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All or Nothing, by Catherine Mann
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"I can't sleep with a man who keeps secrets."
Despite the warnings that he would break her heart, Jayne Hughes fell for the bad boy. And Conrad Hughes, casino magnate, did just that with his absences and lies. Now she's ready to move on, but her husband has other plans….
Conrad's undercover work for Interpol destroyed his marriage. When Jayne comes to Monte Carlo seeking a divorce, he launches an all-out assault. Seducing his wife back into his bed is child's play; earning her trust is another matter. Yet Conrad knows the odds favor the house. And he has no intentions of losing.
- Sales Rank: #2154604 in Books
- Brand: Harlequin
- Published on: 2013-01-02
- Released on: 2013-01-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.62" h x .53" w x 4.21" l, .20 pounds
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 192 pages
- Great product!
About the Author
USA Today bestseller Catherine Mann has books in print in more than 20 countries with Desire, Romantic Suspense, HQN and other Harlequin lines. A five-time RITA finalist, she has won both the RITA and the Bookseller's Best Awards. Catherine resides in Florida with her aviator husband, their four children and a menagerie of pets. For more information, visit: http://catherinemann.com
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Monte Carlo, Casino de la Mediterranee
It wasn't every day that a woman bet her five-carat, yellow-diamond engagement ring at a roulette table. But it was the only way Jayne Hughes could think of to get her pigheaded husband to take the rock back.
She'd left Conrad messages, telling him to contact her attorney. Conrad ignored them. Her lawyer had called his, to no avail. Divorce papers had been couriered, hand delivered to Conrad's personal secretary, who'd been told not to sign for them under any circumstances.
As Jayne angled through the crush of gamblers toward the roulette table, her fist closed around the engagement ring Conrad had given her seven years ago. Since he owned the Casino de la Mediterranee, if she lost the long-shot bet, the ring would be back in his possession. All or nothing, she had to lose to win. She just wanted a clean break and no more heartache.
Jayne plunked down the ring on the velvet square for 12 red. The anniversary of their breakup fell on January 12, next week. They'd spent three years of their seven years married apart. By now Conrad should have been able to accept that so they could move on with their lives.
Familiar sounds echoed up the domed ceiling, chimes and laughter, squeals of excitement mixed with the "ahhhh" of defeat. She'd called these walls full of frescoes home for the four years they'd lived together as man and wife. Even though she moved with ease here now, she'd grown up in a more down-to-earth home in Miami. Her father's dental practice had kept them very comfortable. Of course, they would have been a lot more comfortable had her father not been hiding away a second family.
Regardless, her parents' finances were nowhere close to touching the affluence of this social realm.
Her ring had been a Van Cleef & Arpels, one-of-a-kind design that had dazzled her back when she believed in fairy tales.
Cinderella had left the building. Jayne's glass slipper had been shattered right along with her heart. Prince Charming didn't exist. She made her own destiny and would take charge of her own life.
Nodding to the croupier in charge of spinning the wheel, she nudged her ring forward, centering it on the number 12 red. The casino employee tugged his tie and frowned, looking just past her shoulders and giving her only a second's warning before…
Conrad.
She could feel his presence behind her without looking. And how damn unfair was that? Even after three years apart, never once laying eyes on him the entire time, her body still knew him. Wanted him. Her skin tingled under the silky beige gown and her mind filled with memories of spending an entire weekend making love with the Mediterranean breeze blowing in through the balcony doors.
Conrad's breath caressed her ear an instant ahead of his voice. "Gaming plaques can be obtained to your left. Mon amour!''
My love.
Hardly. More like his possession. "And divorce papers can be picked up from my lawyer."
She was a hospice nurse. Not a freaking princess.
"Now why would I want to split up when you look hot enough to melt a man's soul?" A subtle shift of his feet brought him closer until his fire seared her back as tangibly as the desire—and anger—pumping through her veins.
She pivoted to face him, bracing for the impact of his good looks.
Simply seeing him sent her stomach into a predictable tumble. She resented the way her body reacted to him. Why, why, why couldn't her mind and her hormones synch up?
His jet-black hair gleamed under the massive crystal chandeliers and she remembered the thick texture well, surprisingly soft and totally luxurious. She'd spent many nights watching him sleep and stroking her fingers along his hair. With his eyes closed, the power of his espresso-brown gaze couldn't persuade her to go against her better judgment. He didn't sleep much, an insomniac, as if he couldn't surrender control to the world even for sleep. So she'd cherished those rare, unguarded moments to look at him.
