Jane Sparks has accidentally announced her engagement on Facebook—to the infamous Bad Boy Billionaire, Duke Austen. As soon as it’s discovered that Jane and Duke barely know each other (One hot kiss at a party does not a relationship make), she’ll be humiliated. And then Duke does something Jane never expected. He plays along with her charade.
With his hard partying, playboy reputation jeopardizing a fifty million dollar investment deal, Duke realizes an engagement with the hot but oh-so-proper librarian could be just the thing to repair his reputation. This good girl tempts him to be very wicked…but just with her. It’s unprecedented. Inconceivable. Totally alluring.
As the unlikely match of librarian and tech entrepreneur set out to convince the world—and the internet—that their love is real, something unexpected happens: they start falling for each other. But Jane is secretly writing a historical romance novel that could expose their carefully constructed romance…unless two perfect strangers are content to be perfectly scandalous together.
Excerpt: The
Bad Boy Billionaire’s Wicked Arrangement
Bar
Veloce—the next day
@TechCrunch:
Duke Austen’s startup, Project-TK , is rumored to be seeking $150m
investment at a $1.2 billion valuation. Here’s why it might not happen.
Is
the third time a charm for Silicon Alley party boy Duke Austen? After the
spectacular flameouts of his first two startups, he’s on the verge of a major
win—as long as investors can overlook his reputation for hard-partying and
worries about him paying more attention to the hot supermodels instead of hot
new products. Even if he gets the funds, Austen’s prospects of remaining in
charge of the company he founded are slim, unless he cleans up his act. Read
More . . .
“This.”
I set down the damned invitation on the bar.
“What
is this?” Roxanna asked, looking up from her iPhone. We often met here
after work for drinks and supper before returning to our microscopic,
claustrophobia-inducing Chelsea apartment.
“This
is the invitation to my tenth annual high school reunion. In other words, I
have just been invited to a party to showcase what an utter failure I am.”
“What
are you talking about? You have ditched Bumblefuck, Pennsylvania, and your
boring ex-boyfriend for the glamorous life of a single working girl in New York
City.”
“I’m
working as a library assistant, which is a step down from my previous job as
head Librarian. I told everyone I was going to write a novel but I only have a
word document that reads ‘Untitled Romance Novel’ and not much else. And I still
love my ex-boyfriend, thank you very much. And he’s been dating. I saw it on
Facebook. I have not been dating.”
“No,
you’re just having hot and heavy hook-ups with strangers. Much better if you
ask me,” Roxanna said with a grin. I had told her a little bit about what had
happened at the party last night, leaving out the most embarrassing bits. Which
is to say, I left out most of the story.
“One
hook-up. Once. And while I was pawing at some random guy in the library like an
adolescent, everyone else has gotten married and had children. Look—” I said,
pulling up the list of my friends on Facebook, many of them from Milford High
School. “Melissa, married. Has a baby. Rachel and Dan, married. Two
children when some people don’t have any! Kate Abbott, who was totally horrible
to me throughout high school is ‘seeing someone special.’ And it’s only a
matter of time before Sam posts MARRIED! BABY! He keeps posting about dinners
at all romantic places around town.”
“What,
all three of them? You have to unsubscribe to his status updates,” Roxanna said
dryly.
“I
don’t know how,” I grumbled. “Technology mystifies me.”
“Here,
let me see if I can do this on your phone,” Roxanna said. I handed it over
without a second thought. “I’ll take care of this while you pine away for the
days of card catalogues, horses and bayonets.”
“We
were voted Most Likely to Live Happily Ever After,” I said glumly.
“Aww,
should we go home and look through your yearbooks?” Roxanna asked, pushing her
red hair over her shoulder.
She
was tough as nails and just what I needed. In return, since she was a disaster
at things like laundry, cooking, and paying bills, I helped make sure she had
clean clothes, Wi-Fi, and didn’t subsist exclusively on bourbon and popcorn.
“No,
it will only make me feel worse,” I said with a sigh. I knew because I had
already looked through them. It was all the inscriptions that slayed me. Stay
in touch. Don’t ever change.
