You see the signs everywhere:
Keep Calm. Keep Calm & Carry On. Keep Calm & Eat Chocolate. Keep Calm
& Dance On. My personal favorite? Keep Calm & Call Batman! But I’m a
writer. I can’t keep calm and neither can my characters – because in the
fiction industry, conflict drives the story. This means that my job is to learn
my characters’ goals and fears and create a story in which everything goes
wrong for them. It’s true, it’s a cruel process. My heroes and heroines have
been known to hate me on occasion. But even if I know that my heroes and
heroines deserve a happy-ever-after scenario, the reader wants to see them earn
it. And nothing turns pages like good character-driven conflict. So, no, my
characters normally do not keep calm. In most cases, it’s the opposite. 
My second Harlequin
Superromance novel, Married One Night, is on the shelves now! The heroine, Olivia
Lewis, is a confident, independent woman who isn’t the marrying type. She loves
her single life just as much as she loves being a sole business owner and
living by her own set of rules, particularly when it comes to relationships (or
lack there-of). She appeared as a colorful secondary character in my first
Superomance novel, A Place With Briar (April 2014). In some of her first notes to
me on the book, my editor expressed interest in Olivia’s character and her
story potential. I quite agreed. Olivia is one of those characters who are fun
to write but who also create an intriguing story quandary. Out of all of her
friends, Olivia is without a doubt the matchmaker. However, she’s alone and has
no interest in being set up with a man who’s interested in anything more than
the short-term. Why is that? Once I had the answer, I wondered what kind of man
could change that?
In the beginning of Married
One Night, Olivia finds herself in bed with a stranger after a night
well spent in Las Vegas, Nevada. The stranger in question is charming and
handsome British writer Gerald Leighton. The two later realize that amidst
their wild night in Vegas that they got married. Despite the fact that her
impromptu husband is any woman’s dream, the commitment-phobic Olivia is
all-too-eager to end this arrangement. When Gerald follows her home to the Gulf
Coast to convince her to give their relationship a second chance, however, she’s
resistant because she knows he is exactly the type of man she could fall head
over heels in love with if she’s not careful. Gerald has three weeks to woo
her; Olivia has three weeks to resist…or do her best….
Here’s an exclusive
excerpt from Married One Night just for you, readers! I hope you enjoy….
“I have a wee bit of a suggestion.”
“If it’s not related to annulment or
divorce, you might not be walking out of here in one piece,” Olivia pointed
out, trying to smile. He couldn’t be crazy enough to suggest that they actually
remain married, for heaven’s sake.
Could he?
Gerald made a thoughtful noise in his
throat. “Well…”
Olivia’s smile fled and she looked at
him as if he were crazy. “Okay, now you’re scaring me.”
“Just hear me out,” Gerald advised,
lifting a hand in plea.
“No,” she said and snorted out a
mirthless laugh. “No,” she said again just to get her point across. “I have no
idea who you are. You don’t know anything about me, despite what your publicist
or whoever might have told you. The only thing we have in common is one drunk
night in Las Vegas.”
“How do you know that, love, when, as
you say, we don’t know each other yet?” Gerald challenged.
Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “Because this
is me,” she told him, lifting her arms to encompass the tavern. “And you’re…well,
you’re expensive shirts and tailored suits and spicy aftershave, which I have
no doubt costs more than our sham wedding. We’re clearly from different parts
of the world as a whole. How could you possibly think there’s anything there?”
Gerald’s eyes locked on hers and
sobered once more. “Because of what I felt, the morning after.”
Olivia fell silent. “What you felt?”
“Yes,” he acknowledged with a dip of
his head. “I…” He sighed, shook his head and narrowed his eyes on the windows
next to the table as if trying to see the squall beyond the weeping,
wind-buffered panes. “Well, suffice it to say, I felt more in that one morning
than I’ve ever felt during any one of the lengthy relationships I’ve had
throughout my entire adult life. And I think that’s worth something.”
Olivia’s mouth opened, then closed and
opened again. “It was the drinks, like you said.”
Gerald gave her a baleful stare. “We
both know we were clean and sober the next morning, Olivia. Can you honestly
tell me that night or what was shared between us the following morning meant
nothing to you?”
She chose to ignore the fact that she’d
been thinking of little else since her flight back to Alabama with the girls,
and simply lifted her hands and shoulders in a helpless gesture. “It couldn’t.
There was nothing. It was nothing.”
Gerald studied her carefully for what
seemed like an eternity. Finally, a slow grin crept over the lower half of his
face, warming his eyes. The smile was like a sucker punch to her resolve. And
damned if he didn’t know it, Olivia thought. He took another sip of beer,
leaned back in his chair and hooked one loafer-clad ankle over the opposite
knee. “I’d like you to prove that.”
“What?”
“A wager, if you like,” he told her. “Come
now, Olivia. You’re a small business owner. Small business is a gamble at one
time or another. And you strike me as a woman who enjoys a challenge.”
“So what if I am?” Olivia asked. “How
would that change anything?”
He lifted his finger and pointed at her
discerningly. “There’s a lovely bed-and-breakfast next door to the tavern. If
my publicist’s sources are correct, it’s your cousin who owns it. I’ll stay on
there for a three weeks, just long enough for you to prove to me that what we
shared in Vegas was indeed nothing.”
Olivia frowned at him. “If I were to
agree, you realize you’re betting on a losing hand, right?”
“Maybe,” Gerald said with a considering
nod. “But my gut is usually right. And it tells me that the place I need to be,
at least for the time being, is right here in your charming little hometown.”
She narrowed her eyes as she considered
him. Damn it. She did love a good challenge. Especially one where all the odds
were in her favor. “Hmm. What are the stakes?” When Gerald’s brows arched, she
added, “What’s a wager without stakes?”
“Oh, right.” He grinned, lifting a hand
to scratch his chin in a pensive manner that made her stare a moment too long
at his wide-palmed hand with its narrow, creative fingers. “If you win, I will
humbly admit defeat and hand over the divorce papers. And I’ll pay whatever
legal costs filing them incurs.”
“And if you win…?”
Gerald’s eyes shined anew with the
light of promise. “Then what do you say we give this a shot, aye? You and me. I
have a feeling it’ll be worth it. And on a hunch I’m rarely wrong.”
Olivia weighed him and his challenge.
When he extended a hand for her to shake in agreement, she sighed and lifted
hers to take it. “What the hell? You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Leighton. I
hope you’re not a sore loser.”
Gerald didn’t shake her hand. He
squeezed it warmly and leaned forward until his green eyes yawned before hers
and that aftershave of his washed over her in a splendid wave she was sure
never to forget. “I rarely make wagers, Mrs.
Leighton. But when I do, I play to win.
And I’ll be damned if I don’t win this one.”
You can learn more about Olivia and Gerald and read more excerpts from Married One Night by
following the virtual book tour at Pump Up Your Book or by visiting my blog for
weekly updates. The tour starts today!
Buy Married
One Night in store or online:
