Why then had he asked Heron to marry him? More to the point, why had she accepted? True, he had much to offer her -- money and his fascinating house, the house that had meant so much to Heron all her life, the Glass Castle -- but Heron was not the type to marry for mercenary reasons. Yet her feeling for him was of fear and curiosity more than any other emotion. Could she ever understand such a strange, arrogant man? Or still less, make him a successful wife?

    Her father's totally dependable deputy, he never stepped out of character. Until the night when he'd surprised her by asking her to marry him.Sandra had rejected him, of course. A gray, faceless character with a mild manner who hid his thoughts behind horn-rimmed glasses, Randall was hardly the sort of man women dreamed about. Or was he?Four years after Randall's proposal, Sandra wasn't so sure. And now she was the one doing the proposing.

    First love had endured.Yet she was hesitant when they met again in London. "It's madness, and you're crazy if you agree," Grant warned her, "but let's get married and sort out the rest afterward!"If only he'd said he loved her, Fran might not have been so acutely sensitive to every reminder of his first wife...and how much she resembled her.

    And when their plane was sabotaged and she and Sam were left behind in the jungle so that the plane could take off again, she knew she would have to.Fortune had it that a devious, conniving guardian angel led Sam to believe Bernadette was a nun. How else could safe passage be guaranteed for the woman who set Sam's renegade heart on fire?An affair with Sam would be assuredly glorious--but brief. And Bernadette wanted Sam's love to last forever.

    But the following day the untamable Cristiano had a near-fatal crash. Then Kate discovered she was expecting his baby…Now Monte Carlo is set to celebrate Cristiano’s return to the track. Shivering with nerves, Kate braves the paparazzi to find the man who set her body aflame - and tell him her scandalous secret.

    Clare knew it couldn't be true. Even worse, she learned that to appease his great family pride, Lazar intended to exact like payment from Clare for his sister's seduction. Fate, however, decreed differently. Strangely, slowly, out of the bizarre situation a new Clare Harper emerged -- a young woman ready to love and be loved....

    She tried everything she could to make him see her for the woman she had become, but each day she spent in his Las Vegas hotel found her needing a last-minute resuce from a fate worse than death! Steve would have no peace when Jenny's desires were frustrated, but he couldn't protect her from the one man she wanted with all her heart. Though he felt years older and much too jaded for her innocent love, Steve discovered that Jenny would never give herself to another man, no matter what it took to crash through his defenses.

    Tonight's pickings--Antonella Romanelli, crown princess of a rival country and part of a dynasty he has every reason to despise....Antonella is rocked by Cristiano's unexpected magnetism. But there's ice in his wolfish smile.... She's far from the promiscuous, spoiled socialite he believes her to be, but Cristiano is here to persuade her into compliance. If bedding her is what it takes, then it will make his mission all the more pleasurable....

    She's not what he was expecting...but her dowdy clothes can't hide her lusciously feminine figure or her wildcat temperament!Chiara Cordiano will not love her husband!She's tried everything to avoid her fate, but in the blink of an eye Chiara is swept away from her quaint Sicilian town to New York! She wants to hate Rafe, but seduction is in his blood. With his dark, brooding looks and tempting masculinity, she'll be purring like a kitten!

    And Marcy Campion intended to see that they got it.She was determined to turn Aunt Thomasina's old Victorian house into a community center and playground, even if it meant fighting the powerful developers, Saxton and Company, every inch of the way.Annoyed by the opposition of a mere girl, Randal Saxton decided to handle the situation himself, and Marcy soon found herself involved in another battle--this time with her unruly heart!

    If they stayed together for one year, Brad's uncle, a misguided matchmaker, promised to solve both their financial problems.Gwen filled Brad's ordered life with domesticity and fun, while he awakened a range of new emotions in her. Unintentionally, yet inevitably, they fell in love.It should have been perfect. But doubts and the very contract that had brought them together now threatened to drive them apart.

    — When Philomena Peabody met her boss's son, he was suffering temporary snow blindness. 'You sound like somebody's mother,' Penn Wilderman said, convinced by her no-nonsense attitude that she was 'a sweet little old lady.' — Even after she'd moved into his luxurious mansion to help look after his son, Phil couldn't disillusion Penn about her age.To help win a custody battle for his teenage son, Phil agreed to marry Penn. But she dreaded facing him once the bandages were off, and he could see his attractive twenty-seven-year-old wife...

    But she knows that, one day soon, the secret she carries will cost her....Sure enough, Greek tycoon Alexis Petrakis has discovered that their shame-filled night created something beautiful...a baby that he will do anything to reclaim....

    Sold in Monte Carlo: a beautiful English baroness! Samantha van Bergen has been wagered and won by the highest bidder: dark and sexy Italian, Cristiano Bartolo. Did he buy her to bed her? Innocent Sam is scared Cristiano will seduce her! But she quickly finds out he has his own reason for wanting her--bedding her is just a bonus!

    From nine to five, the horn-rim-bespectacled, prudish "Miss Grace," ever-efficient secretary to ladykiller James Hackett, earned enough money to support the after-hours real Theodora.And since romance was not something she associated with James Hackett, it was surprising that the passionate tales she wrote starred a leading man with a remarkable resemblance to him.She couldn't help wondering though if she would ever live--and love--in her own life, so happily ever after!