Praise for
CAITLIN CREWS
‘Crews’ pulse-pounding, sensual feast of a page-turner keeps the heat turned up in this unforgettable, love ‘em, hate ‘em romance. She showcases luxurious settings, while her aweinspiring couple entertains with their sexual banter and some of the most jaw-dropping lovemaking ever written.’
—RT Book Reviews on A Scandal in the Headlines
‘Crews’ tale is intensely dramatic, set in a quaint fictional European principality. The royal repartee is all-consuming, their lovemaking is sensual and volatile and their romance is a nightmare turned fairy tale.’
—RT Book Reviews on A Royal Without Rules
‘Crews’ magnificently intense and passion-filled romance is so volatile you'll feel the heat radiating from her couple, who trade barbs and ignite sparks right into the bedroom.’
—RT Book Reviews on No More Sweet Surrender
‘Crews’ scorching love scenes and cryptic hints will keep readers rapt as she pieces her puzzle together, with a couple who truly deserves happiness.’
—RT Book Reviews on Heiress Behind the Headlines
‘Crews’ modern-day Beauty and the Beast story comes alive with a hero and heroine who are both so much more than they seem.’
—RT Book Reviews on The Man Behind the Scars
CAITLIN CREWS discovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve. It involved swashbuckling pirates, grand adventures, a heroine with rustling skirts and a mind of her own, and a seriously mouth-watering and masterful hero. The book (the title of which remains lost in the mists of time) made a serious impression. Caitlin was immediately smitten with romances and romance heroes, to the detriment of her middle-school social life. And so began her lifelong love affair with romance novels, many of which she insists on keeping near her at all times.
Caitlin has made her home in places as far-flung as York, England, and Atlanta, Georgia. She was raised near New York City and fell in love with London on her first visit when she was a teenager. She has backpacked in Zimbabwe, been on safari in Botswana and visited tiny villages in Namibia. She has, while visiting the place in question, declared her intention to live in Prague, Dublin, Paris, Athens, Nice, the Greek islands, Rome, Venice and/or any of the Hawaiian islands. Writing about exotic places seems like the next best thing to moving there.
She currently lives in California with her animator/comic-book-artist husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.
Chapter One
Zoe Brook strode into the exclusive strip club, hidden away beneath a discreet sign on a side street in an otherwise upscale Manhattan neighborhood, like an avenging angel on the warpath at last.
It had taken almost seven years, but her revenge was within grasp.
At last.
She paid no attention to the dull-eyed bouncers who waved her through the doorway, much less the plastic smile of the hostess as she swept past the welcome desk. There were very few clients at this hour of the morning—10:17, last she’d checked—and that made it easy to find who she was looking for in the dimly lit, too-loud space, dotted here and there with the requisite poles and a handful of sleepy-looking dancers eking out halfhearted performances in the dark red gloom.
Not that her quarry was making any attempt to hide.
Hunter Talbot Grant III, one-time golden boy, dumb jock extraordinaire and current professional fuckup, sprawled on a plush booth in the corner of the otherwise sparsely populated club, neck deep in mostly naked women. Zoe’s lips thinned as she took in the scene, which was as distasteful as she’d expected. The women giggled on each side of him, they shimmied in front of him, they writhed for his pleasure as if his table was its own stage and Zoe, dressed in her usual sleek sort of sheath dress and a tailored coat against the winter chill, was wearing more clothing than all of them put together.
“Good morning, Mr. Grant,” she said crisply, eying the man himself in all his sordid glory. “You seem to have forgotten our nine-thirty meeting today.”
It wasn’t exactly a surprise that someone who currently ranked as the Most Hated Celebrity in America was a pig. In fact, Zoe was counting on it. Hunter Grant was the disgraced sports figure du jour, wealthy beyond measure and disreputable by choice, and strip clubs such as this one were his natural habitat. Pig was redundant.
“And you seem to be wearing entirely too many clothes.”
His voice was a rough growl, deeply male and shot through with raw, velvet arrogance, which went with his very big, undeniably impressive body sprawled there in the booth, dripping with strippers. But he met her gaze as if they were alone and he was entirely sober, and there was suddenly a certain hum in the air, a kind of electric charge, that made her skin feel much too tight.