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

Tears spilled down her cheeks, drying in salty tracks. Jane scrubbed at them with her sleeve, her throat constricting as she tried not to cry. 


Damn the man! She was completely embarrassed by her reaction to him and how she had just run away like a coward.


It felt too good to be true, to be in his arms, music enveloping her soul, binding her to the handsome Earl of Weymouth. She couldn't be falling in love with him. She had promised herself she wouldn't let this infatuation become anything deeper. After Tim, she hadn't wanted another man to have that power over her, the power to destroy her heart. What a fool she was. She should have known her heart would be the one thing she wouldn't be able to control. 


She passed by the red drawing room and froze. A creeping chill slithered up her body from her toes to her head. Like how she'd felt in the library before she'd lost control and walked to the tower to throw herself over. 


Chapter 31