Dream Nights with the CEO
by Kathy Lions
Hotel chain CEO and millionaire Wyatt Monroe is a stick in the mud. Sure, he's hot as sin, even with the tie, but free-spirited assistant Megan Bradford refuses to jeopardize their perfect working relationship. Why mess that up with sex? She knows he's the love 'em and leave 'em type, and she's determined to find a family man.Wyatt would never cross the line between boss and employee with Megan, no matter how hard it might be to resist the temptation. But when they visit a mysterious B&B in a bid to acquire the property, he starts having erotic dreams about the sexy brunette that make it hard to resist her in daylight.Soon the line between reality and dreams further blurs when they learn they were sharing the same erotic dreams…
Kathy Lyons Bio (aka Jade Lee):
A USA Today Bestseller, JADE LEE has been scripting love stories since she first picked up a set ofpaper dolls. Ball gowns and rakish lords caught her attention early (thank you Georgette Heyer), and her fascination with the Regency began. And as a Taurus, she lives to pit a headstrong woman against a tortured hero just to watch them butt heads on the way to true love. Flesh wounds are rare, but the healing and laughter are real.
Now an author of more than 30 romance novels, she finally gets to set these couples in the best girl-heaven of all: a Bridal Salon! This way she gets to live out all her wedding fantasies, one by one. (Let’s be honest, what girl has only one idea for her dream wedding?)
Excerpt:
Wyatt was standing in a private graveyard on a stormy
moonlit night. His head was bowed, his cape flapped about him, and in his hand
he held a blood-red rose. The other hand crumpled a pristine sheet of linen
paper.
He lifted his
head and looked around. How could it be both stormy and moonlit? Mood lighting, he realized. And mood clothing, he
added, absently noting he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Then he went back to the flow
of his dream.
He looked at
his hands. He lifted the red rose, seeing its sculpted perfection. He was about
to toss it on one of the graves, but his attention turned to the sheet of white
linen. Lifting it up, he read it, even though a few stray raindrops blurred the
words.
PERSONAL GOALS
1. Marriage
2. Two
children
3. Vacation in
Australia
Megan's list.
He dropped his hand, feeling a sense of desolation fill him. Was he standing in
front of her grave? Was that why—
"Aren't
you cold?"
He looked up
to see her walking through a gate that he would swear hadn't been there a
moment ago. She was standing in a rainbow tie-dyed tank and light blue
cut-offs, her smile and her whole demeanor at odds with the gray, barren
landscape. She was so beautiful it made his heart lurch in his chest.
"I might
ask you the same thing."
She glanced
down at herself and grimaced. "Oh God. My tie-dyed phase."
"I like
it."
"I like
seeing you without your shirt on, too, but…" She gestured at the stormy
landscape. "Isn't this a little impractical?"
He didn't
answer. Instead, his eyes went down to the gravestones. He couldn't read the
names on the markers, and he really wanted to.
"Who are
they?" she asked as she came to his side.
He opened his
mouth to answer, but he had none. Just an overwhelming sense of loneliness.
"Come on,
Caped Crusader," she said as she touched his hand. "Let's take a
walk."
Her fingers
were like a live wire on his skin. The shock was electric, jolting his breath
from his body and freezing his limbs. He turned to look at her, feeling
desperation consume him. Why couldn't he move?
She stopped
and frowned. First she studied his face, then his whole body.
"Stuck?" she said, pointing to his feet.
He looked
down. Somehow he had sunk knee deep into the mud and he hadn't even noticed.
"When did that happen?"
"Doesn't
matter. Just step out. I'm sure there's a moonlit beach around here
somewhere."
He tried to
lift his legs, but they wouldn't budge. He frowned, crumpling her damned list
even further while his other hand dripped blood from where the rose thorns had
pierced his skin. He looked at it. It didn't hurt, but it sure looked dramatic.
"What's
that?" she asked, pointing to the paper.
He offered her
the rose instead. "For you."
"Somehow
I'm not so keen on taking a dead woman's rose. I assume it was for her."
She gestured to the nearest gravestone. A woman's name was written there, dark
and bold. Lily.
Lily? Who the
hell was Lily?
"Shouldn't
you have brought lilies to Lily? Or didn't she like them?"
"I… It
doesn't matter," he finally said. Then he tossed the rose—suddenly turned
into a lily—onto the mound.
"And what
about that?" she asked, pointing to the paper. "Last love note she
wrote you? Letter telling you she was marrying the hot young Assistant District
Attorney?"
"No. It's
a list. Of things I want."
"Really?"
she said as she reached for it. "Like a shopping list? Did you put
T-shirts on it? Regular pants? Or are you more into the spare cape and new
utility belt kind of shopping?"
He frowned as
her tone finally penetrated his distraction. "Are you making fun of
me?"
She laughed.
"It's kinda hard not to. Look at you. So far, you've taken out a runaway
train, the Blob, Halloween, a
psychotic doll, and the zombie apocalypse. But you're going to let a bit of mud
keep you from walking with me? Come on. This whole graveside bit is
self-indulgent."
He peered at
her, trying to process words he could only half hear. Like sounds spoken
underwater. "I don't understand."
She flashed
him a rueful smile. "I'm walking away. I'm going to swim." She
pointed far down the hill to a stretch of pristine sand and the steady rush of
the waves. “Looks like Australia, doesn’t it?”
He tried to
keep her with him, but he couldn't hold on. Her fingers slipped through his as
she stepped around the graves to the gate.
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