Getting Even - Love, Lust, Laughs and Vengeance

My second Harlequin DARE novel, Getting Even, is out in the world! A second chance at love story, super steamy, as are all the DAREs, and intensely romantic.

The story in a nutshell...

Veronica and Rafael fell in love at first sight as college freshmen and spent the next three and a half years in what their friends describe as a Molotov cocktail of a relationship. Tempestuous. Passionate. Obsessive. Characterised by fiery arguments followed by spectacular reconciliations. Everyone expected Rafael to propose to Veronica on graduation day – including Veronica, who was preparing to ride off into the sunset with him on graduation day! Instead, Rafael left her, and to add insult to injury, he did so straight after telling her he’d love her forever. Now, seven years later, they meet again at a Yorkshire wedding – and this time it’s not love that draws them instantly, inexorably together, but a mutual desire for revenge for the torment those lost years have caused. In a lightning moment, they vow to break the emotional chain that’s tethering them to each other, and they’ll use any weapon at their disposal to do it – including the lust that flares as hot and fierce as ever.

Want. Need. Lust.

 

Just one more night!

For book editor Veronica Johnson it’s sheer hell seeing her ex Rafael Velez again. He’s the man she thought she’d be with for a lifetime, and here he is at her best friend’s wedding. How she hates him still! But Rafael has an outrageous proposition: just one more night together! It’s madness — but achingly tempting. Especially if she walks away without a backwards glance, just as he did to her…

Here's a little taste of what to expect...

Veronica and Rafael have gotten through the wedding and the reception, intensely aware of each other. Now, Rafael has hunted her down, determined to talk her into spending one more night with him in which they're supposed to burn their way out of each other's blood once and for all. But he's gotten off to a rocky start, telling her he brought a date to the wedding as protection from Veronica, who's there on her own. [The first line is Veronica's]

“What did you think I’d do? Throw myself at you if you wandered in on your own?”

“Go ahead and throw yourself at me. You can take it as a given I won’t fight you off.”

“The only thing I’ll be throwing at you is a dagger after what you did to me. So, if you want to stay safe, let me pass.”

“Who said I wanted to stay safe?”

She shook her head, held up a hand to ward him off.

“Ah, I see,” he said, “you want to stay safe.”

She laughed—unconvincingly. “If you think you scare me—”

“I think I never used to...but I think I do now. Look at your hand, keeping me away even though I haven’t taken one step closer.”

She dropped her hand. “I’m not scared of you.”

“Really? ’Cuz that’s quite a fight-flight-freeze response you’ve got going on. Pupils dilated. Body quivering. Breaths fast and shallow.” He smiled. “Oh, wait, that’s not fight-flight-freeze! I’ve seen you like this before, haven’t I? Every night for three and a half years.”

She licked her lips and, God, he wanted to be the one licking them. “That was then, this is now,” she said.

“Say the word and I’ll be on my knees for you in a heartbeat, same as I always was.”

“What you want is for me to be on my knees for you.”

He took two steps back, putting some distance between them to make it harder to haul her in. “You used to be braver than this, Veronica. The night we met you said straight-out you wanted me and you were going to have me.”

“And look how that turned out!”

“That turned out the way you wanted it to!”

“I didn’t leave myself you know!”

He felt his hand clench. Fury. She knew what she’d done. “You left me as surely as I left you. After defying your parents to live with me.”

“Which didn’t get me very far, did it?”

“It got you as far as you wanted to go!” he said, hating the bitterness in his voice. “It got you three and a half years of slumming it. But in the end you had to go and stick one price tag too many on me.”

She tossed her head—actually tossed her damn head. “You put all those price tags on yourself!”

“You lost your nerve.”

“How dare you say that!”

“What happened to you after I left, Veronica, that you couldn’t even pick up the goddamn phone when I called? Did Mommy send you back to finishing school? Did they tame you after all?”

And there it was—the flare of wild heat, unmasked, as she closed the distance he’d put between them and shoved him in the chest. “You want to know what happened to me? You happened, you bastard!” Shove. “Not my mother. Not my father. Not my sister. They weren’t the ones who told you to leave me. You did that yourself!” Shove. “You stole whatever bravery I had when you made my money more important to you than I was.” Shove. “When you told me you’d love me forever then made a fool of me by leaving me five minutes later.” Shove. “When you trampled all over my pride by leaving Matt to tell me you’d gone.”

“I stole your bravery? Okay, so be the old Veronica and come and get it back off me.”

“I don’t—”

“I made a fool of you? Come right at me and make me regret it. I trampled all over your pride? Get your steel-capped boots on and kick me for it. Make me pay for leaving you. Make me suffer. Make me shake with lust for you the way I always did. Make me work for what I want to take from you. Make me want nothing more than to have you. You know you can do it, Veronica. You were so close to turning me into your slave last time.”

“Oh! Oh! You were too stubborn to be anyone’s slave, and you certainly were never mine.”

“No? Then maybe you should prove that to me, because right about now I think you could get me to do anything you asked with one kiss.”

***** 

Whew! Needless to say, there's a lot of heat between these two, and it's a pretty intense read, albeit with quite a few laughs along the way! You can find the book via the links on my website.

Here’s a quick rundown of the three books, all set around the theme of reunions, involving a group of students who met at college ten years ago and are now picking up the shattered pieces of their lives as they reconnect in new ways:

• Getting Lucky – a ten year friendship goes off the rails when Romy needs to have a baby and Matt decides it might as well be with him
• Getting Even – after seven seething years, Veronica is ready to make Rafael pay for leaving her
• Getting Naughty (coming February 2019) – Mr Perfect is led astray by Ms Not-Perfect-At-All one hot Christmas in Sydney

To celebrate the release of Getting Even, I'm giving away a signed print copy of book 1 in the series, Getting Lucky. There are two options to go into the draw:

1. Comment below with the title of a hot read you’ve enjoyed, and either include your email address or send it to me via private Facebook message
2. Follow me on BookBub!