Claimed

Isabella was somehow even more beautiful than he remembered.

And probably more treacherous, Marc reminded himself as he fought for control over his suddenly rampaging emotions and libido.

It had been six years since he’d seen her.

Six years since he’d held her, kissed her, made love to her.

Six years since he’d kicked her out of his apartment and his life.

And still he wanted her.

It came as something of a shock, considering he’d done his best not to think about her in the ensuing years. Sure, every once in a while something would come up and her face would flash through his mind. He’d be reminded of the scent, the taste, the feel of her. But through the years those instances had grown fewer and further between and his reaction to them—and her—had dimmed. Or so he’d thought.

All it had taken was a glimpse of her through the small window to throw him right back into the seething, tumultuous heat that had characterized so much of their relationship. At that moment, he hadn’t cared about the future, or his family’s company, which he had sacrificed so much for through the years. He hadn’t cared about anything but getting to her …

* * *

Claimed is part of the Diamond Tycoons duet— Marc and Nic Durand are ruthless, sexy and powerful, and only the women they love can tame them.

Claimed

Tracy Wolff

www.millsandboon.co.uk

TRACY WOLFF collects books, English degrees and lipsticks, and has been known to forget where—and sometimes who—she is when immersed in a great novel. At six, she wrote her first short story—something with a rainbow and a prince—and at seven, she ventured into the wonderful world of girls’ lit with her first Judy Blume novel. By ten, she’d read everything in the young-adult and classics sections of her local bookstore, so in desperation her mum started her on romance novels. And from the first page of the first book, Tracy knew she’d found her lifelong love. Tracy lives in Texas with her husband and three sons, where she pens romance novels and teaches writing at her local community college.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Extract

Copyright

One

Isabella Moreno froze in the middle of her lecture—in the middle of a sentence, really—as the door in the back of her classroom opened and the president of the Gem Institute of America walked in. But it wasn’t the presence of Harlan Peters that threw her off her game. She was a damn good professor and she knew it; a visit from her boss was no big deal. No, it was the tall, dark and silent man standing next to him that struck fear into her heart even as he sent shivers up and down her spine.

Don’t forget gorgeous, she thought as she forced herself to continue her discussion of the cutting and polishing of off-shape sapphires. Her graduate students had begun turning to look at what had distracted her and it was only a matter of seconds before she would lose the attention of every female in the vicinity. Already, there were twitters and giggles coming from various corners of the room, and they didn’t even know who the mystery man was yet.

Not that she did, either. Not really. Oh, she recognized him. It was hard to be in the gem industry for any length of time and not be able to identify Marc Durand, CEO of the second largest diamond exporter and jeweler in the country. His too-long black hair, bright blue eyes and fallen angel face were hard to miss...and even harder to ignore. But the look on that face, the glittering contempt in those distinctive eyes and the derisive twist of those full lips was not something she was used to seeing from him. They turned him into a stranger.

The Marc she knew—the Marc she’d once loved—had looked at her only with tenderness. With amusement. With love. At least until the end, when everything had fallen apart. But even then he’d shown some feelings. Rage, hurt, betrayal. It had nearly killed her to see those emotions on his face, and to know that she was responsible for them.

But the look on his face now—the derision, the scorn, the ice—turned him into someone new. Someone she didn’t recognize; someone she certainly didn’t want to know.

When they’d been together, their relationship had been characterized by heat, so much heat she’d often wondered how long it would take before she got burned. The answer, it turned out, had been six months, three weeks and four days, give or take a few hours.

Not that she’d been counting.

And not that she blamed him for how things had ended. How could she when the way things had gone down—the way the two of them had self-destructed—had been almost completely her fault?

Oh, he could have been kinder. She was the first to admit that tossing her onto the streets of New York City in the middle of the night, with nothing but the clothes on her back, was a hideous thing to do. But it wasn’t as if she hadn’t deserved it. Even now, there were nights she lay awake staring at the ceiling and wondering how she could have done what she had done. How she could have betrayed the man she’d loved so completely.