A Lesson in Temptation

By Audra North

Adam Harkness pulled himself out of poverty to become one of the world's most respected Finance professors, but at the cost of his personal life. When a well-meaning friend gifts him with a dance course, Adam decides to attend one class out of courtesy, but no more than that. He has work to do, after all - or at least, that's what he tells himself.

After being bullied in high school, Julie Stanton took refuge in her studies. But now that her hard work has paid off and Julie has found success in her job, it's time to focus on finding the same happiness in the rest of her life.

When Adam walks into the same tango class that Julie signed up for, she recognizes him immediately as the professor whom she had a crush on in college. Both Adam and Julie have proven themselves to be excellent scholars. But when the attraction between them turns into something more, will they be able to open their hearts and learn a new lesson - how to love.

Each book in the Stanton Family series is a standalone, full-length novella that can be enjoyed out of order.
Series Order:
Book #1 Falling for the CEO
Book #2 One Night in Santiago
Book #3 Healing Her Heart
Book #4 A Lesson in Temptation

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jul 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781633750326

Audra North

Audra North fell in love with romance at age thirteen and spent the next twenty years reading as many romance novels as she could. Even now, after having read over one thousand of them, Audra still can't resist the lure of a happily ever after, and her collection continues to grow. She lives near Boston with her husband, three young children, and a lot of books.

Book preview

Falling in love was the hardest thing he ever had to learn…

Adam Harkness pulled himself out of poverty to become one of the world’s most respected Finance professors, but at the cost of his personal life. When a well-meaning friend gifts him with a dance course, Adam decides to attend one class out of courtesy, but no more than that. He has work to do, after all - or at least, that’s what he tells himself.

After being bullied in high school, Julie Stanton took refuge in her studies. But now that her hard work has paid off and Julie has found success in her job, it’s time to focus on finding the same happiness in the rest of her life.

When Adam walks into the same tango class that Julie signed up for, she recognizes him immediately as the professor whom she had a crush on in college. Both Adam and Julie have proven themselves to be excellent scholars. But when the attraction between them turns into something more, will they be able to open their hearts and learn a new lesson - how to love.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Discover the Stanton Family series...

Falling for the CEO

One Night in Santiago

Healing Her Heart

Composing Love

Discover more Entangled Select Contemporary titles…

One Night in Buenos Aires

Opening Act

By Jove

Just a Kiss

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Audra North. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Previously released on Entangled’s Edge imprint — July 2014

Entangled Publishing, LLC

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Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Select Contemporary is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Tahra Seplowin and Wendy Chen

Cover design by Curtis Svehlak

ISBN 978-1-63375-032-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition July 2013

For A.B.

Chapter One

Did standing in the hallway, looking at the paper sign taped to the doorframe, count as attending this class?

Adam grimaced. No doubt many of his students felt the same way whenever they had to attend his Financial Markets lectures. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his navy-blue trousers and let out a long-suffering sigh, silently reminding himself that Naomi and Victor had given him this class because they cared about him. Not because they wanted to torture him.

But for God’s sake, did they have to choose Tango for Beginners?

Victor and I took this course last year and it was amazing. Naomi had been practically gushing last week when she handed him the gift certificate for the class. We didn’t just learn how to dance. We gained a whole new perspective on life!

Adam had been at a loss. What does one say to a colleague and friend who means well, but somehow manages to find the most ill-fitting present possible?

Wow, thanks, was what he’d gone with, fully intending to toss the paper into the wastebasket without a second thought. But Adam started feeling guilty. Naomi was one of his few friends in New York, and her husband had become one by association. He knew they were worried about how stressed he was about getting his next publication out the door. They were trying to help distract him, and he owed it to them to go to at least one lesson.

Of course, he might have felt somewhat more charitable if Naomi hadn’t added, You could stand to loosen up a little, maybe even meet a woman…

He snorted. As though he could be anything less than laser focused right now. Being hired on at Columbia, one of the top universities in the world, was certainly an honor, but it didn’t mean that he could afford to rest on his laurels. He definitely couldn’t afford to waste any time on dating.

A young man walked past Adam, striding confidently into the classroom. Good-looking kid, maybe a handful of years younger than Adam. Years that shouldn’t feel like lifetimes, but the weight of work and worries about money made him feel old. He would be thirty-one in a matter of weeks, and he couldn’t figure out where the time had gone.

To work, he supposed. He’d only finished his PhD last year and had jumped straight from classroom to classroom, with only a slight difference in pay grade and a much bigger difference in workload.

Publish or perish. He needed to work every waking moment—and sometimes even in his dreams—to succeed. And now he was about to walk into a room full of people who were probably all there because they knew how to have fun, and they would know that he didn’t belong.

He checked his watch. Two minutes to seven o’clock. Definitely time to go inside. He knew how annoying it was when students were late for his classes. But when he stepped over the threshold, into the wood-floored studio with floor-to-ceiling mirrors along one adjacent wall, he froze at the sight of a beautiful woman, smiling at the confident young man whom Adam had just seen walking in.

It was her.

More than three years ago, Julie Stanton had been all of twenty-one years old when she had sat in the class he TA’d, and she’d been the only student who had ever tempted him to do anything more than grade papers and answer questions about finance. She’d tempted him to do a hell of a lot more than that, in fact. But even though he’d been a grad student and not a professor, he’d still considered her his student, not to mention nearly seven years his junior. There was no way he’d ever go there.

Except he almost had.

She’d shown up in his office one day, looking for help on an assignment. There had been only fifteen minutes left in the tutorial period, but he’d spent half an hour with her, going over the work. By the time they were finished, they had been sitting so close together that her hair kept brushing his elbow, and he hadn’t been able to keep from reaching out and winding the ends of those long, silky strands around his finger.

She’d leaned forward as though expecting him to kiss her—of course she had, since he’d tugged her closer by her hair, for chrissake! He’d nearly closed the distance between their lips—could feel her breath on his skin—when she’d sighed.

She’d sighed like a young girl with a first crush. Like someone with expectations and hopes for something more than just making out in a cramped campus office. It had jarred him so hard into reality that he’d jumped away from her as though he’d been burned. She’d snapped up her things and run out the door.

They’d barely spoken after that, and two weeks later the course had ended. He’d told himself it had been the right thing to do. She’d been his student, no matter that they were both still in school. And she’d been young in years and mind-set. Thank God she hadn’t reported him for that advance, for taking advantage of her. His entire career would have been over before it began.

After that, he’d promised himself that he would never lose sight of what was most important again.

But she’s not a student anymore, a little voice nudged at him. And she’s older now.

Of course, he was older, too.

She’d grown even more beautiful in the past few years, though he wouldn’t have believed such a thing was possible. Dark brown hair fell to just past her shoulders, shining in the reflection of lights in the wall mirror. Eyes the color of new pennies were set wide in a perfectly oval face, with a sweet little nose and full, lush lips that bordered on obscene.

He shook himself. He shouldn’t be noticing things like that. Just because she