Fifth Avenue Box Set: Take MeAvenge MeScandalize MeExpose Me Page 28
“I feel the same way. I’ve been...afraid to want anything for so long because I was afraid I would want the wrong things. That I would turn into him. But...as long as it’s you I want, I know it can’t be wrong. Because what I want always seems to fit with what you want.”
“Except when you broke my heart. Jackass.”
“Scared jackass.”
“Yeah. That.”
“I’m so sorry. But I honestly didn’t know what I wanted. Not until I met you. Not until I lost you. And then I was so afraid I pushed you away because...I was afraid if you touched me I would poison you.”
“Idiot. You healed me.”
“I did?”
“I wouldn’t even let myself feel pain, Austin. I was so closed off I didn’t feel much of anything. You tore it all open. You made me bleed. And I am so damn thankful.”
“You make it sound like it hurt.”
“It did. It does. But life hurts sometimes. More than I realized. But it’s so much more amazing that I realized, too. And love is so much bigger than the rest of the feelings. Than the anger, and the hate, and the pain. My love for you wins.”
“Oh, Katy, my love for you wins, too.”
“You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. I don’t know how you could ever think you’re a man who doesn’t care about others. How you could ever think you’d be like Jason. Austin, you care so much it bleeds from you. It bled onto me. You taught me to feel.”
“I did that, huh?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her. “I do care, Katy. I care so much. I never wanted her to be hurt. I regret so much—”
“And that right there separates you from your father, from men like him.”
“I’m going to work to get justice for her, I swear it.”
She nodded. “I know you will. But you know, hurting Jason isn’t the only thing I’m living for anymore. Fixing things for other people isn’t the only thing I have now. I have you. I have us. Life doesn’t feel as heavy now, not with you to share it with.”
“We could still go to the South. Or California. Whatever you want,” he said. “Whatever you need.”
“We could stay right here,” she said. “I don’t feel like I need to run away from myself anymore. Myself is perfectly happy. Right here with you. Engaged in a battle for love, and vigilante justice.”
“It will be legal justice,” he said.
“I forgot. You’re all married to the legal system.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You aren’t going to rat me out for being a vandal, are you?”
“I think there’s too much reasonable doubt to take it to trial.”
“I love you, Lawyer-man.” She leaned in and kissed his nose.
“I’m ready to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
“Maybe you should just stick to giving me commands. I think you’re better at that.”
“And do you still need to take commands from me?”
“Not any more than you need to give them. I’m not afraid anymore. But it doesn’t mean I don’t...enjoy the way we are together. The way we’ve been together. I just...think maybe I don’t need it as therapy at this point.”
“Well, that is good to hear. I suppose I shouldn’t retire those ties I keep by the bed?”
“Not on your life,” she said. “I think we’ll find use for those for a long time.”
“Normally I’d be telling you to get on your knees. But maybe I’ll get on mine first.” He did, his heart beating heavy, his hands shaking.
Everything he’d asked her to do, everything they’d been through, and somehow, she always made him shake.
“You know me better than anyone else. From the moment I met you I haven’t been able to hide anything. I don’t have a ring, but I want to ask you this now. Will you marry me? After this is over, will you marry me? Let’s make new headlines. Let’s make a new history for our family names. For us.”
“Yes, Austin,” she said. “Yes.”
He closed his eyes, his heart full. All of the skeletons had been unearthed. Everything was being brought to light. And for the first time in ten years, he felt unbound.
He felt free.
“Thank God for that. Now, baby...it’s your turn. Get on your knees.”
Epilogue
As a Lifetime Achievement Award Looms,
Treffen’s Life Begins to Crumble!
Shock waves went through Manhattan social circles when Lenore Treffen, wife of Jason Treffen for more than thirty years, demanded a divorce during Treffen’s celebrated New Year’s bash. What’s even more scandalous? The couple’s son has taken his mother’s case, and will be representing her during court proceedings.
The reconciliation we all hoped for barely lasted from “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to “Auld Lang Syne.”
With court documents being kept under wraps, and tempers turning ugly on both sides, we wonder what this means both for the future of the family and for Jason Treffen’s illustrious career.
