Bronwyn Jameson
BRONWYN JAMESON
spent much of her childhood with her head buried in a book. As a teenager, she discovered romance novels, and it was only a matter of time before she turned her love of reading them into a love of writing them. Bronwyn shares an idyllic piece of the Australian farming heartland with her husband and three sons, a thousand sheep, a dozen horses, assorted wildlife and one kelpie. She still chooses to spend her limited downtime with a good book. Bronwyn loves to hear from readers. Write to her at [email protected].
For Jen, my best writing buddy—without your friendship and support and selflessness, I might never have finished this story.
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
One
Cameron Quade wasn’t surprised to see the sleek silver coupe parked in his driveway. Irritated, yes, resigned, yes, but not surprised. Even before he identified the status symbol badge on the car’s hood, he’d figured it belonged to his aunt or uncle, one or the other. They probably owned a matched pair.
Who else knew of his impending arrival? Who else had just cause and reason for waving the Welcome Home banner? He’d been expecting Godfrey and Gillian to show up sooner or later but he’d have preferred later. Several years later seemed around about perfect.
As the front door clicked shut behind him, Quade let the weighty luggage slide from his fingers and a weightier sigh slide from his lips. His travel-weary gaze scanned the living area of the old homestead he’d grown up in, then narrowed on a wince.
The place had been unoccupied for twelve months yet the gleam coming off every highly polished surface was damn near blinding. Someone had been busy but his aunt Gillian wielding a duster? If he could have summoned the necessary energy, he’d have laughed out loud.
As he wandered from room to room he did manage to summon a mild intrigue. The funky R & B tune piping from the stereo—a boy band?—didn’t seem like Aunt G.’s taste, although the classic gray suit jacket looped over the hall stand did. As for the flowers—he traced a finger along the rim of a hothouse orchid—yeah, the artful arrangement on said hall stand reeked of her touch.
But the woman in Quade’s bedroom, the woman in the classic gray skirt peeling back his bedclothes, was not his father’s sister.
No way, no how.
“Come on, come on, pick up the phone!”
The woman’s voice—low, smoky, impatient—drew his gaze away from the gray skirt and up to the cell phone clamped to her ear. She raked her other hand through her hair, one sweep from brow to crown that brought the thick dark mass into some sort of order. Temporary, he predicted, watching one curl bounce straight back up again.
“Julia. What were you thinking? Did I not specify guy sheets? Something practical, no frills?” She wrenched at the bedding, ripping it free from the mattress. “And you chose black satin?”
Practically hissing the last words, she flung the sheets behind her. They slithered across the highly polished floorboards to land just shy of where he stood, unnoticed, in the doorway.
“Good grief, Julia, you might as well have left a box of condoms on the pillow while you were at it!”
Quade’s brows lifted halfway up his forehead. Black satin sheets and condoms? Not the usual homecoming gift, leastways not from his aunt and uncle. And he wasn’t expecting welcome-home gifts from anyone else, especially this unknown Julia, the one copping an earful from the stranger in his bedroom.
“Call me when you get in, okay?”
Correction. Whose answer machine was copping an earful.
Equal parts amusement and bemusement curled Quade’s lips as the discarded phone skidded across a side table and bumped to a halt against the wall. Still the same blue paint he recalled from his childhood. He’d wanted fire-engine red but his mother had stood firm. Luckily.
His nostalgic