Cover Copy
One Mistake
Carla Hernandez needs to drop off the glamorous Miami grid. Her aunt’s house in Havana seems the perfect place to get over being dumped by her fiancé—and figure out why she keeps messing up her life. But photojournalist Jonah Kane’s unexpected presence is one sizzling mistake she’s hungry to make.
One Temptation
Jonah thought his favorite Cuban refuge would help him get some badly-needed peace. Still, he’s ridden out way worse than the tropical storm trapping him with Carla. And he’s going to handle this spoiled little princess on his own dominant, seductive terms just until the storm is over. Too bad this sexy wild card only makes him only want more. And more . . .
No Restraints
Now Carla’s back home—but not quite alone. When her baby is born, she’s going to raise it on her own, no matter how much she still burns for Jonah. But Jonah can’t get over her irrepressible spirit or the passion they shared. And trying to walk away is only making things too hot to resist . . .
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Books by Andie J. Christopher
One Night in South Beach
Stroke of Midnight
Dusk Until Dawn
Break of Day
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Break of Day
One Night in South Beach
Andie J. Christopher
LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Copyright
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Copyright © 2017 by Andie J. Christopher
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First Electronic Edition: September 2017
eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0022-4
eISBN-10: 1-5161-0022-0
First Print Edition: September 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0024-8
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0024-7
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
Thanks, Mom. I love you.
Acknowledgments
First, I’d like to thank my editor, Jennifer Herrington, for loving this story and the Hernandez family enough to help me make them shine and bring them to readers. I’d like to thank the Lyrical team for the gorgeous cover and help with marketing this series.
Cate Hart, thank you for fielding all the frantic, middle-of-the-night emails and for loving my voice. If I could send Dave Grohl to your house to sing you to sleep, I would.
Thank you, Laurel Simmons, for believing in my writing, for your mad copy-editing skills, and for being my friend for over a decade. This book wouldn’t exist without Agnes Blum Thompson, Julie Coe, Monica Hogan, and Ann McClellan. Robin Covington, thank you for all the advice, all the support, and all the shirtless dudes who keep me writing. This book brought me to the wonderful women I’ve met in RWA, WRW, and MRW, for which I am eternally grateful.
Kim and Mark, thank you for hosting me in Miami and introducing me to some of the locations I love so much. Ted Arthur, thank you for being an expert resource on SEAL lingo, gun lingo, and commitment-phobia.
It might seem to be a little strange to be thanking one’s grandmother in the acknowledgments of a very dirty book, but Wilda Rose Manka was not just any grandma. She would have read the book and offered notes on the dirty bits. And she would have made sure that all her friends bought a copy. I still miss you. Molly, thanks for reading an early draft and being the best cousin/sister/cheerleader ever. Marge and Jean, thanks for always reading, always listening, and always knowing that this would happen. Mom, thanks for not demanding to read an early draft, for everything you do and everything you are.
Chapter 1
Carla’s skin was melting. Her cotton romper clung to her melty mess of a body in the heat of August in Cuba. Rivers of mascara ran down her face, and she would shank someone for an afternoon in air-conditioning with a stack of fashion magazines.
I just thought being with a redheaded Cuban girl would be more exciting.
Her ex-fiancé’s words echoed in her head for the millionth time since he dumped her and asked for the ring back. She hadn’t thought an accountant’s wife needed to be exciting, but what the fuck did she know about anything anymore?
She smiled at the driver, probably a guy from Tia Lola’s street. He’d picked her up at the airport to bring her to the family home. Lola’s house was a couple of blocks off the stately, crumbling facades along the Malecón. When he’d put her bag in the trunk, she’d tipped him with American money; she’d seen her father do it the last time they’d visited. She clutched her shoulder bag, remembering exactly how much money she had in there. She didn’t usually carry around thousands of dollars in cash.
When the car had pulled up to her aunt’s house, she tried to give the driver more money. In a few words of rapid Spanish, he refused her and smiled. She grabbed her suitcase out of the trunk, took a deep breath, and walked up to the door.
Even though the exterior needed a whole mess of masonry work, the colonial mansion was still impressive. Carla wasn’t sure how it had stayed in the family. She knew that her father’s aunt ran a casa particulare. She rented out some of the bedrooms to tourists for more money than anyone in Cuba could afford, but she wasn’t sure how that was enough to keep the place up—especially since Americans hadn’t been able to come here for fun for almost half a century.
That was changing, and Carla was here to help turn her aunt’s house into a boutique hotel so that her tia could retire and so that her family’s home could sustain itself.
When she knocked, she was expecting her sixty-something-year-old great aunt to open the massive, carved, wooden door. Instead, a giant stood on the threshold. A bare-chested giant with biceps the size of her head. Her mouth popped open—and went dry to be perfectly honest. She made the mistake of looking down, hoping for more clothing. What she found were thighs, just massive thighs, encased in black boxer briefs.
She