Manhattan's Most Scandalous Reunion--An Uplifting International Romance Read online

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened, startling her again. For one second, she had forgotten what had sent her rushing into Reve’s building.

  She had to quell a compulsion to hurry into the belly of the penthouse in search of him the way she used to, calling his name. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to throw herself at him and feel his strong arms close around her. To let him kiss the hell out of her and take her to bed before barely three words had passed between them. The outside world had always ceased to matter when they were lost in passion.

  But that was all in the past. And much as she would love to hide from reality, she had learned that it eventually had to be confronted.

  “Nina.” He appeared abruptly, the mere sound of his voice awakening her blood.

  The Secret Sisters

  When their paths cross, expect explosions!

  World-renowned model Oriel Cuvier and esteemed fashion designer Nina Menendez are complete strangers. But unbeknownst to them, they share a shocking secret that, once revealed, will shake their worlds to their core!

  And the similarities don’t end there because everything is set to get even more complicated with the arrival of two commanding men who set their hearts racing and their skin on fire! Will they both succumb to the temptation...?

  Read Oriel’s story in

  Married for One Reason Only

  And discover Nina’s story in

  Manhattan’s Most Scandalous Reunion

  Both available now!

  Escape into the scandalous world of Dani Collins’s sexy and irresistible duet The Secret Sisters.

  Dani Collins

  Manhattan’s Most Scandalous Reunion

  Canadian Dani Collins knew in high school that she wanted to write romance for a living. Twenty-five years later, after marrying her high school sweetheart, having two kids with him, working at several generic office jobs and submitting countless manuscripts, she got The Call. Her first Harlequin novel won the Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First in Series from RT Book Reviews. She now works in her own office, writing romance.

  Books by Dani Collins

  Harlequin Presents

  A Hidden Heir to Redeem Him

  Confessions of an Italian Marriage

  Innocent in the Sheikh’s Palace

  What the Greek’s Wife Needs

  Her Impossible Baby Bombshell

  Once Upon a Temptation

  Beauty and Her One-Night Baby

  Signed, Sealed...Seduced

  Ways to Ruin a Royal Reputation

  The Secret Sisters

  Married for One Reason Only

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To Doug, who graciously accepts the burden of being married to a writer. I love you.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM BEAUTY IN THE BILLIONAIRE’S BED BY LOUISE FULLER

  CHAPTER ONE

  NINA MENENDEZ WAS having a garbage day on top of a painful month in what was starting to look like a horrendous year. She’d didn’t need a pesky man with a camera getting in her face, accusing her of being someone she wasn’t.

  “Oriel! Hey, Oriel.”

  Especially not that woman.

  Nina’s heart lurched in one direction while she veered in another, trying to hurry away from the Manhattan hotel where she’d tanked an interview with a British film star in town for a talk show. Nina didn’t even want to go into costume design. Did she? She didn’t know anymore. She didn’t know who she was or what she wanted. Everything was wrong in her world. She might as well go to the garden and eat worms.

  If she only had a garden. At the rate she was going, worms were all she could afford.

  “Oriel. Why are you here? Where is your husband?” The photographer skipped alongside her, maniacally snapping his camera in her face.

  Paparazzi hung around the entrance to swanky hotels like that hoping to ambush the celebrities who stayed there. In her case, she’d been trying to get on with an indie project that the star was producing for herself in London. It wasn’t a big budget, and Nina had only been granted an appointment thanks to a friend pulling strings, but she’d said all the wrong things and was beating herself up over what felt like self-sabotage.

  “Are you working again?”

  Well, that was just mean, wasn’t it? She almost used her subway language, but kept walking, ignoring him.

  The photographer kept after her and some of his colleagues did, too. They nipped like hyenas with baiting questions as they tried to get her attention.

  “Why aren’t you in India?”

  “Is it true you’re pregnant?”

  “Look.” She had to stop at the corner to wait for a car to turn in front of her. “I know who Oriel Cuvier is, but I’ve never met her. I just happen to look a little bit like her.” Freakishly very much like her, but Nina was trying really hard not to think about that.

  Being accosted and mistaken as her wasn’t helping. Why had she thought coming back to New York was a good idea? Oh, right, to find out why she looked so much like a stranger.

  “Who are you then?” one demanded, following her into the next block.

  “Nobody. Go home and compare our photos.”

  That’s what Nina had done after a friend from work—back when she had had a job—had remarked on how much she resembled the French model. That had been eons ago, when Nina had arrived in New York for the first time, bright-eyed and full of dreams. The photo of Oriel Cuvier on a runway had been making the rounds in fashion circles for the professionally tattered and much-lauded gown she had been modeling.

  Nina had found their similarities unnerving, but other events had soon consumed her.

  Now, after licking her wounds in Albuquerque for three months, she’d scrambled to get back here for that stupid interview, and it was the worst possible timing.

