The Executive's Valentine Seduction

by Merline Lovelace

• ISBN13: 9780373769179
• ISBN10: 0373769172
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-01-13
• Publisher: Silhouette

Summary

Amorwas on the menu...And Rory Burke was intent on having Caroline Walters as the main course.This meeting he'd arranged in beautiful Tossa de Mar was no mere business transaction. Having learned the truth about his long-ago lover, Rory had gone to great lengths to orchestrate this Valentine reunion in sunny Spain. His plan? To lure Caro back into his bed--as his bride. With his powers of persuasion, the high-powered executive was certain he would get his way--until the power ofpasionturned the tables on him....

Excerpts

Caroline Walters had no premonition her world was about to implode that balmy February afternoon.She stood in the lobby of a new, upscale resort in Tossa de Mar, a seaside vacation spot on Spain's Costa Brava, just an hour north of Barcelona. While Caro breathed in the fragrance of the bloodred gladiolas on the table beside her, she waited for the silver BMW gliding along the palm-lined drive to pull up at the resort's entrance.The big moment was finally here. Her first meeting with the client who'd had her and her two partners jumping through hoops for the past month!She used the final few seconds before he arrived to check the mirror framing the gladiolas. Her honey-brown hair was smooth, with not a single tendril escaping from the heavy twist. Her green eyes gazed back at her with just the right degree of confidence. Her slim, black wool crepe skirt and matching jacket didn't show a single wrinkle.Satisfied she looked the part of a coolly competent travel consultant and event coordinator, she flipped through the embossed leather folder she'd prepared for Rory Burke, founder and chief executive of the LA-based firm Global Security, Inc. She wanted to make sure she'd included everything Burke had requested.Final conference agenda, check.Resort layout, check.Diagrams showing room setup for general sessions, check.Additional diagrams for breakout rooms, check.Arrival times and room numbers of all attendees, check.Burke's hotel preregistration and room key, check.Reassured everything was in place, Caroline closed the folder. She was primed and ready.She should be! She and her partners had worked their buns off since this short-notice job dropped in their laps a few days before Christmas. They'd had just a little over a month to scout locations and pull together a conference plan for the hundred-plus security agents flying in from all parts of the world.January had passed in a blur of frantic prep work. The flurry of e-mails and phone calls with Burke's people had multiplied exponentially the first week in February. Two days ago Caro had flown to Spain to nail down the final details. In several marathon sessions with the resort's conference coordinator, she'd reconfirmed menus, special dietary considerations, room setups and audiovisual aids.She'd also tackled the rather daunting challenge of arranging a demo facility for an assortment of lethal weapons. In a last-minute change to the conference agenda, Global Security's head honcho had added a hands-on session to test new offensive and defensive weaponry for the protection of their clients.As its name implied, GSI specialized in providing threat analysis and personal protection for clients ranging from kings and rock stars to newspaper editors who landed on religious fanatics' hate lists. The company profile indicated its agents were drawn from the ranks of military and law enforcement in twelve different countries.The company's CEO was equally fascinating. His bio read like a James Bond novel. U.S. Army Ranger. Special Ops duty in war-torn Bosnia. A short stint with an unspecified government agency. Advisor to the Columbian Presidential Protection Unit. Founder and chief operating officer of GSI. Now fielding highly specialized agents in Iraq, Darfur, Indonesia, Latin America--just about every hot spot on the globe.Somewhere along the way he'd also managed to complete a bachelor's degree in law enforcement and a master's degree in international affairs. Curiously, neither his bio nor his company Web site had included a photo of Burke or any of his operatives. Caro suspected that might have something to do with GSI's pledge to provide "complete, confidential and anonymous protection."As a former librarian, Caroline had read more than her share of action/adventure novels. She could admire real-life James Bond types like Rory Burke. Unfortunately, her one brief walk on the wild side had produced such disastrous conseque