(The Painted Sisters, #0, The Velvet Basement, #3)
A WOMAN WHOSE HEART WAS AS FIERCE AS IT WAS FRAGILE….. AND THE MAN WHO BOUGHT HER TO WIN IT.

The enigmatic Hurley Twins were selling her...and Miss Elspeth James had no choice but to accept. As governess to the Canvases, she prepared the girls to be sold as living art, prepared them to become legendary Painted Sisters to some of the world’s most influential and powerful men, The Collectors. She would have walkout out, left the Hurley twins, her beloved charges and the ridiculous proposal but the girls were in serious danger. There were whispers a diabolical outlawed sect, a Skinner...of secret bidding, astronomical prices for the beautiful tattooed skin minus the girl. If she accepted the deal to become his Painted Sister, the arrogant, cold and infuriatingly handsome Mr. Blackburn, she could do something to protect the girls, to protect her friends. That, was worth doing the unimaginable for. That was worth fighting the way he made her body feel even as he hated him.

Mr Blackburn, a rudely wealthy self-made man, had connections at every level of society and he wanted more. Having a Painted Sister would rise him higher in the elite world of ‘The Collectors’, men who like him operated over and above the rules of society. Yet on meeting Miss James…. he wanted more. He pushed her to sign over her virtue as well as become his Painted Sister, pushed her to override her distaste for him and taste what passion felt like.
The trouble was... she made him hunger for something he’d never wanted and never believed in … Could she love him? Would she ever reach out and touch him with the same need that thumped through his veins every moment of every day since the first time they met?

THE HEART DOESN’T RESPOND TO THE MIND AS A MASTER TO A SERVANT, IT WALKS ITS OWN PATH….IT DEMANDS EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING A PERSON IS AND EVERYTHING THEY THOUGHT THEY’D LEFT BEHIND.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a Beauty and the Beast story which happens to be my favorite fairytale. Being an incurable romantic I believe that the heart recognizes what the spirit needs and finds the love that will heal and enrich us. In The Painted Heart, Blackburn can't help himself but bite at Elspeth, showing her that he is totally unlovable; and at the same time pursues her ruthlessly, closing every possible exit she has to leave him. I worried that you might to love him because of his bites... I hope you do.