So, what do I have planned for the remainder of 2023?
Seeing as how this year’s been ripe with assassins and mafiosos, I wanted my last planned release of this year to be a fun love story.
Contemporary.
Steamy.
Quirky.
And I adore this cover.
::happy dance::
When what happened in Vegas never actually did…Release Date: TBA
She’d traveled to the other side of the country, to Sin City, and ran into Lucas Saraci.
Yet again.
They ran in similar circles, had similar interests. A huge biological sciences and medicine expo was being held in Las Vegas, so it made perfect sense that they might run into each other. However, something as simple as an unexpected encounter wasn’t the reason this man would eventually bring about the end of Raina Daniels’ life.
It was the lie.
The lie she told herself.
The lie she told nearly everyone.
This man was Hades incarnate, but it wasn’t until she woke up in his arms, in her hotel suite, to him stroking her hair that she finally admitted she secretly aspired to be his Persephone.
“Saraci, please tell me we didn’t.”
He raised his left hand. On his fourth finger sat a silver band with what appeared to be a rose-gold interior, the details on his ring a perfect match to hers.
“We got married,” he said, with none of the panic or anger she would have expected, considering he’d drunk-married her, of all people. “You don’t remember?”
She clutched at her chest. “We got…what?”
“We were both drinking. Honestly, I don’t remember much either.” He lowered his hand to her hip. “But don’t worry. It’s okay. We’ll get it annulled.”
“Are you sure?”
He craned his neck to see her better. “Do you want to stay married to me?”
Yes.
I do.
Very much.
“I…don’t,” she said.
“Then we’ll get an annulment.”
“You really don’t remember anything?”
He shook his head. “I don’t. Do you?”
Of course, she did.
She remembered everything.
She remembered going to the jeweler, buying the rings. She remembered the poker game that led to them standing outside the chapel with its wooden brown exterior and sky-high turret. She remembered, quite clearly, walking into that wooden chapel, down the empty aisle with her hand in his, and then marrying the nemesis of her life—completely sober.
* * * * *
That was another thing he despised about this woman.
Everyone saw him as Lucas Saraci, MD. His backstory, the one he’d created to have equal footing in the circles he now ran in, was that his family immigrated from Bulgaria to Turkey in the mid-fifties when his mother was a child to escape forced assimilation and ethnic cleansing.
Despite the odds, they prevailed.
Eventually, when he was a child, they immigrated to the United States, and as far as anyone was concerned, he came from a family of successful individuals. He had four siblings: another physician, an attorney, an engineer, and his youngest sister was in the Navy. His mother was a retired history professor, and his father was a retired businessman—an “American Dream” success story.
To everyone else, he fit in.
When it came to Raina Daniels, he stumbled into the truth.
She yawned into the back of her hand. “I probably only have a few minutes before makeup and wardrobe storm in here. Are you sure you want to do this now?”
“Did you look up the annulment requirements?” he asked.
“Not yet. I was too busy preparing for, ” she yawned again, “Fashion Week. Have you?”
“No.”
“No? Why not?”
Because he wanted to stay married to her.
Because he wanted her to be his wife.
“Work,” he said.
“Honestly?” She graced him with a tired smile. “I’m still in a state of shock that we did it. I mean, how cliché is that? Getting drunk in Vegas and waking up married.”
It was cliché.
At least, it would have been.
Had he been drunk at the time.
Although they're not entirely new characters, it's definitely a standalone.Author Feature: Tamala C. JonesOne fake wedding, coming right up!
I blame my Southern manners.
I was too polite to call James Marin a liar when our one-night stand was interrupted by his mother. So when he labeled me his fiancée, I went along with it.
What was supposed to be a no-strings-attached stress relief is now a 90-day arrangement to save his inheritance.
The terms of the agreement give me and Bibi the money we need to save our house…so how can I say no?
But now, I’m caught between putting my life on hold, married to this sinfully sexy, grey-eyed rich boy, and trying not to slip into a fantasy that can’t possibly last.
When the unthinkable happens, will old fears send our time together racing toward heartbreak?
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