Book Description | Book Excerpt

Publisher: Alpe D'Huez Press
Release Date: October 16th, 201
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Second Chance, Texas

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Description

Available exclusively in Kindle Unlimited-Read for free with a subscription!

Included in this bundle is a bonus short story prequel–find out how it all begins…
**This book was previously published as Marriage Reinvented

To love, honor and betray…
After surviving the painful disintegration of her marriage, Alexia is finally ready to follow her dream. When she applies for a patent on the product she’s invented, she discovers someone has beaten her to it—her ex Jesse, the man she once loved beyond measure. The double-crosser is holding her patent hostage until she agrees to give their relationship another shot.

Till passion do us part…
Jesse wants to get back what’s his—Alexia. The deal is simple. If she lives with him for three months, he’ll sign over the patent. But as the undeniable heat between them explodes, old hurts and new secrets surface, compromising everything they thought they knew about themselves and their marriage.

For as long as we both shall clash…
Suddenly, the deal becomes a desperate battle to hang on to the only woman Jesse’s ever loved—and she’s not interested in another broken heart.

Excerpt

He steepled his hands, and his eyes narrowed like a gunslinger sizing up the opposition. “Here’s the deal. You give us another shot, and I’ll give you the patent. Take my name off as joint inventor. Easy as that.”

“What?” The chair’s back thumped against the floor as she leaped up. A flailing hand narrowly missed upsetting the untouched Long Island iced tea.

Just business, huh? “Are you out of your mind?”

“I don’t think so, although Ben might argue the point.”

“Your lawyer knows about this? Does Ms. Montoya?” Her competition must have had inside information. It was the only explanation for the thoroughness of her marketing plan.

“That’s irrelevant. Will you agree?”

So still, so controlled. Her insides cartwheeled, and he stood calmly, muscles relaxed, which infuriated her like it always had. No, not always. Just After. “Agree to what? Allowing myself to be eviscerated in exchange for my lifelong dream? It’s not worth that.”

But it was. And he knew it. Nice touch, bringing in a gorgeous new marketing director, as was the “buyout” he so benevolently offered. All to get in her panties again?

“I miscalculated. Very well. You can show yourself out.”

He pulled a slim phone from the back pocket of his jeans and proceeded to check his messages while she sat there fuming. What good would leaving do? When Jesse wanted something, mountains asked how quickly they should relocate. Any illusions she had of getting or keeping control of the situation vanished.

“Fine.” She righted the chair and dropped into it. Might as well go down in a blaze of glory and maybe find a facet or two she could use for leverage. “Give me the details of your proposal. And take that CEO stick out of your butt.”

Jesse grinned and took the opposite seat, tilting the chair back on two legs. “And here I thought you were going to be difficult. Six months is all I ask.”

The tension lessened all at once. Now that he was getting his way, it was all smiles and light.

The cocktail glass beckoned. She downed it in a couple of quick gulps, but too much Russian ancestry rushed through her veins for the alcohol to have much effect. “Six months of what? Dating?”

“Oh, no, nothing so mundane. Of living with me. In my house.” His teeth gleamed in the florescent lights.

Laughter burst out of her mouth. “Now I know you’re out of your mind.”

He picked up the bronze sculpture of a bucking bronco from the table and hefted it from hand to hand, a habitual gesture designed to distract his prey. “I’m very serious.”

A cursory glance at his granite features convinced her of it, and a weight settled on her chest. “You’re the one who packed your bags and walked out the door. You. If you aspired to give it another shot, as you so eloquently put it, you should have stuck around. I’m not for sale.”

“Aren’t you?” His eyebrows lifted. “You must not want the Thigh Thing after all. Is it really such a bad deal, having to put up with me for six months?”

As the reality of his suggestion crashed down, her head fell into her hands, suddenly too heavy for mere neck muscles to support. Could she really live with him again, with his distance, his inability to be there even when they were in the same room?

She covered the hitch in her breath with a sigh. “I’m not a boomerang. You can’t throw me away and expect me to come flying right back into your arms. You had your chance and you blew it, but now I’m the one who has to pay. How is that fair?”

“Life’s not fair,” he said harshly. “If it were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Yes, I’m the one who left, but you gave me no other choice. I’m only returning the favor. You heard the deal. Take it or leave it.”

The world jerked to a halt. How dare he ask for the one thing she couldn’t do? What an emotional train wreck it would be. Did he really think things would be different this time? Or was this about something else? “I don’t get it. Was I so amazing in bed?”

Staccato laughter startled her. “Is that what you think this is about? Sex?”

“Well, it’s certainly not about business,” she snapped. “You obviously miss having a woman around, and I guess I’m convenient.”

He slid the bronze back to the center of the table, and his shrug matched his nonchalant posture. “I could find someone to fall into my bed with the snap of my fingers if that’s what I wanted, but sex is the furthest thing from my mind. I’m flattered it’s front and center in yours, though.”

The small Celtic knot tattooed at the base of Jesse’s spine flew into her consciousness, unbidden. When her fingers trailed across it, his muscles hardened in the most delicious way. She sang the ABCs silently four times to erase the image.

Intimacy between them was over. Forever.

“No sex. Period.” She slashed a hand horizontally to emphasis the point. “What else?”

“No sex until you flash the green light,” he corrected. “And you eventually will, I have no doubt. One date a week. You have to be pleasant the whole time.”

“Twenty-four dates! No way on God’s green earth can you justify so many dates for a measly patent.” Pleasant. A dig at her temper, no doubt, yet apparently he was allowed to have all the temper tantrums he wanted. They’d always matched each other in the hotheadedness department.

“Twenty-five dates. October has five weeks this year.”

“It’s crazy. You’re crazy. I’m not doing it.”

Jesse picked up the folder his new marketing director had left behind and tapped it against the table in two short bursts, like gunshots to her already-bleeding corpse. “Layla’s raring to go on this campaign. Dolores has the raw-materials order ready for me to sign. How’s the potato-chip business these days?”

A short burst of pain exploded behind one eye, but she couldn’t be lucky enough for an aneurism to save her. “Seems like you’re already aware I’ve been laid off.” Her teeth ground together. “They outsourced the entire marketing department to a third party. Lucky me. Now I have more than enough with the severance to get the Thigh Thing manufactured and to distributors. Without you.”

 

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