The pristine Treffen legacy is certainly showing some wear and tear...and we wonder if this will make the Jason Treffen Special all that much more interesting! We know one thing for certain—we’ll be watching as the drama unfolds.
“You finally spent the money.”
“Charitable donations hardly count as spending money,” Katy said, giving her fiancé the evil eye.
Her fiancé. She really could get used to that. About the time she did, though, she imagined he’d be her husband.
That sounded even better.
She’d just come into his office, flushed and excited over gaining nonprofit status, her enjoyment of organization and planning put to far better use now than planning parties for Jason Treffen.
“True,” Austin said, wrapping his arm around her. “The Sarah Michaels Foundation is something I’d gladly sink my life savings into. And I’m very happy it’s where you put my dad’s blood money.”
“Me, too,” she said.
The foundation would provide career, financial and personal counseling for women in difficult situations, with a focus on women who wanted to leave the sex industry. They were still working toward ultimate justice for Sarah, but at least in this there was some closure.
At least with the foundation there was some action that wasn’t purely destructive. With this, she could create something with Sarah’s legacy. Help other people, not just tear down Jason Treffen.
“I don’t ever want anyone to feel so hopeless, so ashamed, that they do what she did,” Katy continued. “I want them to know that there’s always a future.”
Austin smiled at her, bent down and kissed her on the lips. “That seems to be the lesson you’re out to teach everyone.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes. It’s what you taught me. That there’s light at the end of the tunnel. More than that, that I deserved to step out into it. That there was a future past the pain.”
“What do you know? You taught me the same thing.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest, taking in his scent. It was such a wonderful thing to stand there with him. To know that even on this side of revenge there was happiness. New life.
“You’ll redeem your name, Austin Treffen. I firmly believe that you’ll do the world much more good than he did harm.”
“With your help, Katy.”
“It’s true. I will be a Treffen in about eight months.”
“You will. And you’ll have almost single-handedly redeemed both names. Sarah’s name, and mine.”
“It’s fair, because I feel like you saved me.”
“I think we saved each other, love,” he said.
“You know, I think you’re right about that. We’re two halves of a whole. We make a lot more sense when we’re together.”
“Good thing we’re going to be together forever, then.”
Katy laughed and looked out at the sun shining on the skyline, drenching everything in light. “It
’s a good thing, Austin. It’s a very good thing.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from SCANDALIZE ME by Caitlin Crews.
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Presents title.
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Ten years ago one devastating night changed everything for Austin, Hunter and Alex. Now they must each play their part in the revenge against the one man who ruined it all.
Austin Treffen has the plan… Hunter has the money… Alex has the power!
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Ten years ago one devastating night changed everything for Austin, Hunter and Alex. Now each man must play his part to take revenge against the one man who ruined it all.
Read Caitlin Crews’s glittering contribution to the Fifth Avenue trilogy in:
Scandalize Me
It wasn’t the first time a man had propositioned her. But it was the first time she’d felt a burst of flame lick over her when he did, and she was terribly afraid he knew that, too. That he felt the same slap of heat.
She couldn’t let that happen, it was impossible, so she shoved it aside.
“Is that caveman code for ‘sleep with me so I can put you back in your proper place’?” she asked, cool and challenging and back on familiar ground, because she knew this routine. She could handle this. Jason Treffen had taught her well, one painful lesson at a time. “Because you should know before you try, dragging me off by my hair somewhere won’t end the way you think it will. I can promise you that.”
Hunter looked intrigued and his head canted slightly to one side, but that wolfish regard of his never wavered—bright and hot and knowing. Reaching much too far inside her.
“I don’t want to drag you off somewhere by your hair and have my way with you, Ms. Brook.”
The smile on her lips turned mocking, but she was more concerned with the sudden long, slow thump of her heart and the heavy, wet heat low in her belly. “Because you’re not that kind of guy?”
There was something more than predatory in his eyes then, hard and hot, a dark knowing in the curve of his mouth that connected with that deep drumroll inside her, making it her pulse, her breath, her worst fear come true.
“I’m absolutely that kind of guy. But I told you. You have to ask me nicely.”
He smiled, as if he was the one in control. And she couldn’t allow it.
