Dani Collins's Blog, page 60

#SampleSunday – More Than A Convenient Marriage?

I just discovered this book will be released as part of a Summer Blockbuster collection in Australia. I hadn’t seen my Mills & Boon Sexy cover yet, but once I caught a glimpse of it, I had to share. See bottom left below.

Ready to place an order for that guy? Me too. Whew!

If you’d like to get to know him first, here are the links to previous excerpts from More Than A Convenient Marriage?:

Gideon thinks Adara is cheating
Adara thinks Gideon is cheating
Adara thinks about divorce
Gideon thinks about Adara

I just sent in my line edits for the third book in this series, An Heir To Bind Them, which is scheduled for June 2014. If you haven’t read the first in this series, and you like to read series books in order, you’ll want to pick up No Longer Forbidden?

On to the excerpt. When we last left Gideon and Adara, they’d met in the patio restaurant in the Greek hotel where she’s staying while trying to find her brother. Gideon still thinks she’s here to cheat with another man.

~ * ~

“The rooms aren’t ready,” he told her.

“So they’ve just informed me again.” Adara’s mouth firmed to a resistant angle, but she moved forward. If there was one thing he could say about her, it was that she wasn’t a coward. She met confrontation with a quiet dignity that disconcerted him every time, somehow making him feel like an executioner of an innocent even though he’d never so much as raised his voice at her.

She’d never given him reason to. Until today.

With the collected poise he found both admirable and frustrating, she set her pocketbook to the side and lowered herself gracefully into the chair he held. He had learned early that passionate women were scene-makers and he didn’t care to draw attention to himself. Adara had been a wallflower with a ton of potential, blooming with subtle brilliance as they had made their mark on the social scene in New York, London, and Athens, always keeping things understated.

Which meant she didn’t wear short-shorts or low-cut tops, but the way her denim cut-offs clung all the way down her toned thighs and the way the crisp cotton of her loose shirt angled over the thrust of her firm breasts was erotic in its own way.

Unwanted male hunger paced with purpose inside him. How could he still want her? He was furious with her.

Without removing her sunglasses or even looking at him as he took his seat, she opened the menu he’d been given. She didn’t put it down until the server arrived, then ordered a souvlaki with salad and a glass of the house white.

“The same,” Gideon said dismissively.

“You won’t speak Greek even to a native in his own country?” Adara murmured in an askance tone as the man walked away.

“Did I use English? I didn’t notice,” Gideon lied and sensed her gaze staying on him even though she didn’t challenge his assertion. Another thing he could count on with his wife: she never pushed for answers he wouldn’t give.

Nevertheless, he found himself waiting for her to speak, willing her almost, which wasn’t like him. He liked their quiet meals that didn’t beleaguer him with small talk.

He wasn’t waiting for, How’s the weather, however. He wanted answers.

Her attention lifted to the greenery forming the canopy above them, providing shade against the persistent sun. Blue pots of pink flowers and feathery palms offered a privacy barrier between their table and the empty one next to them. A colorful mosaic on the exterior wall of the restaurant held her attention for a very long time.

He realized she didn’t intend to speak at all.

“Adara,” he said with quiet warning.

“Yes?” Her voice was steady and thick with calm reason, but he could see her pulse racing in her throat.

She wasn’t comfortable and that was a much needed satisfaction for him since he was having a hard time keeping his balance. Maybe the comfortable routine of their marriage had grown a bit stale for both of them, but that didn’t mean you threw it away and ran off to meet another man. None of this gelled with the woman he’d always seen as ethical, cool-headed, and highly averse to risk.

“Tell me why,” he ground out, resenting the instability of this storm she’d thrown him into and the fact he wasn’t weathering it up to his usual standard.

Her mouth pursed in distaste. “From the outset I made it clear that I would rather be divorced than put up with infidelity.”

“And yet you snuck away to have an affair,” he charged, angry because he’d been blindsided.

