April’s menu
BARONESSA GELATERIA
in Boston’s North End
In addition to our regular flavors of Italian gelato, this month we are featuring:
Heart-shaped confections
Rita reveled in her secret admirer’s delightful surprises—a pewter heart pin, silver charm bracelet and crystal heart paperweight. The trinkets touched her, but made her wonder: Just who was the mysterious gift giver?
Chocolate lovers’ supreme
In dark suits that outlined his masculine physique, chestnut-haired Dr. Matthew Grayson was near perfection, the epitome of a refined, tasteful man. Why, then, did he bring out the earthy, naughty side of nurse Rita?
Steaming-hot espresso
One kiss… That was all Rita wanted. Just to feel Matthew’s lips against hers and to fantasize about him taking her innocence. But when she kissed him, the brooding doctor stole more than just her virtue….
Buon appetito!
Dear Reader,
Spring into the new season with six fresh passionate, powerful and provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire.
Experience first love with a young nurse and the arrogant surgeon who stole her innocence, in USA TODAY bestselling author Elizabeth Bevarly’s Taming the Beastly MD (#1501), the latest title in the riveting DYNASTIES: THE BARONES continuity series. Another USA TODAY bestselling author, Cait London, offers a second title in her HEARTBREAKERS miniseries—Instinctive Male (#1502) is the story of a vulnerable heiress who finds love in the arms of an autocratic tycoon.
And don’t miss RITA® Award winner Marie Ferrarella’s A Bachelor and a Baby (#1503), the second book of Silhouette’s crossline series THE MOM SQUAD, featuring single mothers who find true love. In Tycoon for Auction (#1504) by Katherine Garbera, a lady executive wins the services of a commitment-shy bachelor. A playboy falls in love with his secretary in Billionaire Boss (#1505) by Meagan McKinney, the latest MATCHED IN MONTANA title. And a Native American hero’s fling with a summer-school teacher produces unexpected complications in Warrior in Her Bed (#1506) by Cathleen Galitz.
This April, shower yourself with all six of these moving and sensual new love stories from Silhouette Desire.
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Taming the Beastly MD
Elizabeth Bevarly
For Gail Chasan.
Thanks for the memories (and so much more).
For nurses everywhere.
(Especially my favorite, Lisa Dobson.)
ELIZABETH BEVARLY
was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and earned her B.A. with honors in English from the University of Louisville in 1983. Although she never wanted to be anything but a novelist, her career side trips before making the leap to writing included stints working in movie theaters, restaurants, boutiques and a major department store. When she’s not writing, Elizabeth enjoys old movies, old houses, good books, whimsical antiques, hot jazz and even hotter salsa (the music, not the sauce). She resides with her husband and young son in Kentucky.
Meet the Barones of Boston—
an elite clan caught in a web of danger, deceit…and desire!
Who’s Who in
TAMING THE BEASTLY MD
Matthew Grayson—Though he was raised with wealth and privilege, his past has left him with scars—some visible and some private. He exudes a gruff, arrogant confidence, but just who is the real Matthew Grayson?
Rita Barone—Despite her sizable trust fund, she’s dedicated her life to nursing. But has her secret admirer revealed the sensual woman living undercover inside her?
Emily Barone—This young Barone cousin knows all about keeping her feelings inside, hidden and alone….
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Prologue
There was no disputing the fact that surly Boston winters tended to slow things down in the emergency rooms of the city’s hospitals. But that only meant it wasn’t standing room only, Rita Barone thought as she gazed at the still-bustling E.R. this bitter early February morning. There was plenty here to keep the staff busy. Certainly enough to make her wish she hadn’t picked up the shift to help out one of the other nurses. Normally, she worked in the coronary care unit, which was a walk in the park compared to the E.R. Still, Rita had started in the E.R. at Boston General, so in a way, this was like coming home.
At home, though, she didn’t have to treat overblown cold sores and ingrown toenails. No, when Rita went home—home to the big Beacon Hill townhouse where she’d grown up, and not the North End brownstone she shared with two of her sisters—her parents pampered her like a princess. In fact, she could be living the life of a princess at this very moment had she chosen, since each of the Barone siblings had collected a million-dollar trust upon turning twenty-one. But Rita, crazy as it might sound, had wanted to be a nurse instead of a princess. Now, after almost three years of employment at Boston General, she knew she had made the right choice. Princesses, she knew, hardly ever saved lives. Plus, they didn’t have nearly as good a health plan as she did.
Cold sores and ingrown toenails, here I come, she thought wryly now as she leveled an espresso-colored gaze on the wretched refuse cluttering the E.R. waiting room. The people seemed not to have changed one bit since she had been a regular staff member here.
But then, she hadn’t changed much herself, had she? she thought further. She still wore the slate-blue scrubs she preferred for work, and she still bound her dark-brown hair in a tidy braid. But then, why fix it if it wasn’t broken, right?
“Excuse me, but I’ve been waiting for more than a half hour now,” a young woman told Rita as she leaned over the counter of the nurses’ station. She seemed to be checking the desk to make sure there were no extra doctors hiding there. “How much longer will it be until I can see someone?”
Rita offered up a halfhearted smile. “It shouldn’t be too much longer, I wouldn’t think,” she said, knowing she was being optimistic, but feeling hopeful all the same. “This flu that’s going around has hit everyone hard. We’re even short a doctor this morning because of it.”
Plus, they were understandably obligated to take the most serious cases first. With a slight fever and cough, and no family doctor, this woman was in for a wait.
Now, too, they were expecting an ambulance, whose arrival they had been alerted to only moments ago. A homeless