USA Today Bestselling Author Lauren Smith is an Oklahoma attorney by day, author by night who pens adventurous and edgy romance stories by the light of her smart phone flashlight app. She’s won multiple awards in several romance subgenres including: New England Reader’s Choice Awards, Greater Detroit BookSeller’s Best Awards, and a Semi-Finalist award for the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award. She was a 2018 RITA ® Finalist in the Romance Writers of America Contest. To connect with Lauren, visit her at www.laurensmithbooks.com

Haunted, schmaunted. 
Bastian, infamous playboy and the current Earl of Weymouth doesn’t believe his English castle is haunted. So what if a few windows and lightbulbs shatter? That happens. OK, bleeding portraits are hard to explain…  But he is not going to be deterred. Not even by Jane, a seductive-as-sin grad student who has assigned herself the task of ghost hunting at Stormclyffe Hall. All Bastian wants is to restore his ancestral home, not be distracted by her curvy hips, bedroom eyes and gorgeous smile—
 
Fine, maybe he does want to get naked with Ms. GhostBuster, but that’s only because she practically follows him around, nosing into his daily life. And yes, because she looks so damnably sexy, however, he refuses to give into lust.  No matter how much she tempts him.
But when the ghosts up the ante and try to kill them, Bastian realizes he will have to keep Jane close. Very, very close. Purely to protect her, of course.
 
At least that’s what he tells himself. All bets—and some clothes—are off, as he shows her what a real earl is made of.


The Shadows of Stormclyffe Hall

Jane couldn't sleep. Instead she sprawled on the bed, her laptop up and running as she researched ghosts. There were thousands of sites dedicated to hauntings and paranormal activity. Several spiritualists suggested that ghosts who suffered tragic events would repeat the event over and over again, like a broken record. Supposedly, if someone could get the spirit to break the cycle, then the spirit would be able to move on.


She stared into the distance, thinking back to when she had seen Isabelle on the cliffs and how she had been pulled off the ledge by thorny, black roots. The gardener had mentioned that she haunted the cliffs and been seen there many times. Maybe she reenacted her death over and over again, and this was the cycle Jane needed to break.


Chapter 29