Reckless Envy

by Joss Wood

  He’ll do whatever it takes

  to win this love game.

  The woman he craves is engaged to the man he loathes.

  But that’s not stopping him...

  Matt Velez has everything a man could want: money, success and his pick of gorgeous women. Well, almost everything. The affections of tantalizingly sexy good girl Emily Arnott remain strictly off-limits—because she’s engaged to Matt’s bitterest rival. Will jealousy consume him...or does Emily hold the secret key to set them both free?

  Seven Sins

  One man’s betrayal can destroy generations.

  Fifteen years ago, a hedge-fund hotshot vanished

  with billions, leaving the high-powered families

  of Falling Brook changed forever.

  Now seven heirs, shaped by his betrayal,

  must reckon with the sins of the past.

  Passion may be their only path to redemption.

  Experience all Seven Sins!

  * * *

  Ruthless Pride by Naima Simone

  This CEO’s pride led him to give up his dreams

  for his family. Now he’s drawn to the woman

  who threatens everything...

  Forbidden Lust by Karen Booth

  He’s always resisted his lust for his best friend’s sister—until they’re stranded together in paradise...

  Insatiable Hunger by Yahrah St. John

  His unbridled appetite for his closest friend is unleashed when he believes she’s fallen for the wrong man...

  Hidden Ambition by Jules Bennett

  Ambition has taken him far, but revenge could

  cost him his one chance at love...

  Reckless Envy by Joss Wood

  When this shark in the boardroom meets the one

  woman he can’t have, envy takes over...

  Untamed Passion by Cat Schield

  Will this black sheep’s self-destructive wrath flame

  out when he’s expecting an heir of his own?

  Slow Burn by Janice Maynard

  If he’s really the idle playboy his family claims, will his inaction threaten a reunion with the woman who got away?

  “What do you want, Velez?”

  You. Naked. As soon as possible.

  Matt ran his hand through his hair as he turned to face Emily. “Why are you wearing that ridiculously big ring? Why are you really marrying Morris, Emily? And don’t tell me it’s because you love him.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “BS.”

  When he got out of his head, pushed aside his envy and jealousy—and his need to have her—he still, instinctively, had the feeling her engagement was a sham. “Are you in trouble?” he demanded, his voice rough.

  “No, I’m not in trouble, Velez. And even if I was, why would I confide in you?” Emily asked, tipping her head to the side. “I’m just another girl who threw herself at you, one of the few you didn’t bother to catch.”

  He would never tell her that he’d been so tempted to start something meaningful with her...

  * * *

  Reckless Envy by Joss Wood is part of the Dynasties: Seven Sins series.

  Joss Wood

  Reckless Envy

  Dear Reader,

  I am so thrilled to be part of this dynamic series with the other brilliant Harlequin Desire authors.

  Emily Arnott’s father lost millions in the Black Crescent debacle, and her mother left them shortly afterward. Her father set about rebuilding his company, and Emily was left to raise herself and her brother.

  Emily now works with her dad and is considered a Falling Brook “good girl,” someone who doesn’t put a foot out of line. Well, she tried a decade ago but bad boy Matt Velez refused her New Year’s Eve advances. They’ve avoided each other ever since.

  But life is about to get complicated for both Matt and Emily: Matt is interviewing for the position of Black Crescent CEO and Emily is being blackmailed into marriage...

  Matt knows that there is something very wrong with Emily’s engagement, and he’s determined to stop it, initially because he will do anything to thwart his archenemy, Emily’s fiancé. And then because he realizes that Emily might, just might, be his forever person...

  They say the course of true love never runs smoothly, but this is one wild ride!

  Happy reading!

  Joss

  Xxx

  Connect with me on Facebook (JossWoodAuthor), Twitter (@JossWoodbooks), BookBub (Joss-Wood) or my website (JossWoodBooks.com).

  Joss Wood loves books and traveling—especially to the wild places of southern Africa and, well, anywhere. She’s a wife, a mom to two teenagers and slave to two cats. After a career in local economic development, she now writes full-time. Joss is a member of Romance Writers of America and Romance Writers of South Africa.

  Books by Joss Wood

  Harlequin Desire

  Murphy International

  One Little Indiscretion

  Temptation at His Door

  Back in His Ex’s Bed

  Love in Boston

  Friendship on Fire

  Hot Christmas Kisses

  The Rival’s Heir

  Second Chance Temptation

  Dynasties: Seven Sins

  Reckless Envy

  Visit her Author Profile page at Harlequin.com, or josswoodbooks.com, for more titles.

  You can also find Joss Wood on Facebook, along with other Harlequin Desire authors, at Facebook.com/harlequindesireauthors!

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Excerpt from One Wild Texas Night by Sara Orwig

  Excerpt from Here to Stay by Adriana Herrera

  Prologue

  Six years ago...

  Emily Arnott tossed a glass of champagne down her throat and scowled at the massive glitter ball hanging from the ceiling of the overly decorated ballroom of the Falling Brook Country Club.

  Three, two, one...

  Happy damn New Year to me.

