With Private Eyes. Eileen Wilks
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November’s menu
BARONESSA GELATERIA
in Boston’s North End
In addition to our regular flavors of gelato, this month we are featuring:
Tall, cool drink of tart lemonadeWith her incredible legs and honey-blond hair, Claudia Barone bowled Ethan over at first sight. But the strong, sassy society dame was not about to make him forget who was in charge of this investigation. He’d match her clue for clue, kiss for kiss…
USDA Grade-A prime beefsteakEthan Mallory was as different from Claudia as any person on the planet. But the rough-and-tumble private eye got to her like no man ever had. Beneath his gruff exterior was a real diamond in the rough.
Decadent chocolate bombeNo longer able to resist him, Claudia gave herself over to Ethan’s kisses, to his touch. Being with him was different—explosive, dizzying, mind-blowing. She’d revel in it—for as long as it lasted. After all, none of her other relationships had had any duration. But, then again, Ethan wasn’t like any other man….
Buon appetito!
Dear Reader,
Thank you for choosing Silhouette Desire—where passion is guaranteed in every read. Things sure are heating up with our continuing series DYNASTIES: THE BARONES. Eileen Wilks’s With Private Eyes is a powerful romance that helps set the stage for the daring conclusion next month. And if it’s more continuing stories that you want—we have them. TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB: THE STOLEN BABY launches this month with Sara Orwig’s Entangled with a Texan.
The wonderful Peggy Moreland is on hand to dish up her share of Texas humor and heat with Baby, You’re Mine, the next installment of her TANNERS OF TEXAS series. Be sure to catch Peggy’s Silhouette Single Title, Tanner’s Millions, on sale January 2004. Award-winning author Jennifer Greene marks her much-anticipated return to Silhouette Desire with Wild in the Field, the first book in her series THE SCENT OF LAVENDER.
Also for your enjoyment this month, we offer Katherine Garbera’s second book in the KING OF HEARTS series. Cinderella’s Christmas Affair is a fabulous “it could happen to you” plot guaranteed to leave her fans extremely satisfied. And rounding out our selection of delectable stories is Awakening Beauty by Amy J. Fetzer, a steamy, sensational tale.
More passion to you!
Melissa Jeglinski
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
With Private Eyes
Eileen Wilks
This one’s for Karen,
who’s always willing
to listen.
EILEEN WILKS
is a fifth-generation Texan. Her great-great-grandmother came to Texas in a covered wagon shortly after the end of the Civil War—excuse us, the War Between the States. But she’s not a full-blooded Texan. Right after another war, her Texan father fell for a Yankee woman. This obviously mismatched pair proceeded to travel to nine cities in three countries in the first twenty years of their marriage, raising two kids and innumerable dogs and cats along the way. For the next twenty years they stayed put, back home in Texas again—and still together.
Eileen figures her professional career matches her nomadic upbringing, since she’s tried everything from drafting to a brief stint as a ranch hand—raising two children and any number of cats and dogs along the way. Not until she started writing did she “stay put,” because that’s when she knew she’d come home. Readers can write to her at P.O. Box 4612, Midland, TX 79704-4612.
Meet the Barones of Boston—an elite clan caught in a web of danger, deceit…and desire!
Who’s Who in
WITH PRIVATE EYES
Claudia Barone—She’s always fixing her family’s problems, but her own love life is a mess. Her former beaux never lasted longer than four months; they were too intimidated by her stubbornness and her strength….
Ethan Mallory—Despite hailing from the wrong side of the tracks, he’s always been attracted to tall, cool blondes—all of whom have been Ms. Wrong. This time he tells himself he’ll stay away from Ms. Barone, no matter how much it kills him….
Derrick Barone—He, more than anyone, knows you can’t fight who you really are.
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
One
Uncle Miles had always told him his sense of humor would get him hanged one of these days, Ethan reflected. Maybe today was the day.
“I’d like to start as soon as possible.” The blonde sitting on the other side of his desk gave him a bright smile. “This is going to make a terrific article.”
Maybe it was his curiosity that would get him in trouble this time. As much as it tickled his sense of the absurd for Claudia Barone to present herself in his office posing as a reporter, he wouldn’t have let her run through her spiel if he hadn’t wanted to know what she was up to. “I haven’t agreed yet,” he pointed out.
“Oh, well.” She said that tolerantly and crossed her legs, sliding one long, silky thigh over the other. “How can I persuade you?”
Then again, those legs might be the real culprit. The moment she’d appeared in his doorway in her lipstick-red suit he’d wanted to get her into the visitor’s chair in front of his desk. He’d wanted to find out how far that one-inch-too-short skirt hiked up.
They were world-class legs, he thought regretfully. And she knew it. She’d crossed and uncrossed them four times since she sat down. “I don’t imagine you can.”
Not a whit discouraged, she launched into a repetition of her asinine story, her hands flying enthusiastically. It was an intriguing contrast, he thought. Her posture was very proper—shoulders squared, spine straight—and she certainly didn’t raise her voice. But her gestures were as loud as the color of her suit.
Even on ten minutes’ acquaintance, he could tell Claudia Barone was crammed with contradictions. She looked like the prototype for a tall, cool sip of blond elegance. She was pale and slim—skinny, he told himself—with blue eyes and classic features marred by a nose too assertive for its setting. Her honey-colored hair was pulled back in a kind of a roll at the back, very sleek and polished. The cut of her suit was conservative, too, if you ignored where the hemline hit.
And the color. Which was echoed in the siren-red gloss she’d sleeked over a cute little rosebud mouth.
Her story might be crazy, but her voice was worth listening to, even if it did tug at memories he’d prefer stayed safely buried.