Bestselling author MICHELLE CELMER lives in southeastern Michigan with her husband, their three children, two dogs and two cats. When she’s not writing or busy being a mum, you can find her in the garden or curled up with a romance. And if you twist her arm really hard you can usually persuade her into a day of power shopping.

      Michelle loves to hear from readers. Visit her website at www.michellecelmer.com, or write to her at PO Box 300, Clawson, MI 48017, USA.

Chapter One

       June

      Alexis Cavanaugh was in love with the wrong brother.

      She gazed across the candlelit table at the man she had spent the better part of the past week in D.C. with, only half listening as he spoke fervently about Brody Oil and Gas, the company he co-owned with his brother Lance. The brother she was supposed to be marrying.

      Not that she had expected to fall in love with Lance. The marriage was little more than a business deal cooked up by the Brody brothers and her father, Bruce Cavanaugh, senior senator from her home state of Texas. But hadn’t she always done what her father asked of her? Didn’t he, as he’d always claimed, know what was best? A marriage to Lance would provide her the financial security and station in society that she’d earned—although other than possess the Cavanaugh name, she wasn’t sure what she’d ever done to deserve it.

      Not that she didn’t find Lance appealing. He was tall and dark and devastatingly attractive—not to mention built like a tank—with a charm that drew people to him. A gentle giant. But he wasn’t as refined a man as she was