  Lodged in the corner of the room, Emily blinked back tears and wished she was anywhere but here. It had been Gina’s idea to attend this party at the exclusive country club situated on the outskirts of her hometown of Falling Brook as the club was the gathering place for the wealthy residents of the area.

  Emily’s father had purchased tickets for the much-anticipated ball but, because he hated crowds and people, he’d passed the tickets on to her. As far as Emily could tell, her best friend and college roommate was having a blast. Gina was slow dancing with someone she vaguely recognized, Drew something, and they’d just exchanged a kiss hot enough to strip the expensive paper from the walls of the ballroom.

  Gina was going to score tonight while Emily was...not.

  Emily closed her eyes and banged the back of her head against the wall, feeling heat creeping up her neck and flowing into her cheeks. Unlike Gina, the move she’d made had not resulted in starting the new year off with a bang or even, sadly, with a mild grope or even a kiss.

  No, she’d just been swatted away like an annoying fly.

  Emily felt feminine hands on her shoulders and she opened her eyes as Gina drew her into a hug. “Happy New Year, Em. Isn’t this the most fantastic party?”

  Uh
, that would be a no.

  Emily, not wanting to spoil Gina’s evening, just handed her a pained smile and took a sip from her glass of champagne.

  Gina took one look at her face and grimaced. “What happened?”

  Emily gestured to Gina’s date. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Drew is looking for you.”

  Gina tossed her hair. “He’ll wait,” she stated with all the confidence of an Italian starlet with more curves than an S-bend. “Why are you standing in the corner looking like you just swallowed a bucket of fire ants?”

  As well as being gorgeous, Gina was also persistent. “I swung and struck out,” Emily reluctantly admitted.

  “It happens,” Gina philosophically replied.

  Emily knew that it rarely, if ever, happened to her sexy friend.

  “What happened, honey?” Gina gently asked her.

  Emily sighed and raised her champagne glass. “Aided by a couple of glasses of Dutch courage, I thought I’d have a one-night stand, a little fling.”

  “It’s your twenty-first in a couple of days—it’s allowed. And God knows, you deserve some fun.”

  Gina was the most nonjudgmental person Emily knew and that was only one of the reasons she loved her. “Well, admittedly, I aimed a bit high and made a move on Matt Velez—”

  Gina looked around, a tiny frown between her dramatic dark brows. “Who?”

  Emily glanced around but didn’t spot Falling Brook’s ex–bad boy and MJR Investing’s wunderkind and their youngest-appointed CEO. If she was really lucky, he would’ve left the party and she could stop skulking in the corner. No, she couldn’t spot him and she was glad because every time she laid eyes on the olive-skinned, dark-eyed, square-jawed and ripped-as-hell Antonio Banderas look-alike, her IQ dropped a hundred points.

  With his slightly crooked nose, Matt wasn’t pretty per se. But something about his rough angles-and-planes face and enigmatic dark eyes made her breath hitch and her stomach swirl. She was tired of college boys and Matteo Velez was very much a man, masculine from the top of his wavy dark hair to his big feet, radiating vitality and complete confidence as he moved through the well-dressed, sophisticated and moneyed crowd.

  Every woman in the room, from eighty down, gave him a second, or third, look. Emily knew he just had to crook his finger and any one of them would come running. No wonder he hadn’t reacted when, having found herself standing next to him at the bar, she had asked whether she could buy him a drink.

  Drinks are included in the price of the ticket, honey, he’d told her, sounding disinterested.

  Ah, yeah, right. Um, I’m Em... Emily.

  Matt. He’d taken the hand she’d held out, given it a quick shake and quickly dropped it like she’d had a particularly contagious disease.

  Gina was always telling her to be up-front, that men liked straightforward women, so she’d searched for something to say that fell between God, you’re hot and Please kiss me.

  He’d been about to walk away so Emily had racked her brain for something intelligent, or witty, to say in order to hold his attention.

  Kiss me if I’m wrong, but dinosaurs still exist, right? Emily had mentally slapped her hand against her forehead, not quite able to believe that she’d said something so cheesy. Matt had looked as astonished as she’d felt.

  Are you hitting on me? he’d demanded, cocoa-colored eyes flashing. And not with lust. Annoyance, maybe.

  Um...yeah?

  You’re really bad at it. He’d glanced at the glass of champagne in her hand. Are you drunk?

  Tipsy maybe, Emily had reluctantly admitted. She hadn’t been, not really, but admitting to being drunk was better than saying he was making her feel nervous and very much out of her depth.

  Matt had caught the attention of the barman, ordered a glass of water and shoved it into her hand. Drink this and go home. You’re a guppy in a room full of sharks and you’re going to get eaten up.

  Normally, she would have been halfway across the room by then, but something about Matt had kept her feet glued to the floor. She was striking out but she’d thought she’d give it one last shot. I’m not looking for anything more than a fun way to see in the New Year.

  Matt’s sensual mouth had thinned. Emily, it is Emily, right? When she’d nodded, he’d sighed and stepped back. Apart from being too young for me, you’re drunk.