  Oriel’s star had already been rising, but Nina had nursed vague hopes of crossing paths with her. As she had arrived, however, Oriel had slipped out of the city, emerging in India, where she promptly began to dominate international headlines.

  Oriel Cuvier was the previously unknown daughter of a Bollywood screen queen, and photographers were positively rabid to catch a photo of her.

  “Her hair is different,” Nina pointed out, mostly to shut them up. Thanks to Nina’s sister’s love of tints, Nina had streaks of pinkish red in her otherwise very similar near-black hair. Of course, the streaks were hidden by the half bun she wore. She’d been trying to look professional for her job interview. Maybe that had been her mistake. Maybe they had wanted someone with flair.

  Maybe she should quit worrying what others thought of her and be herself. Who was she, though? Ignoring the twist of anxiety that went through her, she kept talking.

  “Her mouth is different, too.” The model’s wealthy parents had been able to afford braces. Nina had a slight overbite. Hopefully, the photographers wouldn’t look beyond that, because the shape of their full lips matched perfectly.


  “Her profile says she’s five-eleven. I’m five-nine.” And three-quarters. Basically five-ten. Today, however, she was so dispirited she was probably five-three. “I’m not her.”

  “Who are you then? Talk to us. Are you related to her?”

  “Why are you still bothering me?” She walked faster, annoyed, and also growing alarmed. She was a twenty-five-year-old woman being swarmed by a half-dozen men. The bustling people they passed averted their gazes, signaling they didn’t want to get involved.

  “Tell us why you’re not in India. Oriel!” One of the men grabbed her arm.

  Nina’s self-defense training kicked in. She spun and jammed the heel of her palm into his nose.

  The impact reverberated from her wrist to her elbow, all the way to her shoulder. A jarring rush of adrenaline poured through her chest like fire. She bounced back on light feet while her bag fell off her shoulder and swayed on her arm, knocking against her knee.

  The man swore and bent, blood from his nose painting the sidewalk in bright blotches. The rest of the men fanned out, jeering and swinging their camera lenses between the injured man, who was straightening with a look of retribution in his eyes, and whatever terror was written into Nina’s expression.

  Dear God, they were everywhere. She was surrounded. Her airway tightened and her wild gaze swerved every direction, seeking a path of escape.

  A blue-and-silver awning struck her eyes. She had walked in this direction unconsciously on purpose because, deep down, she was a masochist.

  Normally, she would have stayed on this side of the street and glared upward as she walked by, but in her agitation, she darted straight for the entrance, not computing that she was running into traffic.

  A car squealed its brakes and stopped on a dime right before it would have struck her. The driver laid on the horn, then honked again as the horde of cameramen chased her, all of them batting and bumping into the car in their haste to get around it.

  Nina brushed past the startled doorman and ran inside, straight to the security desk where Amir sat today.

  “I’m sorry. Please, can I stand here a few minutes while I figure out what to do? They won’t leave me alone.”

  She was quivering with reaction, breathless and barely able to speak. She looked back to see the doorman holding out his arms while he ordered the men, “Back off! No entry.”

  Amir frowned at her, then at the disruption outside. One of the men evaded the doorman and pressed his camera lens to the window, clicking and flashing through the glass.

  Amir picked up his phone and dialed.

  Was he calling the police? Nina’s scrambled brain tried to decide whether she should involve them.

  “It’s Amir, sir. Ms. Menendez is here in the lobby.”

  “What?” she whispered. “I didn’t come here to see him.”

  Her stomach began to churn. She held her breath in dread-filled anticipation.

  “Yes, I understand, sir. But she seems upset.”

  Her heart stalled out. How humiliating. After seducing her and leading her on, Reve had dumped her when she had asked if he wanted to meet her father. Three months later, he didn’t even want to see her.

  She covered her face, turning her back to the windows so she had a shred of privacy while she tried to think of where she could go or who she might call. The few friends she’d made in New York had fallen away when she’d been fired and moved in with Reve. And the friend who’d gotten her today’s interview lived in London. The one who was loaning her his studio was backpacking in Australia.

  She didn’t know what to do. She was upset by more than the fact those men had chased her. It was everything that had happened lately. Her ears were rushing with the sound of her galloping pulse. Her life was falling apart at the seams, but she couldn’t crawl home this time. Where was home? Who was she?

  “Miss...” Amir’s voice was loud enough to make her jerk her head up. His frown told her he’d had to repeat himself to get her attention. She saw he had opened the doors for Reve’s private elevator.

  “Mr. Weston will see you. Would you like me to come with you? You seem unsteady.”

  She stared into the elevator, longing to see Reve even though she knew he only pretended to rescue damsels. Deep down, he was more of a dragon who lured them in and ate them.