“That’s not—” A convulsive flinch contracted her features, half hidden by her bug-eyed glasses, but the flash of great pain was unmistakable before she smoothed her expression and tone, appearing unaffected in a familiar way that he suddenly realized was completely fake.

His fury shorted out into confusion. What else did she hide behind that serene expression of hers?

“I’m not having an affair,” she said without inflection.

“No?” Gideon pressed, sitting forward, more disturbed by his stunning insight and her revelation of deep emotion than by her claim. Her anguish lifted a host of unexpected feelings in him. It roused an immediate masculine need in him to shield and protect. Something like concern or threat roiled in him, but not combat ready threat. Something he wasn’t sure how to interpret. Adara was like him, unaffected by life. If something was piercing her shell, it had to be bad and that filled him with apprehensive tension.

“Who did you come to see then?” he prodded, unconsciously bracing.

A slight hesitation, then, with her chin still tucked into her neck, she admitted, “My brother.”

His tension bled away in a drain of caustic disappointment. As he fell back in his chair, he laced his Greek endearment with sarcasm. “Nice try, matia mou. Your brothers don’t earn enough to build a castle like the one we saw today.”

Her head came up and her shoulders went back. With the no nonsense civility he so valued in her, she removed her sunglasses, folded the arms and set them beside her pocket book before looking him in the eye.

The golden brown irises were practically a stranger’s, he realized with a kick of unease. When was the last time she’d looked right at him, he wondered distantly, while at the same time feeling the tightening inside him that drew on the eye contact as a sexual signal. Like the rest of her, her eyes were understated, yet surprisingly attractive when a man took the time to notice. Almond-shaped. Clear. Flecked with sparks of heat.

“I’m referring to my older brother.”

Her words left a discordant ring in his ears, dragging him from the dangerous precipice of falling into her eyes.

The server brought their wine. Gideon kept his attention fully focused on Adara’s composed expression and contentiously set chin.

“You’re the eldest,” he stated.

She only lifted her wine to sip while a hollow shadow drifted behind her gaze, giving him a thump of uncertainty even though he knew she only had two brothers, both younger than her twenty-eight. One was an anti-social accountant who traveled the circuit of their father’s hotel chain auditing ledgers, the other a hellion with a taste for big engines and fast women, chasing skirt the way their father had.

Given her father’s peccadilloes, he shouldn’t be surprised a half-sibling had turned up, but older? It didn’t make sense and he wasn’t ready to let go of his suspicions about an affair.

“How did you find out about him? Was there something in the estate papers after your father passed?”

“I’ve always known about him.” She set aside her wine with a frown of distaste. “I think that’s off.”

“Always?” Gideon repeated. “You’ve never mentioned him.”

“We don’t talk, do we?” Golden orbs came back, charged with electric energy that made him jolt as though she’d touched a cattle prod to his internal organs.

No. They didn’t talk. He preferred it that way.

~ * ~

Ready to read the whole thing? Order links are here:

Amazon: US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan

Nook | Kobo | eHarlequin | Mills & Boon Aus | Mills & Boon UK | ARe | BooksaMillion

If you want to hear more about my writing and upcoming books, listen to my interview from Oct 17th with Bernadette Walsh at Nice Girls Reading Naughty Books.

 

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December Book Available in UK!

More Than A Convenient Marriage went live on the Mills & Boon UK site today. Check it out here.

In other news, I’m wrestling the final eight pages–which will likely turn into sixteen– of a Presents/Modern due to be turned in on Friday.

Therefore, no more stalking myself on the interweb. Time to get back to work!

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#SampleSunday – No Longer Forbidden

It occurred to me today that my North American readers might also be interested in the book that accompanies More Than A Convenient Marriage? when it comes out in December.

Is it too cruel to switch up the story lines? Did you come here in search of the next excerpt in Adara and Gideon’s crumbling marriage?

Well, as I’ve mentioned before, Adara is in Greece to look for her brother, Nic. He’s the hero of No Longer Forbidden? This was my First Sale book and came out in the UK and Australia in January. I am sooo thrilled they’ve been paired up here in Canada and the US. Nic is your average tortured alpha billionaire (i.e. #PresentsHero) He really, really deserves a family and Rowan is determined to give him one.