  Tipsy maybe and I’ll be twenty-one in a few days, Emily had babbled, knowing soil was flying over her shoulder from the ridiculously deep hole she was digging.

  Just like she wasn’t enough for her mother, she wasn’t enough for Matt Velez either. When would she ever learn? And why weren’t her feet taking orders from her brain and walking her away?

  Matt had groaned and dug his fingers into his eye sockets. Why do they let infants into parties like these? He’d dropped his hand and his eyes had slammed into hers. Okay, let me put this another way...you’re most definitely not my type.

  Emily finished telling Gina her story and watched as sympathy replaced horror on Gina’s face. She knew her friend was holding back an enormous wince. “Oh, God, Em, you are so bad at picking up guys.”

  She couldn’t argue with her statement. “Tell me about it. I need lessons—”

  Emily’s words drifted off as she caught a glimpse of Matt Velez slow dancing across the room, his arms around a woman with pale blond hair and wearing a black dress.

  Emily picked up a curl off her breast—yep, still blond—and looked down at her tight-fitting cocktail dress. It hadn’t changed color either; it was still black.

  Not his type, huh? So why was he dancing with someone—his lips against her temple, his hand low on her butt—who looked a lot like her? Emily reached back and placed her hand against the cool wall, looking for something to steady her. There was a close resemblance between her and the woman in Matt’s arms but, yet again, she’d been rejected for some strange reason she couldn’t comprehend.

  Gina gave her a commiserating smile, squeezed her arm and joined Drew on the dance floor. Standing against the wall, Emily glared at Matt’s back and raked her hands through her long hair. She saw the worried look Gina sent her and returned a reassuring smile. She was fine, and even if she wasn’t, there was nothing Gina could do to change the situation.

  Unlike her, Gina grew up with two parents who thought the sun rose and set with her and told her, with great enthusiasm and conviction, that she could be and do anything and that she was loved beyond measure. Emily was a stranger to that sort of love and support: her dad, she supposed, loved her but lived, mostly, in his own world, and her mom bailed on her marriage and motherhood when Emily was fourteen. Few people understood, Gina included, that when the person who is supposed to love and care for you the most in this world leaves you—by choice—it’s difficult to believe anyone and everyone who becomes important to you will not do the same.

  Despite being on intimate terms with that truth, Emily’d spent the past seven years chasing validation and acceptance, her need for connection greater than her fear of being rejected. Despite knowing it would never happen, she was still waiting for her mom to reach out and acknowledge her, for her dad to step out of his solitary world and recognize that she needed him to be, well, her dad.

  Three years into college and she still looked for praise from her professors, threw herself at any boy who gave her the littlest bit of attention, and she was overly invested and frequently clingy in her relationships with her girlfriends.

  She was, Emily ruefully admitted, a basket case.

  And worse than that, she was humiliating herself and she was done. It was time to stop looking for the good opinion and validation of others. As the old year rolled into the new, Emily vowed to become as emotionally independent as possible.

  She wasn’t going to seek validation and acceptance anymore, and from this moment on, her opinion was the only one that counted. Fr
om now on she intended to live her life carefully, thoughtfully, being fully on guard for the possibility of being rejected and abandoned again.

  New year, new Emily. It was time for her to grow up.

  And, by the way, screw you, Matt Velez.

  * * *

  The woman in his arms—God, he couldn’t remember her name—was a poor substitute for whom he really wanted to be his dance partner. Her hair, falling over his hand resting between her shoulder blades, was coarse from repeated highlighting, and her scent was spicy and heavy, clogging his nose and throat.

  Matt Velez looked over her shoulder to the corner of the room where Emily stood with her back against the wall, and he wished she was in his arms, her slim, toned body pressed up against his, her scent light and fresh, hair soft.

  When he’d turned at her softly spoken offer to buy him a drink and looked into her eyes—a deep, dark blue just a shade off violet—his normally unexcitable heart jumped into his throat. With her high cheekbones and creamy skin, she looked like the poster child for Christmas angels, innocent and pure.

  Everything Matt wasn’t.

  He’d almost said yes to her offer, had been on the point of dragging her out of the room and bundling her into his car when he remembered that she was too young, too innocent, too...

  Too desirable. Far too desirable.

  Matt didn’t mess with innocents, and even if Emily didn’t have a reputation for being Falling Brook’s golden girl, any fool could see that she was as wide-eyed and innocent as they came. She was sweet and soft and ridiculously naive and he was pretty sure she’d never had sex before, never mind a one-night stand.

  Matt had never been innocent, had more street smarts at ten than she did now and was an expert at one-night stands, brief affairs and flings.

  He used to be Falling Brook’s bad boy, their best-known rebel, once hated but now feted because he was the CEO of MJR Investing in nearby Manhattan. It always amused Matt that his handful of Falling Brook clients, born with silver spoons in their mouths, blithely pretended he’d never egged their or their friends’ houses, taken their expensive cars on unauthorized joyrides and spent hours steaming up said cars with their indulged and pretty daughters.