“No,” she said, furious that it came out like a whisper, thin and uncertain. His smile deepened for a moment, like a promise.
“Your loss,” he murmured, and that aching fire swelled inside her, nearly bursting.
And then he laughed again, dismissing her, and turned to go. Again. For good this time, she understood, and she couldn’t let that happen.
Zoe had no choice.
“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Grant.” She didn’t know why that dryness in her mouth seemed to translate into something like trembling everywhere else, when she’d known before she’d approached him that it would probably come to this. She made herself smile. “I know about Sarah.”
The second step to revenge in the Fifth Avenue trilogy
Hunter has the money.…
July 2014
Copyright © 2014 by Harlequin Books S.A.
ISBN-13: 9781460333181
AVENGE ME
Copyright © 2014 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Maisey Yates for her contribution to the Fifth Avenue trilogy.
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Ten years ago one devastating night changed everything for Austin, Hunter and Alex. Now they must each play their part in the revenge against the one man who ruined it all.
Hunter Talbot Grant III, sports figure du jour, wealthy beyond measure and disreputable by choice, has cultivated a reputation that masks the shadows of his past. When the opportunity to ensure financial destruction for Jason Treffen arises, he can’t refuse. But first he must shake off the woman sent to tame him!
Zoe Brook, PR agent extraordinaire, never fails to transform a tarnished star. And Hunter’s no different. Except there’s a catch. Beneath their scorching mutual attraction, Zoe has a secret—she’s also been on the wrong side of Jason Treffen, and she has as much of a taste for revenge as Hunter does!
All about the author…Caitlin Crews
CAITLIN CREWS discovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve. It involved swashbuckling pirates, grand adventures, a heroine with rustling skirts and a mind of her own, and a seriously mouthwatering and masterful hero. The book (the title of which remains lost in the mists of time) made a serious impression. Caitlin was immediately smitten with romances and romance heroes, to the detriment of her middle school social life. And so began her lifelong love affair with romance novels, many of which she insists on keeping near her at all times.
Caitlin has made her home in places as far-flung as York, England, and Atlanta, Georgia. She was raised near New York City, and fell in love with London on her first visit when she was a teenager. She has backpacked in Zimbabwe, been on safari in Botswana and visited tiny villages in Namibia. She has, while visiting the place in question, declared her intention to live in Prague, Dublin, Paris, Athens, Nice, the Greek Islands, Rome, Venice and/or any of the Hawaiian islands. Writing about exotic places seems like the next best thing to moving there.
She currently lives in California with her animator/comic book arti
st husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.
* * *
“Crews’ pulse-pounding, sensual feast of a page-turner keeps the heat turned up in this unforgettable, love-em, hate-em romance. She showcases luxurious settings, while her awe-inspiring couple entertains with their sexual banter and some of the most jaw-dropping lovemaking ever written.”
—RT Book Reviews on A Scandal in the Headlines
“Crews’ tale is intensely dramatic, set in a quaint fictional European principality. The royal repartee is all-consuming, their lovemaking is sensual and volatile and their romance is a nightmare turned fairy tale.”
—RT Book Reviews on A Royal Without Rules
“Crews’ magnificently intense and passion-filled romance is so volatile you’ll feel the heat radiating from her couple, who trade barbs and ignite sparks right into the bedroom.”
—RT Book Reviews on No More Sweet Surrender
“Crews’ scorching love scenes and cryptic hints will keep readers rapt as she pieces her puzzle together, with a couple who truly deserves happiness.”
—RT Book Reviews on Heiress Behind the Headlines
“Crews’ modern-day Beauty and the Beast story comes alive with a hero and heroine who are both so much more than they seem.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Man Behind the Scars
The Fifth Avenue series
AVENGE ME Maisey Yates
SCANDALIZE ME Caitlin Crews
EXPOSE ME Kate Hewitt
Other titles by Caitlin Crews available in ebook:
NOT JUST THE BOSS’S PLAYTHING
A SCANDAL IN THE HEADLINES (Sicily’s Corretti Dynasty)
A ROYAL WITHOUT RULES (Royal & Ruthless)
NO MORE SWEET SURRENDER (Scandal in the Spotlight)