I only put up two #SampleSundays for No Longer Forbidden? and one of them is a scene I wrote as a bonus scene when the book was released. You can read The Kiss That Change Everything here.

This sets up why Nic thinks Rowan is such a terribly spoiled brat. That kiss had consequences that leave him pretty hostile, as you’ll start to see from the excerpt below:

~ * ~

Nicodemus Marcussen rose to shake hands with his lawyer, muscles aching with tension as he kept his reaction to all they’d discussed very much to himself.

“I know this is a difficult topic,” his lawyer tried.

Nic shook off the empathy with a cool blink and a private, No you don’t. Nic trusted Sebastyen, but only within the framework of the media conglomerate Nic had fought to run after Olief Marcussen’s disappearance. Sebastyen had been one of Nic’s first supporters, believing in Nic’s leadership skills despite his inexperience. Nic was grateful, but they weren’t friends. Nic eschewed close relationships of every kind.

“I appreciate your advice,” Nic said with aloof sincerity. Everything Sebastyen had presented was the height of practicality, outweighing any sentiment that might have held Nic back. “It’s definitely time to consider it as the anniversary approaches. I’ll let you know how I’d like to proceed,” he concluded in dismissal.

Sebastyen hovered, appearing to want to add something, but Nic glanced at his watch. His days were busy enough without social chit-chat.

“I only wanted to reiterate, it would be helpful if both next of kin agreed,” Sebastyen blurted.

“I understand,” Nic drawled, keeping the patronizing tone muted but heard. It was enough of a butt-out to have the lawyer nodding apologetically and making haste to leave.

Nic was quite sure the entire corporation along with the rest of the world followed the escapades of the other next of kin, but he wouldn’t abide open speculation about how he’d gain her cooperation.

The fact was, he already had an idea how he’d accomplish it. He’d been putting things together in his mind even as Sebastyen had been stating his case.

As Sebastyen closed the office door, Nic went back to his desk and the courier envelope he’d received this morning. Bills of every description came out by the handful, their disarray as fluttery and frivolous as the woman who’d racked them up. The forget-me-not notepaper was a particularly incongruous touch. He reread the swooping script:

Nic,

My bank cards aren’t working. Kindly sort it out and send the new ones to Rosedale. I’m moving in this weekend for some downtime.

Ro.

His initial reaction had been Downtime from what?! But for once Rowan’s self-serving behavior was a convenience to him. Since she hadn’t got the message when he’d stopped her credit cards two months ago, he’d confront her and do what Olief should have done years ago. Make her grow up and act responsibly for a change.

~ * ~

You can read a longer excerpt from Chapter Five here. They’re making progress on learning to communicate and it’s getting flirty.

If you’ve missed the More Than A Convenient Marriage? posts, they’re here:

Gideon thinks Adara is cheating
Adara thinks Gideon is cheating
Adara thinks about divorce
Gideon thinks about Adara

Which book would you like me to post from next week?

Ready to read the whole thing? Preorder links are here:

Amazon: US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan

Nook | Kobo | eHarlequin | Mills & Boon Aus | Mills & Boon UK | ARe | BooksaMillion

An Heir To Bind Them, Book Three in this series has been accepted and will come out mid 2014. If you want to hear more about my writing and upcoming books, listen to my interview from Oct 17th with Bernadette Walsh at Nice Girls  Reading Naughty Books.

 

 

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Thursday Thirteen – Travel Must Haves

A few weeks ago I was sent out of town by my day job on short notice. I’m pretty good at packing in a hurry. Some years ago we had a family situation that sent us driving eight hours back to our home town–I’m not kidding–seventeen times in thirteen months.

So, if you only have enough time before to print this list and pack what’s on it, you should be in good shape for your impromptu trip. I am taking for granted you will pack enough underwear and socks for the number of days you plan to be away, plus one dress up outfit with a decent pair of shoes.