  Still, she could hear the doorman arguing with the men outside. She had to leave the lobby so they would disperse. She desperately needed to be transported out of her entire overturned, mixed-up life, and, God knows, Reve’s world was the furthest thing from her own.

  Her feet moved her into the elevator, and she instantly flashed back to what seemed like a million years ago but was really only three months ago. She had felt on top of the world then. Staying in a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park had a way of doing that to a person.

  She had stood right here every day, convinced she was in love and barreling toward happily-ever-after. Rather than work for someone else, she had begun to sew her own collection. She had anticipated that, by the end of summer, she would have enough for her own show at fashion week. Just a small thing that was more like a gallery showing, but it would gain her exposure, help her network and maybe glean her a few orders from boutiques. She’d flounced about in her own creations, each one set off with handbags and shoes and bangles that Reve had paid for.

  She’d left it all when she’d walked out, sickened that she had let him buy her for the price of soutache and organza, Microtex needles and glass-headed pins.

  Oh, how the mighty had fallen. Today she wore a simple maxi-dress she’d made from fabrics leftover from her college days. The knot of hair behind her crown had begun to fray while her natural waves had picked up the summer humidity, and flyaway strands were sticking to her face and shoulders.

  She had hoped this look would project that she was casually chic, approachable and open to collaboration. Unfortunately, her portfolio said she hadn’t worked since last year and never in costume design. She wasn’t going anywhere and had nowhere else to go.

  Being so self-pitying wasn’t her usual MO, but even her reflection had ceased to feel like it was hers. Not when another woman had claim to it. Not when defeat dragged at the corners of her mouth and her eyes were hollow from weeks of sleepless nights. The dusting of makeup she’d put on this morning stood out starkly on a complexion that was a pallid version of her natural golden tan.

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened, startling her again.

  For one second, she had forgotten what had sent her rushing into Reve’s building. She had to quell a compulsion to hurry into the belly of the penthouse in search of him the way she used to, calling his name.

  Oh, what she wouldn’t give to throw herself into him and feel his strong arms close around her. To let him kiss the hell out of her and take her to bed before barely three words had passed between them. The outside world had always ceased to matter when they were lost in passion.

  That was all in the past. And as much as she would love to hide from reality, she had learned that it eventually had to be confronted.

  She stepped tentatively into the foyer with its gold-veined marble and a round table holding a floral arrangement that was replaced every three days.

  “Nina.” He appeared abruptly from the hallway to the bedrooms.

  The mere sound of his voice awakened her blood. The sight of him fed a thirst she had vainly tried to ignore since she had left.

  He wore crisp, dark gray trousers and his feet were bare. He was shrugging on a blue-and-white-striped shirt over his muscled chest and flat abs. There was a faint glow beneath his winter-in-Florida tan and a sheen upon it. His dark hair was damp and messy.

  Even amid her confusion of shock and fear and dread, she was taken aback by how ruggedly handsome he was. The uncontrollable attraction she’d felt from her first glimpse of him burst to life inside her, s
tarved for that hint of curl in his dark brown hair, his steely blue eyes, his square jaw and his impervious air of assurance.

  It felt so good to see him again that a smile began to tingle in her cheeks and pull at her mouth before a painful realization struck like a jagged spear of lightning, cleaving her apart and leaving her soul nothing but an acrid whiff of its former self.

  “You’re with someone.” She knew how he looked when he was climbing out of bed after lovemaking. Like this.

  Her knees went weak. She was so nauseated by despair, she lowered herself onto the upholstered bench by the elevator and leaned forward, trying to keep herself from fainting.

  This was what a mental breakdown felt like. In her head, she had known he would move on. Confronting it like this was the final straw, though. She was flattened. Destroyed. She couldn’t face him. She had to go, but her legs refused to work.

  “I’m alone,” Reve said in a clipped voice. “I was showering after my workout when Amir called. But I am on my way out.”

  That sounded like a warning. Don’t get comfortable.

  She lifted her head and, despite the standoffish wall that seemed to form a barrier between them, his gaze searched hers. Maybe, if she hadn’t been at the very end of her rope, she might have thought there was a wary tension deep inside that look.

  “Why are you here?” He scanned her thoroughly from her disheveled hair to her open-toed sandals, and whatever he saw made his brows slam together, thunderstruck. “Are you pregnant?”

  “What?” She sat up so fast she bumped her head on the wall behind her and had to rub the hurt away. “No. Gawd, that’s all I would need right now.”

  Only a complete fool would mourn the fact she had no lifetime reminder of her gullibility in getting involved with him. Then she must be a fool, because not being accidentally pregnant by him had made her very blue.

  “Why do you think I’m pregnant?” Her dress was loose because it was midday and the hottest June on record, but she hadn’t gained any weight. She was one of those annoying people with a high metabolism and had been told her whole life she could be a model or a basketball player. The second one had always been discounted about five seconds after she fumbled the ball and chased it, kicking it away in the process.