LITMIR.BIZ

      Prologue

       ‘CALL me when you grow up!’

      As Emily ducked beneath the ghostly, blossom-shrouded trees and emerged onto the twilit lawn his voice followed her: mocking, amused and, with its faintly exotic accent, horribly sexy.

      She quickened her pace, thinking only of putting as much distance as possible between herself and the man in the shadows. Head bent, oblivious to the curious stares of the guests scattered across the velvet lawns of Balfour Manor, she hurried towards the house, pressing her teeth down into a lip that still tingled and throbbed from where he had kissed her.

      The 99^th Balfour Charity Ball was in full swing and the sound of laughter, conversation and clinking glasses drifted above the music coming from the marquee. Ahead of her the majestic house shimmered with light from every window, its honey-coloured stone glowing in the dusk like old gold. Behind her the darkness of the garden pressed at her back, spreading goose bumps over her skin. Her heart was beating so hard she could feel it all through her body, a rapid, throbbing pulse that intensified as she ran lightly up the shallow stone steps to the house.

      He had ruined everything.

      She’d looked forward to this party for so long—all those years at boarding school, when she’d been reduced to picking over the edited details of the annual Balfour Ball in celebrity magazines and piecing together snatches of gossip from her older sisters. This year, with ballet school all but finished, her time had finally come.

      She blinked as she stepped into the brightness of the hallway. Heading straight for the stairs she gathered up the long skirt of her dress, trying not to think of the excitement with which she’d put it on only a couple of hours earlier. She had felt so grown up and sophisticated…

      Until the moment those knowing, gold-flecked eyes had wandered lazily over her, and then she had felt something different altogether.

      Reaching her bedroom she slammed the door and leaned against it for a moment, breathing hard. The room was filled with violet shadows which blurred the edges of everything, making the familiar objects seem suddenly strange and unrecognizable. She didn’t turn on the light though. Instead she found herself drawn towards the window.

      Spread out before her the garden glittered with tiny lights. It was like a picture from a child’s storybook—an enchanted kingdom, the butterfly ball. And that’s what she’d wanted, she thought with a sob, leaning her burning forehead against the pane. She’d wanted it to be like a fairy tale, with the handsome prince just waiting to fall in love with her.

      Her eyes were drawn beyond the delicate strings of fairy lights and the glittering crystal chandeliers that stood on the tables across the lawn; deeper, into the darkness itself, where inky shadows moved beneath the trees.

      That’s where he was.

      Emily pressed her hands to the glass, suddenly pierced by a shaft of longing so pure and painful that she couldn’t breathe. His cool, clean taste was still on her lips and she ran her tongue over them, remembering the moment when he had stepped out in front of her beneath the trees and pulled her to him—languidly, unhurriedly, as if it had been the most natural thing in the world…

      And kissed her.

      She had been too shocked to resist. It was as if some powerful tidal wave had been unleashed inside her and she was helpless to do anything as it sucked her down, into warm, secret whirlpools of unfathomable sensation, obliterating logic. His mouth moved over hers, slowly and expertly, and his fingers caressed the back of her neck, the hollow beneath her jaw, sending ripples of intense, shuddering pleasure down her spine, until she felt taut and fragile enough to shatter.

      And then he lifted his head and in that moment she caught the gleam of his wicked gold eyes in the darkness. The spell was broken and she surfaced again, gasping and fighting for breath, speechless and horrified at her own unrecognisable behaviour. Terrified of the ease with which he

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