Remember to also take:

Bathing suit – Number one because it’s the most often forgotten item by at least one family member per trip.
Workout gear – I know, this doesn’t sound like vacation to some of you, but I’ve come to love working out as part of my downtime when I’m not squeezing it in around the rest of my busy life.
Feminine protection, birth control or other necessary equipment for the privates.
Razor.
Spare glasses or contacts and contact lens solutions/eye drops.
Medication.
Identification and other important papers like a marriage certificate or proof your ex knows you’re transporting your child across a border
Camera.
Chargers. Good luck keeping them from becoming a tangled mess of fishing tackle.
Snacks – Particularly important for diabetics, but always helpful if you have children or, like me, act like a child when your blood sugar dips.
Credit card and cash.
Tickets and Itinerary, address and phone number of where you’re going.
Phone number for whoever is watching your house, feeding your cat. Remember to ask someone to feed the cat.

With any luck, next week I’ll post the last 13 words of my WIP. I’m sooo close to The End.

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#SampleSunday – More Than A Convenient Marriage

Apologies to those who received the duplicate ‘test’ notifications from my website. My blog was having conniption fits each time I posted something new. My website peeps at The Seed had to perform some tests after they fixed it, but I thank them for their prompt and efficient service. They are made of awesome.

On to #SampleSunday and More Than A Convenient Marriage? I’m so excited! My author copies arrived yesterday. This means I can fulfill my giveaway commitments on Goodreads and LibraryThing (you have to scroll down to it). I also draw for a signed copy from my newsletter list. Subscribe here.

If you’ve missed the previous #SampleSunday posts from this book, they’re here:

The previous posts are here:

Gideon thinks Adara is cheating
Adara thinks Gideon is cheating
Adara thinks about divorce

Here, Gideon thinks about her:

~ * ~

After discovering his room wasn’t ready, Gideon went to the patio restaurant attached to the hotel and ordered a beer. He took care of one piece of pressing business on his mobile before he sat back and brooded on what had happened with Adara.

He had never cheated on her.

But for the last year he had spent more time with his PA than his wife.

Adara had known this would be a brutal year though. They both had. Several large projects were coming on line at once. He ought to be in Valparaiso right now, opening his new terminal there. It was the ticking off of another item on their Five Year Plan, something they had mapped out in the first months of their marriage. That plan was pulling them in different directions, her father’s death last year and her mother’s sinking health not helping. They were rarely in the same room let alone the same bed, so to be fair it wasn’t strictly her fault they weren’t tearing up the sheets.

And there had been Lexi, guarding his time so carefully and keeping him on schedule, mentioning that her latest relationship had fallen apart because she was traveling so much, offering with artless innocence to stay in his suite with him so she could be available at any hour.

She had been offering all right, and perhaps he hadn’t outright encouraged or accepted, but he was guilty of keeping his options open. Abstinence, or more specifically, Adara’s avoidance of wholehearted lovemaking, had made him restless and dissatisfied. He’d begun thinking Adara wouldn’t care if he had an affair. She was getting everything she wanted from this marriage: her position as CEO of her father’s hotel chain, a husband who kept all the dates she put in his calendar. The penthouse in Manhattan and by the end of the year, a newly built mansion in the Hamptons.

While he’d ceased getting the primary thing he wanted out of their marriage: her.

So he had looked at his alternatives. The fact was though, as easy as Lexi would be, as physically attractive as she was, he wasn’t interested in her. She was too much of an opportunist. She’d obviously read into his ‘I’ll think about it’ response enough to imagine she had a claim on him.

That couldn’t be what had precipitated Adara running here to Greece and another man, though. The Valparaiso arrangements had only been finalized recently. Adara wasn’t that impulsive. She would have been thinking about this for a long time before taking action.

His inner core burned. A scrapper in his youth, Gideon had found other ways to channel his aggression when he’d reinvented himself as a cool-headed executive, but the basic street-life survival skill of fighting to keep what was his had never left him. Every territorial instinct he possessed was aroused by her deceit and the threat it represented to all he’d gained.

