Series: Diamond #0.5 - 3
Publication date: August 24th, 2021
Synopsis:
"Five glowing stars! Diamond in the Rough is the dark and dangerous world that I love from Skye Warren. You will be completely caught up in Elijah and Holly's story from the first page to the last." -- New York Times bestselling author Aleatha Romig
A breathless dangerous romance between...
-- An ex-military man who believes he has no honor left, and
-- A reclusive author on a mission to save her sister
This is the complete Diamonds trilogy in one collection.
Kidnapped. Stolen. Taken. I'm thrown into a cell in a French prison. But I'm not alone. There's someone in here with me. Someone more dangerous than the men who brought me here.
"A novel full of intrigue, secrets, lies, and a love that won't be denied, Diamond in the Rough is easily a top read of 2020." -- Celia Aaron, USA Today bestselling author of The Bad Guy
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Excerpt
The dream comes to me before death.
I've seen it before. It comes to soldiers taking their last ragged breaths. They see their mothers kneeling over them in the middle of the godforsaken desert. They see a beloved wife holding their hand. I don't have a mother or a wife. So it makes sense that the angel would come in the form of a stranger.
Except my angel begs me to let her go.
"I have money. And my family, they'll pay a ransom."
I walk through the conversation as if it's a forest, touching the leaves and searching for animals beneath the foliage. She's a puzzle, this angel, but she's mine. I won't give her up to die alone.
Adam comes downstairs. You can last seven minutes.
That's when I know this is no strange dream. There is a woman in the cell with me. Christ. "Don't listen to him," I tell her, my voice low. The words echo off the damp stone walls. "Don't fucking listen to a word he says."
"You don't want water?" Adam asks, taunting.
It's painful how badly I need that goddamn water bottle he's flaunting. But I have no illusions about my injuries. I'm going to die in this old French prison, and the part that pisses me off the most, the only thing that I really regret, is not taking Adam down with me. "He's fucking with you."
"I'll do it," the woman says, her voice brave and wavering at the same damn time.
I try to sit up, to save her, but pain lashes my side. It blinds me. Ludicrous, the idea that I could save anyone in this state. "Don't trust him. God, don't let him--"
Don't let him touch you.
If he kidnapped this woman, he's going to do more than touch her.
There's a squeak as the old metal protests its use.
Shuffling. Movement. The sounds filter through my haze of pain and hunger and the never-ending knife of thirst. They filter through with a bolt of goddamn outrage.
How dare he touch her? She's my angel of death. Mine.
I shake my head against the cold concrete. No, that's the blood loss speaking. She's a real woman. Flesh and blood. And she's going to get hurt.
"Let's bring you into the light," Adam says with his flawless, fake French accent.
It's pitch-fucking-black down here, but somehow he finds a tiny shaft of light. The door is open a crack. Hope surges through me. No matter how unlikely escape, the human spirit won't give up.
The woman cries out as she stumbles over something. Her back hits the bars with a clang. And then I can actually see her face in more than monochrome shadows. The delicate bridge of her nose, the eyes wide with fear. They're blue. Her lips are a full, flawless pout, and my hope rips to shreds.
She's beautiful. Incandescent, even in this hellhole. How will she ever survive?
"There we are," Adam says, sounding very pleased with himself. He's crowding her, one arm holding the bars, the other cupping her jaw. His perfectly tailored suit was made for this moment. It could be the picture of any man flirting with his date after dinner, stealing a kiss outside the restaurant.
Except he didn't date her. He kidnapped her.
Skye Warren is the New York Times bestselling author of dangerous romance. Her books have sold over one million copies. She makes her home in Texas with her loving family, sweet dogs, and evil cat.
