Christmas with a SEAL. Tawny Weber

Frankie grimaced. “But that’s not wild. It just proves that I had questionable taste in hairstyles.”

      “Okay,” Lara murmured. “So it wasn’t you who constructed a metal elephant in the principal’s office your senior year, led a protest against school lunches in sixth grade and had a childhood reputation for streaking.”

      Frankie pressed her lips together to hold back her giggle.

      “Well, that streaking does show a wild side,” she acknowledged. “Of course, I was three at the time.”

      She looked around the room, wondering if she could still pull it off. Granted, she wasn’t three anymore, but she still had dimples on her butt. That had to be worth something.

      “You work way too hard,” Lara said, rubbing her hand over Frankie’s shoulder. “Give yourself a break. Give yourself this weekend.”

      Frankie shook her head, forcing her smile to stay bright despite the tension spiking through her system. She’d spent the past six months feeling as if she were drowning and one day short of six months pretending she wasn’t. So any acknowledgment of working too hard would ruin all of her well-developed pretending.

      But the invitation to take the weekend?

      That she’d be happy to take.

      “Lara!”

      Both women turned toward the makeshift stage at one end of the penthouse to see a gorgeous guy gesturing.

      “Looks like Dominic wants to dance,” Frankie said.

      “You wanna come dance with us?” Lara offered, her eyes not leaving her man.

      “You go,” Frankie said. “Have fun.”

      “Stick around for cake,” Lara said, not needing to be told twice. In a blink, the other woman was halfway across the room, making Frankie laugh.

      Finishing her champagne, Frankie watched the happy couple get down and bust some impressive moves. She wanted that.

      Not just someone to dance with, although a guy who could match her moves would be sweet.

      What did it feel like to be in that kind of relationship? One where two people could block out a huge room full of partying people simply by looking into each other’s eyes?

      Frankie watched Dominic pull Lara into his arms, their bodies keeping perfect rhythm even as he lifted her hand to his lips to brush a kiss over her knuckles.

      Sigh.

      It was pure romance.

      And not why she was here, Frankie reminded herself.

      She wasn’t looking for romance or forever after, like Lara had been.

      She was looking for a very specific guy. The one she’d had a giant crush on as a preteen, the one who’d inspired all of her teenage fantasies and quite a few of her sexier adult ones.

      The one who—she was positive—would turn everything around, if she could get him. Unlock her creativity and, with it, her confidence. Because lying to herself was only going to keep working for so long.

      Accepting a second glass of liquid courage that tasted like champagne, she decided it was time to get to work on making this the best weekend of her life.

      Not an easy task. She gave a soundless whistle, looking around. There were at least two hundred people here. Figuring it was a gift that all the guys were hot and sexy and made searching fun, she moved through the bodies to cross the room.

      Whoa. Frankie narrowed her eyes, her heart picking up an extra beat and excitement dancing in her stomach.

      Was that him?

      She shifted to the right, trying to see around the crush of dancing bodies to the booths at the far end of the penthouse.

      Oh...

      Sitting alone in a booth and looking as though he wanted to be anywhere else but in that room, her dream guy was nursing a drink. His mahogany hair was shorn with military precision. A navy blue sweater covered his broad shoulders, emphasizing his perfect posture and, from what she could see, a gorgeous chest.

      Phillip Banks.

      He was even better looking now.

      She didn’t think they’d exchanged more than ten words her entire life. But she’d watched him. As a kid, because he looked like the heroes she read about in school. As a teen, because he looked like one of the actors on her favorite TV show. And as an adult, because he looked like a hottie who’d burn up the sheets. Most of her watching had been from afar whenever he visited his parents’ house in Maryland.

      But now, here he was. Up close and about to get personal.

      And, oh, my, was he hot.

      Nerves danced in her stomach. It was one thing to dream about seducing her fantasy guy. She’d spent untold hours playing out the scenarios. She credited her artistic mind for the diverse variety of those scenarios, everything from Phillip staring at her blankly or laughing in her face to him looking at her with a combination of intrigue and desire in his eyes to—every once in a while, if she’d had an extra glass of wine—his confessing that he’d been lusting after her for years.

      She knew that scenario was far-fetched given that the last time he’d seen her she had been fifteen and going through the bohemian stage of her search for her personal art style. She’d spent months wearing burlap, shunning shampoo and was usually covered in burns from the soldering iron she used to make her avant-garde metal sculptures.

      But hey, maybe she’d get lucky.

      In one form or another.

      Frankie bounced across the floor in her beribboned Lucite heels, wondering if this was how Cinderella had felt when she’d spotted the prince at the ball.

      Half delighted, half terrified.

      And totally turned on.

      * * *

      STRIPPERS, BODY SHOTS, flashing lights and wild dancing.

      Las Vegas at its finest.

      Otherwise known as one of Lieutenant Phillip Banks’s many versions of hell. Right up there with email spam, traffic jams and drug kingpins with a taste for exotic torture.

      A man who believed in discipline, he made a point to do everything in his power to avoid the first two and take down the latter.

      Especially the latter.

      Phillip stared at his drink, slowly twisting the glass this way, then that, while memories of his time as Valdero’s unwilling guest flashed through his mind.

      After he’d been captured on a mission gone wrong, it had taken his team three days to effect a rescue. In those three days, Phillip had experienced new levels of pain, discovered rage and reevaluated his beliefs about revenge.

      For most of his life, his goal had been to be the best. To excel in all things—school, the military and the SEALs.

      Now?

      Now all he wanted was revenge on that sadistic son of a bitch, Valdero. And he planned to get it. He had the operation mapped out, he had a good idea who had sold out the team and he was ready to lead the mission to take Valdero down.

      Phillip gulped his scotch with a grimace.

      Hell, he’d even gone above and beyond the mandatory psych evaluation to ensure—and prove to those in command—that he was mentally capable of handling it.

      He was ready.

      Unfortunately, he was also in Las Vegas.

      Frowning, Phillip looked around. He’d rather be in Coronado, studying strategy and perfecting his plan.

      Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t think twice about doing an about-face and making for the nearest exit.

      But this