Temptation
The trill of soft music wafted across the warm San Francisco night. Hundreds of twinkling lights hung from the trees, the balustrades and windows, turning the enormous villa into a fairyland.
Noelle St. James-Maxwell breathed a sigh of contentment. Everything was exquisite. The caterers had laid out a fare fit for royalty. Every imaginable delicacy was there for the taking. She smiled in satisfaction as she regally strolled across the grounds, nodding and waving, greeting the guests, the curious, the envious.
Noelle couldn't call any of them friends, she thought, ruefully, shaking hands with the president of NBC studios. She knew they'd all come to gawk, to pass their comments, stir more rumors and most of all, to see if the young widow of Jordan Maxwell had what it took to run his empire.
They wanted her to fail, she knew, smiling graciously at the arrival of Whitney and her superstar husband. The circle of elite associates that her late husband surrounded himself with were a tight-knit, cliquish group. They turned their noses up at any who were not one of them. Background, education and family trees were more important than personal substance. Noelle couldn't count a friend ... read full excerpt from: Temptation ebook