The sound of a checked footstep and a barely audible gasp lifted his gaze. He took a hit of sexual energy like he’d swallowed two hundred proof whiskey while Adara lost a few shades of color behind her sunglasses. Because she could read the barely contained fury in him? Or because she was still feeling guilty at being caught out?

She gathered herself to flee, but before she could pivot away, he rose with a menacing scrape of his chair leg on the paving stones. Drawing out the chair off the corner of his table, he kept a steady gaze on her to indicate he would come after her if she chose to run. He wanted to know everything about the man who thought he could steal from him.

So he could quietly destroy him.

~ * ~

Alpha, alpha, alpha, right? If you’re ready to read the rest, preorder here:

Amazon: US | Canada | UK | India |

Nook | Kobo | eHarlequin | Mills & Boon Aus | Mills & Boon UK

An Heir To Bind Them, Book Three in this series has been accepted and will come out mid 2014. If you want to hear more about my writing and upcoming books, listen to my interview from Oct 17th with Bernadette Walsh at Nice Girls  Reading Naughty Books.

The post #SampleSunday – More Than A Convenient Marriage appeared first on Dani Collins.

The Healer!

Finalist in the 2014 Epic eBook Awards. Read more about The Healer here.

The post The Healer! appeared first on Dani Collins.

Radio!

My Oct 17th interview with Nice Girls Reading Naughty Books is here.

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Cover Reveal and Bernadette Walsh

I’ve been going flat out at the day job, went to Head Office for two weeks even, and have come back to chaos all around. I have a deadline November 1st–still need to get my 1500 words written tonight–and have been stressing that I not forget I have an interview on Saturday evening with Nice Girls Reading Naughty Books. The timing looked tricky since my mom had invited us for a belated turkey dinner. Canadian thanksgiving was last week.

So, just to be sure we were a go, I emailed Bernadette this evening to confirm we’d be chatting on Saturday and she said, “Um, you mean tonight in eight minutes?”

Eeek!

But the nice thing about such a mix-up is that there was no time to work myself into nerves. It was done before I had time to think about whether it would go well and frankly, she’s so easy to talk to, I feel like it went very well. Have a listen for yourself.

Meanwhile, I’ve been meaning to post the cover for my February book, A Debt Paid In Passion. Did I say it right on the air?

Have a great weekend.

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#SampleSunday – More Than A Convenient Marriage

As usual, I’m all over the map and for once I’ve physically been so as well. I arrived back from Eastern Canada very late last night. Today has been a day of hitting the keyboard hard. Three thousand words later, I’m prepared to move on to other things, like folding laundry, making supper and other glamorous tasks.

I’ll write some posts about my trip soon–thank goodness I came back to a long weekend. That gives me a breather before I’m back at work and going flat out again. In the meanwhile, I wanted to offer up another bite of Adara and Gideon’s troubled marriage.

The previous two posts are here:

Gideon thinks Adara is cheating
Adara thinks Gideon is cheating

Perhaps this mutual suspicion is why RT Book Reviews recently said, “Her couple is the epitome of miscommunication, but watching them finally ‘get’ each other is worth every page.” They also said, “Collins’ latest tearjerker should come with tissues,” and called the love scenes, “jaw-dropping sizzlers.” They gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Here’s the next scene:

~ * ~

The ferry was gone so Adara couldn’t leave the island. She drove through a blur of goat-tracked hills and tree lined boulevards. Expansive olive branches cast rippling shadows across bobbing heads of yellow and purple wildflowers between scrupulously groomed estates and bleached white mansions. When she happened on a lookout, she quickly parked and tried to walk off her trembles.

She’d done it. She’d asked for a divorce.

The word cleaved her in two. She didn’t want her marriage to be over. It wasn’t just the failure it represented. Gideon was her husband. She wasn’t a possessive person. She tried not to get too attached to anything or anyone, but until his affair had come to light, she had believed her claim on him was incontestable. That had meant something to her. She had never been allowed to have anything. Not the job she wanted, not the money in her trust fund, not the family she had briefly had as a child or the one she longed for as an adult.