Growing
up, I had this idea of what my life would be like, and I did everything I could
to make it happen. Good grades, good school, career in the library sciences,
which would allow me some flexibility when Sam and I married and had kids.
We
planned to get engaged after he finished his dissertation. Then he’d get a job
as a professor at the nearby Montclair University.
We
planned to have a house on Brook Street—I knew just the one—with great
bookshelves and a yard for the kids. Maybe a couch from Pottery Barn. .
Then
POOF—fired. Then POOF—dumped.
Sam
had coldly explained that he wanted to see more of the world. Date other
people. Be with someone more adventurous. Someone who didn’t have every detail
of her life already pre-ordered.
“Ah,
this will make you feel better,” Roxanna said when the bartender set down our
drinks: a glass of chardonnay for me and bourbon on the rocks for her.
“Cheers.”
“I
just had this idea of what my life would be like by now,” I said as Roxanna
messed around with my phone. “And so did everyone else. I had already planned
my wedding on Pinterest. Now he’s squiring some girl around town to all the
romantic spots while I’m working at the low level job I had in college and I’m
hopelessly single.”
“Personally,
I wouldn’t give a fuck what my loser high school classmates thought of me,”
Roxanna said, sipping her bourbon and still messing around with my phone.
“I
know. I’m seething with jealously.”
Truly,
I kind of was.
“But
since you clearly do care, why don’t you show up with a totally hot, successful
date?”
I
sighed and smiled. “It would make everyone jealous, wouldn’t it? No one would ask
me if I missed my old job, why Sam and I broke up or how my novel writing is
going. The problem is your plan requires me knowing a hot, successful guy. The
only guy to ask me out since I moved here is José at the bodega.”
“Speaking
of hot, successful guys, why do you have a friend request from DUKE AUSTEN?”
Roxanna looked up at me, her blue eyes wide and her mouth open in shock.
“Hey,
why do you still have my phone?”
“Jane!
Is this the guy you hooked up with?” Roxanna held out my phone showing the
Facebook profile of That Guy. All dark eyes, tousled hair, unshaven. Like a
pirate or a highwayman or some rogue up to no good. Yeah, that was the guy.
“I
think so. It was dark. I had a mask on,” I said. I figured he was just some
charming but scruffy guy who was probably a struggling actor who tended bar at
some hipster dive in Williamsburg. Totally un-dateable.
“OMG,”
Roxanna said. Gasped, really. “OMG.”
“What?”
“Jane,
this is DUKE AUSTEN,” she practically shrieked. Then she looked around as if
someone might overhear this conversation. As if he were Somebody.
“I
can see that. But who is he?”
“He’s
only the billionaire co-founder of Project-TK. See, you do know someone hot and
successful. OMG do you ever!”
“He
didn’t look like a billionaire.”
“Why?
Cos he didn’t wear a suit and grey tie and wave around fat cigars and a bottle
of 26-year Macallan? Welcome to the startup world, Jane. Where the billionaires
look and act like the guys next door.”
OMG,
indeed.
“He
caught me on my hands and knees,” I whispered, horrified. “And shushing people
at a party.”
“And
then he hooked up with you. I spent all day working on a story about him, in
fact,” Roxanna said. She grinned wickedly before launching into everything I
needed to know about him. “His company is seeking a series C-round of financing
but everyone is freaking out because he’s a brilliant disaster and they’re
afraid he’ll blow it like he did in his first two companies. Even if he gets
the money, the investors might force him to step down. He can code and he can
sell anyone on anything. But then he was always getting wasted and missing work
or getting embroiled in all sorts of scandals with models. And there are rumors
of drug use. He’s all kinds of bad news.”
“Why
can’t I just find a nice guy with a steady job and benefits?”
“Oh,
the romance. Oh, be still my beating heart,” Roxanna said dryly. “I have an
idea.”
Roxanna
grinned wickedly and started doing something on my phone. I reached for it, and
she lunged away. “Hey, Jane, watch the drinks.”
“Roxanna,
what are you doing?”
“This.”
She
held out the phone.
Heartbeat:
stopped.
Breathing:
stopped.
My
life: Over.
Duke Austen was tagged in Jane Sparks’
life event
Jane Sparks and Duke Austen got engaged
Everyone
would see it. My mom, my dad, my sister. Everyone from Milford, my co-workers
at the library, everyone I had ever known that had an Internet connection. Sam.