Women stared and whispered whenever Conrad Hughes walked past. Even now they didn't try to hide open stares of appreciation. He was beyond handsome in his tuxedo—or just wearing jeans and a T-shirt—in a bold and brooding way. While one hundred percent an American from New York, he had the exotic look of some Italian or Russian aristocrat from another century.
He was also chockfull of arrogance.
Conrad scooped the five-carat diamond off the velvet, and she only had a second to celebrate her victory before he placed it in her palm, closing her fingers back over the ring. The cool stone warmed with his hand curling hers into a fist.
"Conrad." she snapped, tugging.
"Jayne," he rumbled right back, still clasping until the ring cut into her skin. Shifting, he tucked alongside her. "This is hardly the place for our reunion."
He started walking and since he still held her hand, she had no choice but to go along, past the murmuring patrons and thick carved pillars. Familiar faces broke up the mass of vacationers, but she couldn't pause to make idle chitchat, pretending to be happy around old friends and employees.
Her husband's casino provided a gathering place for the elite, even royalty. At last count, he owned a half dozen around the world, but the Casino de la Mediterranee had always been his favorite, as well as his primary residence. The old-world flair included antique machines and tables, even though their internal mechanisms were upgraded to state of the art.
People vacationed here to cling to tradition, dressed to the nines in Savile Row tuxedos and Christian Dior evening gowns. Diamonds and other jewels glittered, no doubt original settings from Cartier to Bvlgari. Her five-carat ring was impressive, no question, but nothing out of the ordinary at the Casino de la Mediterranee.
Her high heels clicked faster and faster against the marble tiles, her black metallic bag slipping down to her elbow in her haste. "Stop. It. Now."
"No. Thanks." He stopped in front of the gilded elevator, his private elevator, and thumbed the button.
"God, you're still such a sarcastic ass." She sighed under her breath.
"Well, damn." He hooked an arm around her shoulders. "I've never heard that before. Thanks for enlightening me. I'll take it under advisement."
Jayne shrugged off his arm and planted her heels. "I am not going up to your suite."
"Our penthouse apartment." He plucked the ring from her hand and dropped it into her black bag hanging from her shoulder. "Our home."
A home? Hardly. But she refused to argue with him here in the lobby where anyone could listen. "Fine. I need to talk to you. Alone."
The doors slid open. He waived the elevator attendant away and led her inside, sealing them in the mirrored cubicle. "Serving the papers won't make me sign them."
So she'd noticed, to her intense frustration. "You can't really intend to stay married and live apart forever."
"Maybe I just wanted you to have the guts to talk to me in person rather than through another emissary—" his deep brown eyes crinkled at the corners "—to tell me to my face that you're prepared to spend the rest of your life never again sharing the same bed."
Sharing a bed again?
Not a chance.
She couldn't trust him, and after what happened with her father? She refused to let any man fool her the way her mother had been duped—or to break her heart the way her mother had been heartbroken. "You mean sharing the same bed whenever you happen to be in town after disappearing for weeks on end. We've been over this a million times. I can't sleep with a man who keeps secrets."
He stopped the elevator with a quick jab and faced her, the first signs of frustration stealing the smile from him. "I've never lied to you."
"No. You just walk away when you don't want to answer the question."
He was a smart man. Too smart. He played with words as adeptly as he played with money. At only fifteen years old, he'd used his vast trust fund to manipulate the stock market. He'd put more than one crook out of business with short sales, and nearly landed himself in a juvenile detention center. His family's influence worked the system. He'd been sentenced by a judge to attend a military reform school instead, where he hadn't reformed in the least, only fine-tuned his ability to get his way.
God help her, she still wasn't immune to him, a large part of why she'd kept her distance and tried to instigate the divorce from overseas. The last straw in their relationship had come when she'd had a scare with a questionable mammogram. She'd desperately needed his support, but couldn't locate him for nearly a week, the longest seven days of her life.
Her health concerns turned out to be benign, but her fears for her marriage? One hundred percent malignant. Out of respect for what they'd shared, she'd waited for Conrad to come home. She'd given him one last chance to be honest with her. He'd fed her the same old tired line about conducting business and how she should trust him.
She'd walked out that night with only a carry-on piece of luggage. If only she'd thought to leave her rings behind then.
Standing here in the intimate confines of the elevator, with classical music piping through the sound system, she could only think of the time he'd pressed her to the mirrored wall and made love to her until she could barely think, much less remember to ask him where he'd been for the past two weeks.
