Led into Temptation. Cara Summers

      About the Author

      RITA® Award Nominee CARA SUMMERS has written more than thirty books. She has won several awards, including an Award of Excellence, three Golden Quills, and two Golden Leaf Awards. She has also been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews. She loves coming up with stories—from Gothic romance and mystery adventures to romantic comedies. When Cara isn’t creating new stories, she teaches at Syracuse University.

      Led into Temptation

      Cara Summers

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To my very newest daughter-in-law,

      Nicole Van Markwyk Hanlon, and to my son Brendan. I hope you bring each other a lifetime of joy! Welcome to the family, Nicole. I love you both!!

      Dear Reader,

      Have you ever had a secret fantasy that you’ve never shared with anyone? Not even your sister or your best friend? I’d forgotten mine until my editor suggested I write a TWICE FORBIDDEN book and she mentioned very casually that no one had ever written one about the ultimate forbidden fantasy—a priest.

      Wow! Not only did her suggestion trigger memories of The Thorn Birds and an even earlier movie, The Left Hand of God, but I remembered that long-ago summer when I was thirteen and I too had a secret crush.

      When she is dumped by her swindling fiancé and becomes a person of interest to the FBI, Naomi Brightman flees to Haworth House, the hotel she runs with her sisters. But trouble follows hot on her heels in the person of Father Dane MacFarland. While he instantly rekindles memories of the teenage crush she had on a school chaplain, the raw sexual heat she feels from the moment she sees him is very real. And increasingly irresistible.

      I hope you enjoy Naomi’s story and my upcoming stories about her sisters, Jillian and Reese, in Taken Beyond Temptation and Twice the Temptation.

      Happy reading,

       Cara Summers

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       About the Author

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Prologue

       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

       Copyright

      Prologue

      “To NEW BEGINNINGS.” Naomi Brightman raised her glass of champagne and met her sisters’ eyes over the rim. It was too late for second thoughts. As the oldest sister, the practical one, it had always been her job to have them. Third thoughts, too. But thanks to her, the papers were signed. She’d even drawn them up. With enthusiasm.

      From the moment she’d stepped through the front door of Haworth House, it had exerted an odd pull on her. For the life of her she couldn’t figure it out. With its perch on a lofty cliff overlooking the sea and the turreted gray tower that seemed to pierce the sky, it had conjured up images of fantasy and romance, and she’d decided a long time ago that fantasy and reality never mixed.

      Even now, standing in the gloomy tower room that the real estate agent had neglected to include on their initial tour, Naomi was still convinced that this was where she and her sisters were meant to be.

      “To our first business venture,” Reese said, lifting her champagne. “It’s been a long road getting here.”

      Naomi had been seventeen, Jillian sixteen and Reese fifteen when they’d first hatched their plan. They’d known full well that their days together were numbered in the Catholic boarding school in the south of France where they’d been raised. Abandoned there by their father when Reese was an infant, they’d grown up inseparable. The nuns had often referred to them as the Three Musketeers. But as they’d entered their teens, it had become increasingly clear that their future career paths were going to separate them.

      Jillian beamed a smile at her sisters. “To our new home.”

      As they all sipped their drinks, Naomi thought back to that night so long ago when they’d first toasted their dream of sharing a business venture with champagne—a bottle Jillian had snitched from the nuns’ private wine cellar.

      Now that dream was a budding reality. They were going to turn Haworth House, once the summer home of legendary silent film star Hattie Haworth, into a small, exclusive hotel that offered excellent food and fine decor.

      Naomi’s contribution had been to provide legal advice and a solid business plan. Reese, who had a growing international reputation as a chef, would handle the culinary details—design the menus and hire the kitchen staff. And Jillian, now a budding antique dealer, was going to oversee the interior design.

      “Isn’t it just perfect?” Jillian’s voice bubbled with enthusiasm. She’d been the one who’d found Haworth House on Belle Island off the coast of Maine. It had just the kind of rich history that would appeal to her. According to Jillian, Hattie Haworth’s life had been a mess when she’d retired here to the haven she’d built for herself. When the star had failed to make the transition to the talkies, her studio had dumped her, and her husband had left her for a younger woman with a more promising future.

      Reese let her gaze sweep the tower room that had once been Hattie’s private boudoir. “Perfect might be pushing it a little.”

      Naomi had to agree. The sunshine battling its way through the grime-coated tower