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

His throat tightened as he recalled his mother's change after his father never returned from Stormclyffe. How she used to sit in a large, overstuffed chair by the window in their house outside London, her cheek resting on the sun-bleached fabric as her forlorn stare swept the garden outside the window. His mother seemed so far away, as though she'd traveled to a distant land and hadn't ever truly returned. She was haunted by losing her husband.


No. She wouldn't go the way his mother had. He wouldn't lose another person to this cursed pile of stones. 


He directed his gaze back to Jane, admiring her. She was so lovely. There was a quiet, yet untamed ferocity in her, driven by her passions and tempered by her determination. People didn't act like she did anymore. They didn't have strength. They didn't fight against their fears to help others. Such a woman was rare.


Chapter 33