And still he wasn't talking, damn him. "Well, Conrad? You don't have anything to say?"
"The real problem here is not me. It's that you don't know how to trust." He skimmed his finger along the chain strap of her black metallic shoulder bag and hitched it back in place. "I am not your father."
His words turned residual passion into anger—and pain. "That's a low blow."
"Am I wrong?"
He stood an inch away, so close they could lose themselves in a kiss instead of the ache of all this self-awareness. But she couldn't travel that path again. She stepped closer, drawn by the scent of him, the deep ache in her belly to have his lips on hers. The draw was so intense it took everything inside her to step back.
"If you're so committed to the truth, then how about proving you're not your father."
When Conrad had been arrested as a teen, the papers ran headlines. Like Father. Like Son. His embezzling dad had escaped conviction as well for his white-collar crimes thanks to that same high-priced lawyer.
In her heart she knew her husband wasn't like his old man. Conrad had hacked into all those Wall Street companies to expose his father and others like him. She knew intellectually…but the evasiveness, the walls between them… She just couldn't live that way.
She reached into her large, dangling evening bag and pulled out the folded stack of papers. "Here. I'm saving you a trip to the lawyer's office."
She pushed them against Conrad's chest and hit the elevator button for her floor, a guest suite, because she couldn't stomach the notion of staying in their old quarters, which she'd once decorated with hope and love.
"Conrad, consider yourself officially served. Don't worry about the ring. I'll sell it and donate the money to charity. All I need from you is your signature."
The elevator doors slid open at her floor, not his, not their old penthouse, but a room she'd prearranged under a different name. Her head held high, she charged out and into the carpeted corridor.
She walked away from Conrad, almost managing to ignore the fact that he still had the power to break her heart all over again.
Conrad had made ten fortunes by thirty-two years old and had given away nine. But tonight, he'd finally hit the jackpot with his biggest win in three years. He had a chance for closure with Jayne so she wouldn't haunt his dreams every damn night for the rest of his life.
He stalked back into the lobby toward the casino to turn over control for the evening. Once he'd been alerted to Jayne's presence on the floor, he'd walked out on a Fortune 500 guest and a deposed royal heir, drawn by the gleam of his wife's light blond hair piled on top of her head, the familiar curve of her pale neck. Talking to Jayne had been his number-one priority.
Finding her thunking down her ring on 12 red hadn't been the highlight of his life, but the way she'd leaned into him, the flare of awareness in her sky-blue eyes? No, it wasn't over, in spite of the divorce papers she'd slapped against his chest.
She was back under his roof for tonight. He folded the papers again and slid them inside his tuxedo jacket. As he walked past the bar, the bartender nodded toward the last brass stool—and a familiar patron.
Damn it. He did not need this now. But there was no dodging Colonel John Salvatore, his former headmaster and current contact for his freelance work with Interpol, work that had pulled him away from Jayne, work that he preferred she not know about for her own safety. Conrad's wealthy lifestyle and influence gave him easy entree into powerful circles. When Interpol needed an "in" they called on a select group of contract operatives, headed by John Salvatore, saving months creating an undercover persona for a regular agent. Salvatore usually only tapped into his services once or twice a year. If he used Conrad too often, he risked exposure of the whole setup.
The reason for the missing weeks that always had Jayne in such an uproar.
Part of him understood he should just tell her about his second "career." He'd been cleared to share the basics with his spouse, just not details. But another part of him wanted her to trust him, to believe in him rather than assume he was like his criminal father or a cheating bastard like her dad.
The colonel lifted his Scotch in toast. "Someone's in over his head."
Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Reviewed by Desere Steenberg
By Desere Steenberg
I have many times heard the expression"being married is not always all it seems to be". And in this book from best selling author Catherine Mann I as reader was shown just one of the reasons as to just why all is not as it seems.
Jayne has been separated from her husband for three years, a man she will always love but could not fully trust as during the four years they were together he would disappear for weeks and never reveal where he was or what he was up to. I did not blame her one bit as I am sure all of us would get a little suspicious and start thinking really bad thoughts. What I found a little hard was that she thinks he is like her father who had a second family in the background. For me based on the level of love that she and Conrad shared before the break up, as so beautifully and powerfully laid out by the author, should have let her know that Conrad is not the kind of man her father was.
But of course I am sure you would agree there would be no spice or drama to the book, so yes this time around I would say it was a interesting touch, and also gave the character of Jayne that level of insecurity needed to make her more vulnerable. And the only reason for me saying so is purely based on the intensity of feelings the author described between these two,it just shouted "She should have known better".
