My Spy

by Marie Ferrarella

• ISBN13: 9780373275427
• ISBN10: 0373275420
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-07-01
• Publisher: Harlequin

Summary

Daring, bold, secretiveJoshua Lazlo loved living life on the edge. Rescuing the prime minister's daughter from kidnappers was just the challenge he thrived on. But nothing prepared him for the woman who yelled out fiery threats and almost made him forget his real mission. Prudence Hill knew she was going to die at the hands of her captorsuntil a powerful stranger swept her from harm's way. Was Joshua her friend or foe? She dared not trust this man even if her survival depended on him. But once passion flared, Pru could no longer resist Joshua's sensual embraceand a love that could doom them both.

Excerpts

The silence in his bedroom was eerie, enveloping him like a black embrace. He sat there for a moment, listening to the sound of his own heartbeat. The sound of his own breathing. It wasn't often that he woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Sweat was for people who had things to lose. Home, family, possessions they treasured, a reputation they couldn't rebuild. But Corbett Lazlo had long since left all of that behind. There were no ties. In general, he spent most of his time in the offices of the organization he had created fourteen years ago and presided over like a benevolent god. For the most part, although there were flesh-and-blood people who shared his last name, his organization was his family, his child. But even that, although he took pride in it, was expendable. Long ago he'd learned that nothing was permanent, that no one thing could actually be thought of as his lifeline to the world. He did not allow himself to indulge in the emotions that both plagued and regaled other men. Emotions, he firmly believed, more often than not could spell a man's downfall. The way his had almost destroyed him. It was a dream of Cassandra that had him bolting upright in his solitary bed, perspiring when the temperature in his current Paris apartment was kept a constant sixty-seven degrees. Not really a dream, more like a fragment of a memory, delivered to him across the rough sea of time. Cassandra, beckoning to him, devouring him. Honey-haired, green-eyed Cassandra, as young, as beautiful, as seductive as the first moment he laid eyes on her. And just as evil. There'd been a glint in her eyes, a murderous glint just as her embrace tightened, a fraction of a second before her mouth came down on his, that warned him of what was to come. Of death if he didn't flee. Corbett sat up in his bed for a moment, his black silk sheets cool against his hot skin. He dragged a hand through his silver hair, slowly drawing air back into his lungs. The memory...a warning? A premonition? He had not remained alive in this precarious, constant high-stakes, cat-and-mouse existence by ignoring his gut instinct. Just because he'd been asleep was no reason to doubt that something was reaching out to him, trying to warn him. But about what? Cassandra DuMont was long in his past. The daughter of a cold-blooded, heartless man, Maximilian DuMont, who had been the head of an organization that went to the highest bidder, no task too loathsome, no moral line left uncrossed. The agents at MI-6 had referred to it as Snake, but that was an inside joke. The organization had no name. It was evil, undefined. There'd been a brother, too. Apollo. Groomed to take over his father's place when the time came. Dead byhishand, Corbett thought. Cassandra hadn't known that when she'd made love with him. If she had, she would have tried to slit his throat. And he would have been forced to slit hers. Instead of sparing her the way he had. He'd been soft then. And naive. Believing in justice, truth and all the hype he'd been sold when he was first inducted into Britain's Secret Intelligence ServiceS.I.S., formerly MI-6. He and his comrades were protectors of the realm. He'd believed that they would stand by him and he by them. Until the allegations came. And then, suddenly, he was alone. Watching his entire world, his carefully crafted career, crash and burn. They'd called him a double agent and said they had the evidence to prove it. The stillness continued. Corbett took a long breath, as if the air in his lungs would place that period of time even further from him than the actual years did. Before he could mount a defense, he was swiftly brought up on charges of treason and convicted on the basis of fabricated evidence. His father, a former Hungarian refugee who'd risen to some prominence in Parliament, turned from him, call