As promised, here is the excerpt from Kristen Beairsto's Behaving Badly.
Cyrus Chapman is less than thrilled to find out his father hired a life coach (whatever the hell a life coach does) of all things to help him cease the behaviors his father finds unfavorable rather than just discussing the manner with him. He’s not really surprised by his father’s heavy handedness, however he isn’t about to comply that easily. But when his father threatens him with his future position as CEO of Chapman Industries, Cyrus has little choice but to agree to the farce. At least, until he can come up with an alternative.
Delaney’s resolve to succeed with Cyrus is immediately put to the test during her very first meeting with him and she realizes that no matter how much she prepared for all that was Cyrus, it all paled in comparison to the real man. She believes they come to an understanding, even going so far as to agree to act like his girlfriend to hide their arrangement from the press. But when her reputation, along her mother’s antics, get rehashed and dragged through the mud by the press less than twenty-four hours after being hired because of Cyrus’s actions, she’s rethinking her ability to handle the situation.
When his new life coach aptly puts him in his place, Cyrus finds himself in the unfamiliar position of feeling guilty. And intrigued. Before long, he also finds himself in the unaccustomed position of fighting for more than just a professional relationship with Delaney while she tries to keep him at arm’s length.
But Delaney can’t entertain the idea of having more than a professional relationship with Cyrus. After all, that’s something her mother would do and she’s not about to start emulating that woman now. However, fighting her attraction to Cyrus becomes harder and harder the more she’s around him and she finds herself wondering if she’s become so wrapped up in trying not to be her mother that she’s forgotten to just to be herself.
Excerpt:
Pausing, he tried to feel a little
guilty about the bomb he planned to drop on her and the fact that he couldn’t
wait for her response. But he failed
miserably. “We’ll have to pretend to be
lovers.”
Her jaw dropped.
“After the sessions are over,”
which will be quickly if he had anything to say about it, “I’ll let it be known
we broke up and we can go from there.”
It would probably be the longest relationship he ever had, but he tried
to not think about that.
A horrified expression slid over
her face.
“Absolutely not!” She shook her head emphatically.
Not exactly the reaction he hoped
for, but then again she didn’t exactly act like he expected, so he guessed that
made it par for the course. Despite
that, he couldn’t help feeling a little irritated. He could easily think of a dozen women that
would kill to be in her position.
Arching a brow, “Why not?” he
asked, trying to hold back his reaction.
A mutinous expression slid over her
face, her pale aqua gaze flashing. “I’m
not that good of an actress.” Despite
the clear physical signs of her agitation, her tone came out flat and devoid of
any hints of her emotions.
“Okay.” He let the word slowly roll over his tongue
as he tried to think of where she might be going with this. “So you really don’t know how to smile? Or is it that you don’t know how to hold
hands? Please don’t tell me you’re a
virgin,” adding the last in a teasing tone in an attempt to goad her into
revealing something about herself.
Brows narrowing into a scowl, she
shook her head. “That’s none of your
business.”
Tempted to check his hair for
icicles that had to have formed from her frosty tone, not a virgin, but not getting a lot of action either.
“Are you seeing someone?” For some reason, the idea of another man
being in the picture left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Not that my personal life is any
of your business, but no, I’m not seeing anyone right now.” Returning to her pad, she started making
quick notes.
Relief blossomed at her answer.
“So what’s the problem then?”
“The problem is I don’t like you
very much. I’m not capable of pretending
to be someone’s lover that I don’t even like,” she replied tightly without
looking up at him.
Mentally, he heard the gauntlet hit
the floor. The smug smile that slowly
slid across his lips couldn’t be stopped even if he really wanted to.
“I can make you like me,” he
promised in his best bedroom voice.
The woman just added to the list of
things he found intriguing about her.
Even at moments of being an extreme jerk, he never had a woman admit
they didn’t find him attractive. Not
that he could really blame Delaney after the way he acted earlier.
Snorting, Delaney shook her head
and rolled her eyes before returning her gaze to her pad of paper. “I doubt that.”
Challenge
accepted!
Buy Links:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Smashwords
Bio:As with just about every other writer on the planet, Kristen grew up an avid reader. She started with young adult before she technically hit the age range and moved on to sci-fi classics by Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. At fifteen, her best friend gave her a book she just had to read! The book was Honest Illusions by Nora Roberts. Always a sucker for a happy ending, she was a goner and fell in love with the romance genre. Having started writing novel length stories at the age of eleven, Kristen’s stories all took a romantic turn from that point on.
In between her to-be-read pile and trying to bring the characters in her head alive, Kristen spends as much time as she can with family and friends. Much to her husband’s dismay, she enjoys collecting purses, shoes, and jewelry. During those rare times she’s not working at her day job, rushing her daughters somewhere, watching movies with her husband, and trying to meet a deadline, she can usually be found energetically cheering for one of her favorite New York sports teams.
Find Kristen:
Website,
No comments:
Post a Comment