Life With Riley
BENEDICT FALKNER WAS A MAN WITH A PLANHe'd worked his way up from street tough to millionaire. Now he aimed to furnish his mansion with a suitably stylish wife. No way did his plan include Riley Morrisset, the petite, curvy firecracker who creamed his Beemer, bit his hand and screamed bloody murder when she mistook him for a mugger!So why did the sassy, struggling-to-make-ends-meet spitfire enchant him? Worse, why did he hire her as his live-in housekeeper, where she'd be underfoot, on his mind and teasing his libido as he pursued his perfect, polished bride-to-be? Maybe because life with Riley would be wild, wacky, wonderful and–Whoa! What was Benedict thinking?
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“How do you expect a man to react when you look like a candidate in a wet T-shirt contest?” Benedict said.
Startled, Riley glanced down at her sodden shirt. Raising her eyes again, she blurted, “But you’re not—I mean, you’re my employer! I’m your housekeeper!”
“I also happen to be a man,” he pointed out, a disconcerting glint in his eyes.
Riley had known from the start that she’d have to rein in her attraction to Benedict Falkner. But he’d clearly indicated that he saw her as domestic help, nothing else.
Mutual lust, however, was totally different. Thrilling, surprising…and potentially disastrous.
It was only his male hormones reacting, she told herself. It didn’t mean he intended to carry things any further, to compromise their employer-employee relationship….
Did it?
Dear Reader,
Summer is over and it’s time to kick back into high gear. Just be sure to treat yourself with a luxuriant read or two (or, hey, all six) from Silhouette Romance. Remember—work hard, play harder!
Although October is officially Breast Cancer Awareness month, we’d like to invite you to start thinking about it now. In a wonderful, uplifting story, a rancher reluctantly agrees to model for a charity calendar to earn money for cancer research. At the back of that book, we’ve also included a guide for self-exams. Don’t miss Cara Colter’s must-read 9 Out of 10 Women Can’t Be Wrong (#1615).
Indulge yourself with megapopular author Karen Rose Smith and her CROWN AND GLORY series installment, Searching for Her Prince (#1612). A missing heir puts love on the line when he hides his identity from the woman assigned to track him down. The royal, brooding hero in Sandra Paul’s stormy Caught by Surprise (#1614), the latest in the A TALE OF THE SEA adventure, also has secrets—and intends to make his beautiful captor pay…by making her his wife!
Jesse Colton is a special agent forced to play pretend boyfriend to uncover dangerous truths in the fourth of THE COLTONS: COMANCHE BLOOD spinoff, The Raven’s Assignment (#1613), by bestselling author Kasey Michaels. And in Cathie Linz’s MEN OF HONOR title, Married to a Marine (#1616), combat-hardened Justice Wilder had shut himself away from the world—until his ex-wife’s younger sister comes knocking…. Finally, in Laurey Bright’s tender and true Life with Riley (#1617), free-spirited Riley Morrisset may not be the perfect society wife, but she’s exactly what her stiff-collared boss needs!
Happy reading—and please keep in touch.
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
Books by Laurey Bright
Silhouette Romance
Tears of Morning #107
Sweet Vengeance #125
Long Way from Home #356
The Rainbow Way #525
Jacinth #568
The Mother of His Child #918
Marrying Marcus #1558
The Heiress Bride #1578
Life with Riley #1617
Silhouette Special Edition
Deep Waters #62
When Morning Comes #143
Fetters of the Past #213
A Sudden Sunlight #516
Games of Chance #564
A Guilty Passion #586
The Older Man #761
The Kindness of Strangers #820
An Interrupted Marriage #916
Silhouette Intimate Moments
Summers Past #470
A Perfect Marriage #621
LAUREY BRIGHT
has held a number of different jobs, but has never wanted to be anything but a writer. She lives in New Zealand, where she creates the stories of contemporary people in love that have won her a following all over the world. Visit her at her Web site, http://www.laureybright.com.
Contents
Chapter One
“Damn!” Too late, Riley Morrisset slammed on the brake.
Backing out of the narrow shopping-mall parking space, she’d turned the wheel too early. The ominous metallic shriek of her front bumper scraping against the side of the car next to hers had come all too clearly through her open window.
Groaning, she shoved strands of straight brown hair from her eyes, pulled on the brake and switched off the key before pushing open her door and going to inspect the damage.
Her ancient red Corona seemed unmarked, but the gleaming dark-blue BMW showed a long, telltale gouge right down to the metal, with a nasty dent at the end.
“Damn, damn, damn!” She’d have to leave her name and address for the owner. But first she’d better shift the Corona from the path of other traffic. Already a battered gray van was entering the end of the lane.
Quickly she returned to her car, switching the engine on.
The van was nosing into a space farther up the row, but there could be other cars entering soon. Riley grasped the gear lever, then jumped as a dark-sleeved arm reached in the open window and long male fingers switched off the key. At the same time a grim masculine voice said, “Oh, no, you don’t!”
Riley’s strangled yelp of alarm was drowned by her horn as she pressed the flattened palm of her free hand down on it.
The sound was abruptly cut off when strong fingers gripped her wrist and forcibly lifted her hand away. “What the hell—” the man said.
Looking up in panic, Riley had a confused impression of blazing eyes—a startling meld of navy blue and deep, deep gray—close-drawn black brows and a threatening expression, before she realized that his other hand had removed the ignition key with its attendant house keys and large plastic Snoopy tag.