He would see it.
And
then all those people would see that it had been a joke, a prank or the
desperate and wishful thinking of a lonely girl. Haven’t I had enough
mortification?
I
couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t answer all those people saying sweetly (or not
so sweetly) “I thought you were with so-and-so. What happened?” It hurt too
much to always say I don’t know when things kept going wrong.
Instead,
I shrieked and lunged for the phone knocking over my class of chardonnay. It
shattered, spilling all over the bar and dripped down into my nude patent
pumps. My life was in shambles. And there was wine in my shoe.
“What
have you done?” I gasped.
“I just got you a hot date for your high school reunion. You’re welcome.”
“I just got you a hot date for your high school reunion. You’re welcome.”
“No,
you just got me a fiancé!”
“Even
better, right? I hope he gets you a giant diamond ring,” Roxanna said dreamily.
“Although, he’s probably only a billionaire on paper—or he will be once
Project-TK has their IPO. But don’t worry, I’m sure he’s got a few actual
millions tucked away.”
“How
do I undo this?” I frantically jabbed at the screen. It was so unsatisfying.
“I
have no idea,” she said with a shrug. “Facebook settings are impossible to
figure out.”
“Roxanna!”
My
phone dinged with an incoming text message from a number I didn’t recognize.
917-123-4567 : Meet me at Soho
House in ten minutes for celebratory drinks.
Jane
Sparks:
Who is this?
917-123-4567: Your fiancé
.jpg)
Being good hasn't exactly worked out well for Jane Sparks. Her ex-boyfriend dumped her for being too predictable, and her fake fiancé, Duke Austen, is counting on her good-girl image to repair his bad-boy reputation. But everything changes with the publication of the historical romance novel she wrote based on her fauxmance with the Bad Boy Billionaire. Suddenly she's notorious, scandalous, and causing lots of trouble.
Duke Austen always admired Jane's poise and perfectly demure behavior … qualities that seemed to have vanished once she helped him land a big investment deal. But now that his company is on the verge of a 20-billion-dollar IPO, the stakes have never been higher—and Jane has never been more shocking, provocative, or wickedly irresistible. She's not at all the woman he bargained for, yet she's the only one he wants.
Duke is determined to woo his girl gone wild. She's determined to keep him guessing. But Jane is discovering that there's nothing so appealing as a billionaire who's mad, bad, and dangerously seductive …
A fine Fauxmance: when fake engagement leads to true love with the bad
boy billionaire
By Maya Rodale
1. It starts with a prank… Let’s be real—no
one just decides to pretend to be engaged. But sometimes friends take your
iPhone. And sometimes friends have a wicked sense of humor and post things like
“Jane Sparks and Duke Austen are engaged!” on Facebook when Jane and Duke have
only shared one super sexy kiss.
2. …And continues with a crazy scheme. Jane
assumes they’ll tell everyone it’s a prank. Duke has other ideas. He persuades
her to fake an engagement—it’ll help him repair his party boy reputation and
help him land a huge investment deal. And she’ll score a very hot date to her
high school reunion. What could possibly go wrong?
3.
But
they start falling in love while faking their story. How can she resist his
smile—“one of those devastating smiles that were most often found in the pages
of romance novels”—when its making her heart beat faster? Jane is unlike any other girl he’s ever met.
Not only does he want her, badly, but Duke needs her in ways he never imagined.
4. Kisses. That is all. Kisses. Weak in
the knees, leave you breathless, forget your name kisses.
5.
What’s
real and what’s pretend? Jane would very much like to know because she is
seriously falling for the bad boy billionaire. You’ll have to read the book to find out!
For more of Duke and Jane’s sexy
romance, check out The Bad Boy Billionaire's Wicked Arrangement and
The
Bad Boy Billionaire’s Girl Gone Wild.
Question: What are some of your favorite “faking a relationship”
romance novels or movies?
***GIVEAWAY***
You know I'm loving the looks of these!
ReplyDeleteThese look good. The guy in the top cover has unusual eyes. I almost thought this was a paranormal. LOL
ReplyDelete