About the Authors

CLARE CONNELLY was raised in small-town Australia amongst a family of avid readers. She spent much of her childhood up a tree, Mills & Boon book in hand. Clare is married to her own real-life hero and they live in a bungalow near the sea with their two children. She is frequently found staring into space—a sure-fire sign that she’s in the world of her characters. She has a penchant for French food and ice-cold champagne, and Mills & Boons continue to be her favourite ever books. Writing for Mills & Boon is a long-held dream. Clare can be contacted via clareconnelly.com or her Facebook page.

J. MARGOT CRITCH currently lives in St John’s, Newfoundland, with her husband, Brian, and their two little buddies, Simon and Chibs. She spends equal amounts of time writing, listening to Jimmy Buffett’s music and looking out at the ocean—all the while trying to decide if she wants coffee or a margarita.

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author DAIRE ST. DENIS is an adventure-seeker, an ancient history addict, a seasonal hermit and a wine-lover. She calls the Canadian Rockies home, and has the best job ever: writing smoking-hot contemporary romance in which the pages are steeped in sensuality and there’s always a dash of the unexpected. Find out more about Daire and subscribe to her newsletter at dairestdenis.com.

Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel at age eleven (a Mills & Boon story, of course), all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Mills & Boon, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, lisachilds.com, or at her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.

Also by Clare Connelly

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Burn Me Once by Clare Connelly Boardroom Sins by J. Margot Critch Pleasure Games by Daire St. Denis

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

The Dare Collection: May 2018

Burn Me Once

Clare Connelly

Boardroom Sins

J. Margot Critch

Pleasure Games

Daire St. Denis

Legal Attraction

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08417-8

THE DARE COLLECTION: MAY 2018

Burn Me Once © 2018 Clare Connelly Boardroom Sins © 2018 Juanita Margot Critch Pleasure Games © 2018 Dara Lee Snow Legal Attraction © 2018 Lisa Childs

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, 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.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Burn Me Once

Back Cover Text

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Boardroom Sins

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Pleasure Games

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Legal Attraction

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

About the Publisher

Burn Me Once

Clare Connelly

“You. Me. Sex. It’s easy.”

All she has to do is not get hooked...

Ally Douglas has made a deal with Ethan Ash: just sex, no strings, no forever. All she knows about him is that he’s a world-famous rock star and he’s absolutely gorgeous. Their sexual chemistry is instant and magnetic, and this arrangement satisfies their needs. Only now that Ethan has started to break the rules, will Ally be able to stop herself from getting burned?

“DARE is Harlequin’s hottest line yet. Every book should come with a free fan. I dare you to try them!”

—Tiffany Reisz, international bestselling author

For anyone who’s ever fallen hard for a muso.

And for Isaac Hanson, who was my first rockstar crush.

We’ll always have MMMBop.

PROLOGUE

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

—William Blake

SHE HAS GOT to be kidding me.

I stare at the screen one last time, checking that the Tweet actually exists. And there it is. One hundred and forty characters reaching through time and space to slam me hard over the head.

I’m getting married! @_TheRealTomBanks asked and obv I said yes!!! Couldn’t be happier! #soinlove #dreamsdocometrue #happyeverafter

I curl my fingers around my phone, tempted to pitch the damned thing into the street. Only the thought of the personal information I keep stored in it stops me from being so reckless. The press would have a field-day if they found my phone lying in the gutter.

How can she still screw with me even now, three months after we ‘took a break’?

Then again, isn’t this so like Sienna? Sienna who’s had six years of my life. Sienna whom I thought I loved. Sienna who is now engaged to another man.

Fractured memories of our last months together assault me from all angles; they are blades of mirrored glass, shards through my mind, tormenting me every which way, pricking me with exquisite ecstasy.

It was a nightmare.

And yet it was my life.

The nightmare has ended and I don’t know if I remember how to live.

I need a drink. And I need to get Sienna the hell out of my head once and for all. And I can think of a really good way to kill two birds with one stone.

The bar is hardly my usual scene. It’s retro, but in an authentic way, which I guess means the décor hasn’t been updated since the early nineties. There’s peeling linoleum in the corner of the bar, where I prop my arms and hunch down, not wanting to attract attention to myself.

#happyeverafter, my ass.

I order a beer, barely noticing the recognition that flickers across the guy’s face. I’m used to being recognised. So is Sienna. Which makes it even harder to believe she’s been able to keep this relationship secret. Not just from me, but the world.

A frown gravels across my jaw. No, she didn’t keep the whole thing secret. They’re friends. Just friends. She’s told me that a dozen times. And I bought it.

Was she fucking him at the same time she was me? Jesus. Was that why she ended it? She told me she needed space to figure herself out and I bought it. Space? Space?

After six years together she doesn’t even have the fucking decency to give me a heads-up that she’s with someone else?

Nausea rolls in my gut.

I don’t particularly ascribe to the rock and roll lifestyle, but tonight I want to write myself off. I want to get hammered. I want to get drunk. I want to get fall-down pissed.

I need to forget about Sienna somehow.

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