The Winter Billionaires Series

How had her life gotten so complicated? As if grad school wasn't hard enough, Celeste had caught her boyfriend cheating on her and kicked him out of their apartment. Now she's on the hook for all the bills, and she needs a job that will pay her more than a teaching assistant's meager salary. In desperation she finds herself at a party on the yacht of Andrew Winter, a playboy oil billionaire, hoping to land a job as his personal assistant. But the gorgeous stranger she ends up talking to isn't Andrew Winter. In the dim light she couldn't make out the color of his eyes, but it really didn't matter. They were riveted on her, and that was all she cared about at the moment. What she can see is that he's smoking hot, oozing testosterone, and interested in her. After the hit her ego has taken with her ex, the attention is nice. It isn't going to get him anywhere, but that doesn't mean she can't have fun with it. Who wouldn't take advantage of a little moonlight on a yacht with good company? But no one had bothered to tell Stephen he couldn't have a taste, and now his soft lips are setting her on fire. Why couldn't she enjoy it for just a little while? It wouldn't hurt anything, would it?

Celeste's new job as the personal assistant to the CEO of Winters Group is a dream come true. Trying to keep things purely professional with her boss is a different story, though. Their night together on the yacht is still hanging over them, and the chemistry that crackles between them is beginning to wear away Celeste's good sense. She knows that rich playboys like Stephen are nothing but trouble, but it's getting harder every day to keep her distance. She wasn't about to put herself through that kind of heartbreak—even though her entire body was pleading with her that it would be worth every sweet, steamy second of it. When Stephen told his new assistant that he'd let their night on his yacht go, he'd been lying. After she pulled her Cinderella routine, he'd left no stone unturned to find her and get her back. Now that she's back within his grasp, he has no intention of letting her go again. He wanted her, and he intended to have her—very naked, very soon. And then he'd work on keeping her.

Someone wanted to send a message—but was it intended for Celeste or for Stephen? There are plenty of suspects, but no real clues as to who set Celeste's car on fire. Stephen wants her safe at his house, and despite her reservations that's where she finds herself. Will his family stand by while she moves into his place? Even as she tries to settle in, the past insists on coming back to haunt them both. Alan won't stay away, and with him he carries the shadows of her old life which she had thought safely buried. At the same time, Stephen's secrets are beginning to leak out as well, even though he seems determined to hold onto them. Tricia was here in Houston. Stephen had seen her again without telling me. Stephen is going to find out who was responsible for torching Celeste's car and make sure they never threaten her again. First, though, he has to make sure she's safe, and to do that he's going to keep her at his place where he never has to let her out of his sight. Then he somehow has to convince his family that Celeste isn't after his bank accounts, while at the same time dealing with his former fiancée's blackmail attempts. As if things aren't complicated enough, he still hasn't told Celeste about Patricia. He had to be careful—that  whole situation is a ticking time bomb just waiting to blow up in his face. Both Celeste's future and my own rested on me not making any more stupid mistakes.

She had told him that she loved him, and now she didn't know what to do. Celeste just wants to go on pretending as long as she can that the words had just been something that popped out of her mouth in her panic, and that she didn't really mean them. While she might possibly be able to look Stephen in the eye and convince him of that, she knows that if he asks her, in her heart she'll have to admit to herself that she did mean every single syllable. She'd fallen in love with Stephen. The Winter family isn't exactly ready to welcome her with open arms, though. They don't fool around when they think someone is going to hurt the family. If Andrew and Sherri really think she's just after their brother's money, they'll stop at nothing to get her away from him. And the Winters aren't the only ones threatening to tear them apart. Both have pasts returning to haunt them, and secrets that they'd rather keep. But it was far too late for second thoughts. After him, how could she ever bear to go back to the merely ordinary?

It seemed as though everything was beginning to unravel.   Andrew was trying to destroy her. Alan was threatening to reveal the secrets of her past if she didn't pay him off. Someone was terrorizing her with phone calls and emails and worse. Stephen and Derek were away, and she was all alone. And Stephen was never going to believe the truth. Everyone around them already assumed the worst. Celeste knows him—he'd pretend to blow it off and swear that he believed her, but inside it would start eating away at him and he'd never be certain that she was on the level.   Could I stand to leave him before he told me to go?

What had Alan told Andrew? Her ex's revelations to Andrew Winter meant that her entire past was now an open book to the man who wanted to destroy her. With a little digging he'd have more than enough dirt to ruin her forever in Stephen's eyes. Somehow she has to defuse the situation with Stephen before Andrew can lay out the sordid details of her earlier life. But the whole world seems to be conspiring to steal every chance she has to talk to the love of her life alone, and then her worst fears are realized. Andrew has left town on personal business and flown to Midland. Alan had said that he'd told Andrew everything. Everything meant Midland. Everything meant her mother.

It's over. Celeste had come home from Midland to find herself fired from Winters Group and Stephen vanished. No one could tell her where he was, or why he left. But when she called him, he made it perfectly clear that he was done with her. Over. How could it be over? They'd barely gotten started.