Gideon was a prize coveted by every woman around her. Being his wife had given her a deep sense of pride, but he’d gone behind her back and even managed to make her writhe with self-blame that it was her fault.

She hadn’t made love with him in weeks. It was true. She’d taken care of his needs, though. When he was home. Did he realize he hadn’t been home for more than one night at a stretch in months?

Pacing between guilt and virtue, she couldn’t escape the position she’d put herself in. Her marriage was over. The marriage she had arranged so her father would stop trying to sell her off to bullies like himself.

Her heart compressed under the weight of remembering how she’d taken such care to ask Gideon for only what seemed reasonable to expect from a marriage: respect and fidelity. That’s all. She hadn’t asked for love. She barely believed in it, not when her mother still loved the man who had abused her and her children, raising his hand often enough Adara flinched just thinking about it.

No, Adara had been as practical and realistic as she could be—strengths she’d honed razor sharp out of necessity. She had found a man whose wealth was on a level with her father’s fortune. She had picked one who exhibited incredible control over his emotions, trying to avoid spending her adult life ducking outbursts and negotiating emotional landmines. She had accommodated Gideon in every way, from the very fair prenup to learning how to please him in bed. She had never asked for romance or signs of affections, not even flowers when she was in hospital recovering from a miscarriage.

Her hand went instinctively to her empty womb. After the first one, she’d tried not to bother him much at all, informing him without involving him, not even telling him about the last one. Her entire being pulsated like an open wound as she recalled the silent weeks of waiting and hoping, then the first stain of blood and the painful, isolated hours that had followed.

While Gideon had been in Barcelona, faithful bitch Lexi at his side.

She had learned nothing from her mother, Adara realized with a spasm in her chest. Being complacent didn’t earn you anything but a cheating husband. Her marriage was over and it left a jagged burn in her like a bolt of lightning was stuck inside her, buzzing and shorting and trying to escape.

A new life awaited though, unfurling like a rolled carpet before her. She made herself look at it, standing tall under the challenge, extending her spine to its fullest. She concentrated on hardening her resolve, staring with determination across the vista of scalloped waves to distant islands formed from granite. That’s what she was now, alone, but strong and rooted.

She’d look for a new home while she was here, she decided. Greece had always been a place where she’d felt hopeful and happy. Her new life started today. Now.

~ * ~

North American readers, you’ll be getting two books in one! Along with More Than A Convenient Marriage? you’ll get No Longer Forbidden?, the first book in this series. These opening scenes take place outside Rosedale, the setting for most of No Longer Forbidden? Adara is here to find its owner, Nic, who is her half-brother.

Pre-order here:

Amazon: US | CAN | UK | Kobo

Also, please look for my contest on Goodreads. Starting Oct 15th, you can enter to win one of three signed copies of this 2in1.

 

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Remembering Danielle

Today should be a Thursday Thirteen post, but October 10th is always a hard day for me as I remember a beautiful young girl who didn’t quite make it to her thirteenth birthday.

I have loads of nice things to share that have happened in my life lately, plenty to be grateful for as we head into this time of thanks, but I will save telling you about them for another time. Today is Danielle’s, because she didn’t get the rest of her life to become a writer like me, the way she wanted to.

Danielle was very close to my daughter in many ways, especially in age. For the last six years, my daughter has hit all the milestones that Danielle should have shared with her and there’s a certain poignancy attached to that. It reminds me to be extra grateful. To cherish everything a teensy bit more.

And lessons. There are many lessons when you lose a loved one.

My last memory of Danielle was of her and my daughter walking toward me on a crisp fall day, two conspirators giggling and angled together as they walked. They hadn’t seen each other in weeks and were so happy to be together. I hurried my daughter along. Dad was waiting.

Don’t hurry, people. Cherish. Count your blessings every day, not just this coming Monday.

Live, because it really is a gift. Enjoy your time with your family and take car this weekend as you travel to see them.

 

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