Dragon's Heart

by Patrice Michelle

Necessity demands some sacrifices. Sydney Johnson is living a double life. No, make that a triple life. The demand for answers forces the ex-policewoman/Private Investigator to seek a job undercover at Virtual Lexigen, a software design company. She hopes to find the link between the exorbitant amount of money Lexigen offered her brother for his computer gaming code and his suspicious death. In an effort to learn the computer gaming business from the players' perspective, Sydney goes online as 'Skylar' and meets 'Kered', a generous gamer who offers to teach her to play Lexigen's top rated video game, Dragon's Heart. Online camaraderie between Skylar and Kered starts to get hot. When Kered asks to meet her, Sydney refuses, knowing her double life, as Sydney Jones, Virtual Lexigen's Assistant Art Director, won't allow her the freedom she needs in a face-to-face relationship. But the heart has demands of its own. Jake Trask has his own agenda for working at Lexigen. He needs to know why the owners of Lexigen won't take "no" for an answer when it comes to a computer code he helped write years ago. Working undercover as Jake Taylor, he needs all his wits about him to get close to the company owners. Going online as Kered, Jake discovers the hot and talented Skylar, a woman with as many layers as he himself has. And now, Jake can't believe the irony when he discovers Lexigen's sexy new employee, Sydney Jones, is really his cyber Skylar-the woman who made him believe in relationships again. He goes after Sydney full-throttle, but as Jake Taylor, VP of Marketing for Virtual Lexigen, not Kered. He wants Sydney more than he imagined possible, almost as much as his quest for answers.

ebook

First published March 25, 2004

About the author

Born and raised in the Southeast, award-winning author Patrice Michelle gave up her financial calculator for a keyboard and never looked back. Thanks to an open-minded family who taught her that life isn't as black and white as we're conditioned to believe, she pens her novels with the belief that various shades of gray are a lot more interesting. She's a natural with a point-and-shoot camera, likes to fiddle with graphic design and, to the relief of her family, strums her guitar to an audience of one.

Well, that's the condensed, back-of-the-book bio about moi, anyway. :o)

As for becoming a writer...I wasn't one of those writers scribbling stories as soon as I could write, but I was a voracious reader. At the age of fifteen, I told my mom after I'd finished reading a book, "One day, I want to be the one who writes the kind of books readers think about long after they've closed it."

As Patrice Michelle, I write dark, sexy, action-packed paranormal and contemporary romances.

As P.T. Michelle, I write dark paranormal YA books. My first P.T. Michelle book is coming in July: BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS.