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Hideaway (Hideaway (Kimani), 1) - Softcover

Buch 1 von 15: Hideaway Legacy

Alers, Rochelle

 
9780373831678: Hideaway (Hideaway (Kimani), 1)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0373831676 ISBN 13: 9780373831678
Verlag: Harlequin Kimani Arabesque, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Parris Simmons has spent the last ten years in hiding, fearful of her ex-husband's deadly threats and avoiding her ex-lover, Martin Cole. Forced to flee West Palm Beach because of another man's evil designs, Parris never forgot her passion-filled nights with Martin…or the precious gift he left her.

Now it's all over, and Martin has found Parris again. When he offers her the protection of his name, Parris agrees to marry him—and prays that the past can finally be laid to rest. Yet even as desire reignites old passions in Martin's sensual embrace, a dangerous, decade-old secret threatens to destroy all that Parris and Martin cherish most—and puts their newfound love to the most perilous test of all….

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Hailed by readers and booksellers alike as one of today's most popular African-American authors of women's fiction, Ms. Alers is a regular on bestsellers list, and has been a recipient of numerous awards, including the Vivian Stephens Award for Excellence in Romance Writing and a Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award.  Visit her Web site www.rochellealers.com  

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.



Martin Diaz Cole was thoroughly bored; bored with the people gathered in a private room at a Palm Beach restaurant, bored with the woman standing by his side and bored with her incessant nonsensical chatter.

"Will you please be a darling and get me another glass of white wine, Martin," the petite brunette crooned, her tiny hand thrusting an empty wineglass at him.

Ignoring her request and the outstretched glass, Martin's attention was momentarily diverted. His dark eyes were fixed on a woman who appeared to float into the room.

His gaze took in everything about her in one quick penetrating glance. This woman, this stranger, and a stranger she was because he knew every one of the guests Jon Grant and Brittany Alexander had invited to their engagement party.

She was tall, at least five-eight, and incredibly slender. The off-the-shoulder white dress ended several inches below her long shapely legs, clinging to and outlining the curve of her full breasts, narrow waist and slim hips.

Staring at her, Martin experienced an emotion he hadn't felt in years: lust. No, he thought, it was more like a craving. He saw something he wanted, and there weren't too many things he wanted that he did not get.

"Martin," the brunette wailed, her lovely features distorted in distress as she noted the direction of his attention.

"Excuse me, Sonia," he apologized softly, making his way across the room, leaving a pouting Sonia to find another fawning male to do her bidding. He watched as Brittany hugged the woman before pulling back and showing her the diamond ring on her finger.

His own hands were thrust into the pockets of his black linen slacks as he waited patiently for Brittany to notice him. Brittany glanced his way and he smiled at her.

Brittany tossed back a head of naturally waving ash-blond hair, gesturing. "Martin, please come meet a friend of mine. Parris and I were roommates at college. Parris Simmons, Martin Cole. Martin's Jon's best man," she said to Parris, not pausing to take a breath.

Stepping closer to Parris, Martin stared down at her upturned face. Her golden-brown skin was deeply tanned from the Florida summer sun and radiated a natural glow of good health which did not come from makeup. Her chemically-straightened dark shiny hair was styled in a flattering shag-cut feathering around her face and neck. Naturally arching eyebrows and thick long black lashes framed a pair of eyes that were a clear brown with just a hint of dark green in their mysterious depths. Her nose was short and rounded at the tip and her mouth was full, temptingly curved, and Martin found Parris to be the most beautiful woman he'd ever met.

Extending a slender hand, Parris gave him a tight smile. "It's nice meeting you, Martin."

It took several seconds before he reacted to her polite greeting. The low husky timbre of her voice was not what he had expected from her. The dulcet throaty tones were like a fog, cloaking and enveloping in a sensual web of raw seduction.

He grasped her hand, holding it firmly before releasing her fingers. "The pleasure is all mine," he replied, finding his own voice.

"You'll get a chance to talk to Parris later, Martin," Brittany promised. "I want to introduce her to Jon."

Martin nodded, staring at Parris as she walked away with Brittany. He spent the next twenty minutes chatting with some of the other guests until he garnered Brittany's attention again.

"I want you to seat me next to Parris," he said quietly.

Brittany's pale gray eyes widened with his request. "No, Martin."

"Why not?" he countered.

"She's not like that."

"Not like what, Brittany?"

She exhaled audibly. How could she explain to her fiancé's best friend that Parris Simmons was not like the women Martin Cole usually dated.

"She's different," she explained, a need to protect her friend surfacing. "She's not like the women you men pass around whenever you tire of her."

Martin's face darkened under his deeply browned olive complexion. Running a hand through the thick curling black hair falling to his shoulders, he glanced down at the highly polished toes of his imported slip-ons and smiled.

"I don't want to sleep with her Brittany," he replied softly. "I just want you to make certain we're seated together when we sit down to eat."

Brittany stared at the man whose devastatingly dimpled smile was hypnotic. She was always astounded by Martin's masculine beauty. His African-American-Cuban ancestry had afford him exquisite dark-brown coloring, large dark eyes, sweeping black eyebrows, high cheekbones, a thin delicate nose and a full sensual mouth which made him almost too beautiful for a man. He had it all—looks and money.

"You're not lying to me, are you?" she asked him.

Twin dimples creased the lean tanned cheeks of the man with the curly black hair and winning smile. "No."

She didn't understand him. Martin usually had women fighting one another for his attention. At twenty-nine he was one of the most sought-after bachelors along Florida's Gold Coast. Women usually chased Martin Diaz Cole, not the other way around.

"Okay," she conceded. "But if you try…"

"You worry too much," Martin interrupted. "I'll take good care of her."

He spent the remainder of the cocktail hour totally entranced by Parris Simmons. He watched her as she smiled and flirted with many of the single men who appeared as equally entranced as he. He ignored all that was going on around him, studying the woman who had cast a spell over him without her being aware of it.

Everyone filed into an adjoining room at the restaurant as waiters announced that seating was prearranged and directed each guest to their assigned table.

Parris searched her table, locating her name on a place card and a large dark-brown hand pulled out a chair for her. She glanced up to find Martin Cole standing beside her.

"Miss Simmons," he said, his mellifluent voice soft and caressing, as he offered to seat her.

"Thank you," she replied shyly, permitting him to seat her. He sat down next to her and she sucked in a lungful of air. Being in Martin's presence was like his walking into a room and using up all of the oxygen from the other occupants. He left her gasping and feeling lightheaded.

She had read about Martin and occasionally heard his name mentioned by several of the interior designers she worked with, but he had been just that—a name. This tall man looming over her by more than half a foot was intoxicating.

She remembered an article branding him as "the brash, young Rupert Murdoch of the Caribbean." He had acquired large tracts of land throughout the Caribbean the way Rupert Murdoch acquired newspapers and television networks.

Martin's business acumen had netted his family holdings untold wealth and power while the Cole name had become synonymous with the importation of tropical produce, private villas and vacation resorts throughout Central America and the Caribbean.

Business Week, Money and Forbes magazines had all reported the meteoric rise of the Cole influence in the world of Latin American finance. The articles noted that Martin had inherited his business expertise from his Cuban-born maternal grandfather who once owned the largest cigar-producing plantation in pre-rev-olutionary Cuba, and his own father. Samuel Claridge Cole was the great-great-great-grandson of African-American slaves, who after the Civil War went into business cultivating the crop that their disenfranchised ancestors grew and picked: cotton. The cotton...

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Verlag
Harlequin Kimani Arabesque
Erscheinungsdatum
2009
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0373831676
ISBN 13 
9780373831678
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
320
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