The Price Of Desire: The Price of Success / The Cost of Her Innocence / Not For Sale
The Price of SuccessMarco de Cervantes, owner of the Espiritu racing team, can’t stand the fact that Sasha Fleming isn’t above using her wide-eyed beauty and tempting curves to become Espiritu’s first female racing driver. The infuriating thing is – she’s the best driver around!The Cost of Her InnocenceNewly free Beth Lazenby is determined to make a fresh start. Until she encounters Dante Cannavaro, the lawyer who helped wrongfully imprison her. So when their anger boils over into passion, how will she tell him she’s carrying his heir?Not For SaleWhen Lucas Vieira hires translator Caroline Hamilton to seal a high-profile business deal, she’s shocked when he asks if she can also pose as his girlfriend! The Brazilian seems to be interested in more than her brains…but is the price of passion just too high?"
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The Price of Desire
The Price of Success
Maya Blake
The Cost of her Innocence
Jacqueline Baird
Not For Sale
Sandra Marton
Table of Contents
MAYA BLAKE fell in love with the world of the alpha male and the strong, aspirational heroine when she borrowed her sister’s Mills & Boon at age thirteen. Shortly thereafter the dream to plot a happy ending for her own characters was born. Writing for Mills & Boon is a dream come true. Maya lives in South East England with her husband and two kids. Reading is an absolute passion, but when she isn’t lost in a book she likes to swim, cycle, travel and Tweet!
You can get in touch with her via e-mail, at [email protected], or on Twitter: twitter.com/mayablake
The Price Of Success is Maya’s debut book for Mills & Boon Modern Romance!
First and foremost for my dear sister, Barbara, who gave me the book that started this wonderful journey. For my husband, Tony, for his unwavering support and firm belief that this dream would become reality. For my HEART sisters—your incredible support kept me going right from the beginning—thank you! And finally for my darling MINXES! You are the best cheerleaders a girl can have and I’d be totally lost without you.
THE moments before the crash played out almost in slow motion. Time paused, then stretched lethargically in the Sunday sun. And even though the cars were travelling at over two hundred and twenty kilometers an hour, there seemed an almost hypnotic, ballet-like symmetry in their movement.
Sasha Fleming stared, frozen, her heart suspended mid-beat, terrified to complete its task as Rafael’s front wing clipped the rear tyre of the slower back marker. Hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of carbon fibre bent backwards, twisted in on itself. Ripped metal tore through the left tyre, wrenching the car into a ninety-degree turn.
The world-renowned racing car launched itself into the air. For several brief seconds it looked more like a futuristic aircraft than an asphalt-hugging machine.
Inevitably, gravity won out. The explosion was deafening as sound erupted all around her. The screech of contorting metal rang through her head, amplified by the super-sized loudspeakers all around her. In the next instant the white concrete wall just after the Turn One hairpin bend was streaked with the iconic racing green paint of Rafael’s car.
‘He’s crashed! He’s crashed! The pole sitter and current world champion, Rafael de Cervantes, has crashed his Espiritu DSII. Only this morning the papers said this car was uncrashable. How wrong were they?’
Sasha ripped off her headphones, unable to stomach the frenzied glee in the commentator’s voice or the huge roar that rose around the Hungaroring circuit.
Her heart, now making up for its sluggishness, was beating so hard and so fast it threatened to break through her ribcage. Her eyes remained glued to the bank of screens on the pit wall, and she and two dozen pit crew members watched the horrific events unfold.
‘Turn up the sound,’ someone yelled.
Curbing a wild need to negate that command, she clamped her lips together, arms folded tight around her middle. Memories of another time, another crash, played alongside the carnage unfolding on the screen. Unable to stem it, she let the memories of the event that had changed her for ever filter through to play alongside this appalling spectacle.
‘Sometimes the only way to get through pain is to immerse yourself in it. Let it eat you alive. It’ll spit you out eventually.’
How many times had her father told her that? When she’d broken her ankle learning to ride her bike. When she’d fractured her arm falling out of a tree. When she’d lost her mum when she was ten. When she’d suffered the desperate consequences of falling for the wrong guy.
She’d got through them all. Well … almost.
The secret loss she’d buried deep in her heart would always be with her. As would the loss of her father.
The commentator’s voice scythed through her thoughts. ‘There’s no movement from the car. The race has been red-flagged and the safety car is on its way. So is the ambulance. But so far we haven’t seen Rafael move. His engineer will be frantically trying to speak to him, no doubt. I must say, though, it’s not looking good …’
Sasha forced in a breath, her fingers moving convulsively to loosen the Velcro securing her constricting race suit. A shudder raked her frame, followed closely by another. She tried to swallow but she couldn’t get her throat to work.
