Dear Reader,

      This August, I am delighted to give you six winning reasons to pick up a Silhouette Special Edition book.

      For starters, Lindsay McKenna, whose action-packed and emotionally gritty romances have entertained readers for years, moves us with her exciting cross-line series MORGAN’S MERCENARIES: ULTIMATE RESCUE. The first book, The Heart Beneath, tells of love against unimaginable odds. With a background as a firefighter in the late 1980s, Lindsay elaborates, “This story is about love, even when buried beneath the rubble of a hotel, or deep within a human being who has been terribly wounded by others, that it will not only survive, but emerge and be victorious.”

      No stranger to dynamic storytelling, Laurie Paige kicks off a new MONTANA MAVERICKS spin-off with Her Montana Man, in which a beautiful forensics examiner must gather evidence in a murder case, but also has to face the town’s mayor, a man she’d loved and lost years ago. Don’t miss the second book in THE COLTON’S: COMANCHE BLOOD series—Jackie Merritt’s The Coyote’s Cry, a stunning tale of forbidden love between a Native American sheriff and the town’s “golden girl.”

      Christine Rimmer delivers the first romance in her captivating new miniseries THE SONS OF CAITLIN BRAVO. In His Executive Sweetheart, a secretary pines for a Bravo bachelor who just happens to be her boss! And in Lucy Gordon’s Princess Dottie, a waitress-turned-princess is a dashing prince’s only chance at keeping his kingdom—and finding true love…. Debut author Karen Sandler warms readers with The Boss’s Baby Bargain, in which a controlling CEO strikes a marriage bargain with his financially strapped assistant, but their smoldering attraction leads to an unexpected pregnancy!

      This month’s selections are stellar romances that will put a smile on your face and a song in your heart! Happy reading.

      Sincerely,

      Karen Taylor Richman

       Senior Editor

      His Executive Sweetheart

      Christine Rimmer

      For my own sons,

       Matt and Jess,

       with all my love.

       CHRISTINE RIMMER

      came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been an actress, a salesclerk, a janitor, a model, a phone sales representative, a teacher, a waitress, a playwright and an office manager. She insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter One

       I t happened on Valentine’s Day.

      Which was just a coincidence, really. An irony. An accident of timing that made the whole thing all the more pitiful, somehow.

      It was Valentine’s Day and it was a Wednesday, at 9:15 a.m. in the Executive Tower of High Sierra Resort and Casino. Celia Tuttle was taking a memo—well, getting e-mail instructions, really. Her boss, Aaron Bravo, never actually composed the in-office e-mails he sent out to the managers and senior vice presidents who labored under him. He told Celia what he wanted to get across. As his executive secretary/personal assistant it was her job to put appropriate wording to his commands.

      Her boss said, “We’ve got to do something about the line for that damn raft ride….”

      Celia smiled to herself as she scribbled on her notepad. High Sierra contained its own river, complete with rushing rapids and a whitewater raft ride. The ride was incredibly popular—so much so that the long lines of customers waiting their turn sometimes got in the way of casino traffic. At High Sierra, as in any gaming establishment worthy of its name, nothing was allowed to get in the way of casino traffic. They called it a resort and casino, but everyone knew it was really the other way around.

      “Send an e-mail to Hickock Drake.” Hickock was a senior vice president. “Tell him to sit on Carter Biles.” Carter Biles was Director of Rides and Attractions. “It’s too many people standing around in a line when they ought to be at the tables or playing the slots. Carter should know that. Up the price on the ride till no one will pay it. Shut the damn thing down. Whatever. The line is in the way and I want it out of there.”

      It happened right then. Celia looked up from her legal pad, still smiling a little at the whole idea of an amusement park ride upstaging the mighty gaming tables. Aaron said, “And before the meeting with the planning commission, I need you to check with…”

      She didn’t really catch the rest of it because everything seemed to spin to a stop. It was something out of a sci-fi movie, the kind where the world freezes in place and one woman is left walking and talking in the usual way while trying to deal with the fact that everyone she knows is suddenly a statue.

      Yes. The world went still. All of it.

      Including Aaron. He was sitting in his glove-soft black leather chair at the huge glass-topped chrome-legged table that served as his desk, in front of a wall that was also a window. Behind him and below him lay the Las Vegas Strip, a modern-day Mecca, a land of turrets and towers, sphinxes and circus tents. Beyond the strip stretched the glittering sprawl of the magical, impossible city in the desert.

      But it wasn’t the city of Las Vegas Celia Tuttle was staring at.

      It was Aaron.

      And all of him, every last physical detail, was suddenly achingly clear.

      Tall, she thought, as if that was news. Broad-shouldered. Lean. A face that wasn’t quite handsome. Long and angular, that face, with a cleft in the strong chin. And a nose that would have been bladelike, had it not been broken at some point in his checkered past.

      He