In The Enemy's Embrace

898—CHEYENNE’S LADY†

902—THE DOCTOR’S INSTANT FAMILY† (#litres_trial_promo)

906—PREACHER’S IN-NAME-ONLY WIFE† (#litres_trial_promo)

909—THE McCALLUM QUINTUPLETS “Delivered with a Kiss”

925—IN THE ENEMY’S EMBRACE

Contents

Chapter One (#ucfb65a10-b50a-5028-91d5-46fb52955f75)

Chapter Two (#ua7cfb859-3df9-5770-8c91-44cf782fc159)

Chapter Three (#uef4a51ad-f692-5be7-aab9-9371a7992208)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One

Jessica Coleman hugged the scratchy wool blanket around her shoulders and shivered in the balmy June night air, the tremors from nerves, not cold.

Before her, the downtown Dallas apartment she’d called home for the past two months oozed smoke out its balcony windows like a baby dragon throwing a hissy fit.

Jessica felt a little like throwing a hissy fit herself, but realized it would do no good. Roll with the punches, her cousins always told her, stand proud and project a regal presence even if you don’t feel it.

Easy for them to say. Her cousins, whom she’d been raised with, were indeed royalty. Bona fide sheikhs. All of them married now—thanks in part to Jessica’s matchmaking skills.

She sniffed and wiped her nose on the scratchy blanket the firefighter had given her, her throat burning from the cloying smell of smoke. Destruction was always so painful to see. Especially destruction of a person’s home.

Thankfully Jessica wasn’t emotionally attached to the apartment, didn’t have any keepsakes there—other than the photographs of her parents and cousins that she’d snatched up and shoved in her purse on her way out of the smoke-filled building. The rest of her belongings of any value to her were at home on the Desert Rose Ranch in Bridle, Texas, northwest of Austin.

Except her clothes of course. Now that was a big loss.

On the bright side, though, losing one’s entire wardrobe was a great excuse to go shopping.

She glanced around at her neighbors and felt badly about her frivolous thought. My gosh, what was wrong with her? Was she on the verge of hysteria?

Unlike her, she imagined these people had lost irreplaceable keepsakes and memories. A couple had nearly lost their lives. That thought made her shiver—especially as the image of little Timmy, her neighbor’s boy, sliding on his stomach toward an open flame replayed in her mind like a preview clip of a horror movie. He’d broken away from his parents, running back toward his apartment to search for his cat. The untied shoelaces on his sneakers had tripped him and sent him tumbling.

Tugging her mass of red hair from beneath the blanket, she turned at the sound of tires screeching on asphalt. Her heart lurched into her throat.

A black Mercedes sedan.

Nick Grayson—her absentee boss.

Well, sort of her boss. He was the son of the Grayson half of Coleman-Grayson Investment Company, and she was the daughter of the Coleman half. His handsome features made her knees weak, yet his bossiness left her spitting like a she-cat more often than not. She knew her parents had asked him to watch over her, teach her the ropes in the family business, but at twenty-five, she was well past needing a baby-sitter and resented his superior attitude.

She sighed, watching him approach. His long stride and rigidly set shoulders beneath a black polo shirt didn’t bode well for harmony. At least not between the two of them.

The subtle smell of sandalwood cologne surrounded her as he drew near, giving her a second’s respite from the acrid stench of smoke. Heat coursed through her. Her insides still trembled like soft-set pudding—nerves and something more now.

Why in the world couldn’t she be her normal “catch me if you can, baby” self around this man? It was thoroughly disquieting, a failing she’d had since she was thirteen. You’d think she would’ve gotten over her adolescent crush.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his deep voice concerned, edgy.

Annoyed that she wanted to say no and turn into his wide chest for comfort, Jessica clutched the blanket more snugly around her shoulders. “Do you have spies? Had my phones tapped? What?” Why was it he always showed up when she needed him?

She didn’t want to need him, even though the smell of his skin and the intensity of his dark-brown eyes made her heart do cartwheels in her chest.

“Did you make a phone call?” he asked, his tone dripping with censure. “I don’t recall mine ringing.”

When he cocked a dark brow in that sexy, annoying way of his, she didn’t know whether to hit him or jump his bones.

“Obviously it must have rung sometime,” she said. “Otherwise, why would you show up like a thief with a posse on his tail?”

“A thief?”

She shrugged. “Black car, windows tinted black, dressed in all black. A person would think you’re a bad guy or something.”

The long look he gave her did indeed telegraph danger. Sexual, rather than physical.

“The color of the car isn’t readily changeable. The clothes were what I put my hands on first in the closet. I was understandably anxious to get out of the house.”

“You had ESP or something that drew you out of bed and told you my apartment building was burning down?”