For the Love of Nick Read online

  “Nick, I can’t sleep.”

  Danielle—the woman of his dreams, the woman he’d just been thinking about—materialized at his side. He’d imagined her in his bed, her head on his pillow. But the reality of her standing beside him now was far more potent than any fantasy. His eyes swept over her, stopping at the gap of bare skin below the T-shirt she wore.

  “I wanted to thank you again,” she whispered. “Because of you, I can let my guard down.”

  He forced his gaze up, past that bare tantalizing belly. He shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts. She needed his help, not his overactive libido.

  She hesitated, then continued boldly. “I want what we should have had all those years ago.”

  Her words stunned him. Did she mean what he thought she meant?

  She tugged at the light blanket he’d thrown over himself. Her gaze roamed over him, greedily taking in his naked chest. His breath caught at the heat that smoldered between them.

  “I want this night, with you. Make love to me, Nick.”

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the Rhode Island branch of the Cooper family. I'm grateful to the COOPER’S CORNER continuity for letting me live out fantasies that have no place in my reality. Being on the run, for instance. In my life? No, thank you.

  But in For the Love of Nick, it works. Danielle Douglass is on the run from the law, with only her one-hundred-pound puppy and her wits to guide her. Thankfully she runs into one particular sexy memory from her past—Nick Cooper.

  Tall, dark and slightly attitude-ridden, Nick is the answer to her prayers…and her greatest nightmare, because Nick wants to show her what's missing in her life.

  I hope you enjoy this prequel to the continuity series COOPER’S CORNER. Look for my upcoming Duets titles in October—A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember.

  Happy reading!

  Jill Shalvis

  Books by Jill Shalvis

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

  742—WHO’S THE BOSS?

  771—THE BACHELOR’S BED

  804—OUT OF THE BLUE

  822—CHANCE ENCOUNTER

  845—AFTERSHOCK

  861—A PRINCE OF A GUY

  878—HER PERFECT STRANGER

  HARLEQUIN DUETS

  28—NEW AND…IMPROVED?

  42—KISS ME, KATIE!

  —HUG ME, HOLLY!

  57—BLIND DATE DISASTERS

  —EAT YOUR HEART OUT

  SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS

  887—HIDING OUT AT CIRCLE C

  905—LONG-LOST MOM

  941—THE RANCHER’S SURRENDER

  1019—THE DETECTIVE’S UNDOING

  Jill Shalvis

  FOR THE LOVE OF NICK

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Prologue

  AS IF SHE HADN’T just broken the law, Danielle made a full stop at the red light before getting on the highway heading back toward Providence. “Well.” She glanced at her passenger. “It’s official, you know. We’re on the run. Outlaws.”

  Sadie didn’t answer; she was too busy enjoying the breeze from the open window.

  “At least the car isn’t stolen,” Danielle said. “But we have to have it back to Emma tomorrow.” She let out a laugh that sounded slightly more hysterical than humorous, and checked the rearview mirror for flashing lights. “I wonder if they’ll let us share a prison cell.”

  Sadie pulled her humongous head back inside and craned her thick neck toward Danielle. Her tongue hung out as she panted her hopeful agreement.

  Danielle sighed at her best friend and loyal one-year-old bullmastiff, a dog she’d raised with her boyfriend.

  Ex-boyfriend.

  Ex-psychotic-boyfriend.

  Luckily Sadie wasn’t psychotic. Just unsure of men.

  That made two of them.

  Danielle checked her rearview mirror again, grateful to see nothing but light traffic and the bright colors of spring in the Rhode Island countryside.

  Apparently, she’d truly gotten away with it. Stealing Sadie back. She had simply pulled up to Ted’s house—where he’d had Sadie staked on the lawn in the sun without water—and released the grateful dog, who’d been nearly beside herself at the sight of Danielle. “I wish you could talk,” she said, checking her rear mirror yet again. “Or hug. I could really use a hug.”

  Sadie stopped panting and looked at Danielle with her heart in her eyes. As if Danielle was her hero.

  “Stop that.” She glared out the windshield. “I’m not a hero.” Her gut twisted. If she had been, she’d have been smart enough to see this coming. Strong enough to protect Sadie.

  She’d almost been too late. As it was the poor dog had been underfed in the time Ted had kept them separated. And given the heart-wrenching way Sadie was hanging on Danielle’s every movement, she’d been neglected entirely. It was a crime, as Sadie was just a baby, really, albeit a one-hundred-fifty-pound one.

  Okay, more like a brick of brawn than a baby, with a broad, well-padded head set on a thirty-four-inch neck sturdy as oak. But she was adorable, and she was Danielle’s. Well, half, anyway.

  She had no idea how she could even put a roof over their heads, now that Ted had changed the locks on the house, stolen her car and emptied her checking account.

  The police hadn’t had time for the case. First of all, the house was Ted’s, leaving her with little legal recourse. Second, Ted had bought her the car he’d taken back.

  The money though, that had been all hers, hard earned from her job as a professional dog handler. Not that she had legal recourse there, either, as she’d actually given Ted the PIN number for her bank card.

  Danielle could handle her stupidity in letting herself get ripped off, but living with the fact she’d nearly lost Sadie to a man who could, and would, hurt her had been untenable.

  Sadie, restricted by the seat belt across her body, leaned on Danielle. Hard. Her hug.

  The lump in Danielle’s throat was more from lingering stress than anything, but comfort was comfort. “Thank you,” she said, smiling when Sadie licked her from chin to cheekbone.

  But even the superfluous slobber of a lovable bullmastiff couldn’t mask the facts. She was truly on the run. She, a woman who followed the rules and was honest to a T, reduced to common criminal status with nothing more than approximately forty-nine dollars in her backpack, her laptop and a tank of gas in the car she’d borrowed from her friend Emma. “But I couldn’t have done anything different,” she murmured to Sadie. Not when Ted’s sudden and terrifying temper against the dog had become so clear.

  How had she been so blind for so long?

  But she knew the answer to that. Ted had been wealthy, intelligent, gorgeous…and interested in her, Danielle Douglass, a nobody from the wrong side of the tracks, with no father and a distant-hearted mother who’d had little to give her daughter.

  In comparison, Ted had paid attention to her, he’d made her his world.

  God, that hurt, that she’d been shallow enough to fall for a few good lines and a pretty smile. Only the smile hadn’t lasted, as Ted gradually had reeled her in, absorbing her life into his, leaving her uncertain, unbalanced, and more alone than she’d ever been, despite the fact she’d been alone a lot.

  His rage against Sadie had been the last straw.