Romantic Secrets #10

When Ann Hubbard's car breaks down at a remote desert motel, she meets the proprietor's son, Jack Crandel, and the two fall swiftly in love—but Ann dreams of a life in the city while Jack feels bound by duty to his aging father. Determined to have Jack all to herself, Ann sets out to manipulate the situation, sowing discord between father and son to free him from the desert. As her schemes begin to take hold, Ann must grapple with the consequences of her ruthless pursuit of happiness at any cost.

Linda's aloofness and intellectual pride make her determined to prove that a charismatic new English professor, John Barton, doesn't deserve the admiration of her classmates—until she discovers he's also a novelist whose manuscript her father's publishing company wants to acquire. As she takes charge of editing his work, Linda finds herself caught between the desire for revenge and feelings she can't quite control, learning a hard lesson about the armor she's built around her heart.

A smooth-talking Army intelligence officer stations himself in postwar Germany treating romance like a game—until he spots a haunting, sorrowful young woman named Ericka Kovac working at a war orphanage. Determined to prove his friends wrong when she rebuffs him, Joe pursues her with calculated charm, only to discover that his usual tactics may not work on someone carrying the weight of real loss. As the line between his performance and genuine feeling begins to blur, Joe finds himself caught between the man he's always been and what Ericka might inspire him to become.