The real mystery of course is what exactly Conrad gets up to when he does go AWOL on poor Jayne when she needs him around. When the truth is revealed it is a real wow moment, it had me as reader immediately thinking " Wow this author is good, she came up with something new and fresh and so not the kind of plot I am use to in books but rather on screen".
The characters both main and secondary were fantastic and so well written I truly felt as if the author was connecting me to them on some emotional level. The whole secrets are better left untold element added flare, mystery and good old fashioned action to the book. Which I have come to learn are always a given in a Catherine Mann book only this time she really pushed it up a notch and the book took on a real life espionage feel,with so much action and emotion it had me acting like a over the top action junkie yelling and shouting at the characters to do this or not do that!
What I simply loved about the book was the message of communication is a so valuable and so very needed in any relationship, you need to trust the person your with, revealing your deep dark secrets will not always mean you get what you want but then again life is a gamble and sometimes you win and sometimes you loose.
The author also incorporated more alpha brothers that for me as reader is so important for when I get to the next book it is never any fun to start reading about a character from a previous book that now has his or her own book, as it always makes me think that I missed out on some valuable bit of information about him or her. So yes loved that the author gave me just that little bit of a heads up, letting me know that is more to come.
The backdrop setting was one of glitz and glam at one point,which gave the book the James Bond feel but also that of Africa where I got to see the worth and strengths of both characters truly revealed.
This was truly a passionate, romantic, action packed, mystery and suspense filled read. Writing at it's best!
Excellent work Catherine,keep them coming!
5/5 star review
"Gambling for love with a sexy twist"
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Cute Second Chance Love
By Lily - Night Owl Book Cafe
Courtesy of Harlequin through Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.
More like 3.5 Stars.
Conrad Hughes had warnings written all over him, but that did not stop Jayne from falling in love with the man who she married in such a short time. When Conrad started to disappear without a word or a warning, a girl can only handle so much before jumping to conclusions. Now separated for three years and living in different states, Jayne still cannot get her ex-husband to sign the divorce papers so she travels to his casino in hopes of persuading him.
Conrad works undercover for Interpol and keeping the secret has ruined his marriage. Now with his wife back in Monte Carlo he hopes to put out his own persuasion straight in to his bed and back into her heart. A lot of things end up on the line, including the potential safety of his wife when word that his undercover is blown spreads.
Cute story that revolved around a separated married couple seducing each other back into their lives. Conrad was obviously still attracted to Jayne even after three years, and Jayne has a hard time not letting her eyes wander. Yet, Conrad did nothing to get his wife back before that but wait and hope that not signing the divorce papers would force her back to Monte Carlo. Not believable, but a cute fairytale story like anyway, a quick sweet read that has you rooting for love. The fact that he didn't sleep with anyone else was also a little on the eh.. side.. I'm sure every girl dreams of this one ;)
Though there was an excitement of danger and Conrad taking Jayne to a remote place in Africa where he owns a small home and a clinic he build because of her, the whole story revolved around the two seducing each other in hopes of getting it out of their system or rebuilding their marriage. The only other part that was exciting and gripping fell a little short and flat and the rest just fell into a predictable place. Still, a quick fast read that was enjoyable. A married couple with hardships that you cannot help but root for and I couldn't help but devour in one sitting.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Another keeper
By Judy
All Or Nothing by Catherine Mann delivers another wonderful story in her The Alpha Brotherhood series.
Jayne Hughes is tired of living her life in limbo. Her husband Conrad Hughes spends weeks if not months away from her and she has no idea what he is doing. She travels to Monte Carlo to try to force Conrad to sign the divorce papers and hopefully this will help her get on with her life. Jayne is not prepared to still be so powerfully attracted to her soon to be ex husband.
Conrad Hughes has overcome his troubled youth to become a powerful businessman. He is also an undercover agent and this role has caused his marriage to crumble. When Jayne arrives on his turf Conrad will pull out every trick in the book to keep Jayne as his wife.
He makes a deal with Jayne if she is willing to spend two days with him he will sign her papers.
Jayne agrees and puts her heart into Conrad's hands. But does she have his trust? When a case that Conrad had worked on comes to threaten both of them, he has to tell Jayne the truth. Once the danger is past will Jayne be able to handle both the worlds her husband lives and works.
All Or Nothing has two strong and compelling characters. Watching them learn to give and take in all aspects is special. It's a treat to have a couple find their way back to each other. Looking forward to the next book in this delightful series.
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