With: Andie J. Christopher
Giveaway Alert!
There seems to be
something in the water in Romancelandia. In the past few months, there have
been a lot of babies—not the authors—just the heroines. Some of them are like
the romances of old that revolved around an accidental pregnancy that just
happened to end in a love match. And some of these expectant moms believe
they’ll never meet the right guy to go the distance, but they want the baby
anyway. All of these heroines, despite their best efforts, end up falling in
the love with the father of their baby.
I have a theory:
romance babies are popular because it takes an intense time, full of conflict,
and throws in an additional monkey wrench—love.
When writing Carla’s
story, I knew I had to give the youngest of the Hernandez siblings, a really
compelling hero after her fiancé had dumped her unceremoniously at the end
of Dusk Until Dawn. Jonah came to me when I was trying to think of
someone who was the polar opposite of Carla’s ex-fiance, Geoff. And, since
Geoff was a schlubby accountant, I naturally thought of a Jason Momoa-type
pouty man bear who Carla couldn’t push around. And, I wanted him to be able to
give Carla something that she wanted, but wouldn’t think that she would be able
to have now that she was single.
And he did—he gave her
a baby. Jonah has his own apprehensions about having a family of his own. But
after meeting Carla and spending the night with her, those fears become much
less important than his baby and his baby’s unexpectedly charming mother. And,
even though Carla suffered a great deal the disappointment of a broken
engagement, she’s excited to become a mother. Jonah just has to convince her
that keeping him around isn’t just practical, it’s the best decision she’ll
ever make.
BREAK OF DAY
One
Mistake
Carla Hernandez needs to drop off the
glamorous Miami grid. Her aunt's house in Havana seems the perfect place to get
over being dumped by her fiancé—and figure out why she keeps messing up her
life. But photojournalist Jonah Kane’s unexpected presence is one sizzling
mistake she’s hungry to make.
One Temptation
Jonah thought his favorite Cuban refuge
would help him get some badly-needed peace. Still, he’s ridden out way worse
than the tropical storm trapping him with Carla. And he’s going to handle this
spoiled little princess on his own dominant, seductive terms just until the
storm is over. Too bad this sexy wild card only makes him only want more. And
more . . .
No Restraints
Now Carla’s back home—but not quite
alone. When her baby is born, she’s going to raise it on her own, no matter how
much she still burns for Jonah. But Jonah can’t get over her irrepressible
spirit or the passion they shared. And trying to walk away is only making
things too hot to resist . . .
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Excerpt:
Carla’s skin was melting. Her cotton romper clung to her melty mess of a body in the heat of August in Cuba. Rivers of mascara ran down her face, and she would shank someone for an afternoon in air-conditioning with a stack of fashion magazines.
Carla’s skin was melting. Her cotton romper clung to her melty mess of a body in the heat of August in Cuba. Rivers of mascara ran down her face, and she would shank someone for an afternoon in air-conditioning with a stack of fashion magazines.
I just thought being with
a redheaded Cuban girl would be more exciting.
Her ex-fiancé’s words
echoed in her head for the millionth time since he dumped her and asked for the
ring back. She hadn’t thought an accountant’s wife needed to be
exciting, but what the fuck did she know about anything anymore?
She smiled at the driver,
probably a guy from Tia Lola’s street. He’d picked her up at the airport to
bring her to the family home. Lola’s house was a couple of blocks off the
stately, crumbling facades along the Malecón. When he’d put her bag in the
trunk, she’d tipped him with American money; she’d seen her father do it the
last time they’d visited. She clutched her shoulder bag, remembering exactly
how much money she had in there. She didn’t usually carry around thousands of
dollars in cash.
When the car had pulled
up to her aunt’s house, she tried to give the driver more money. In a few words
of rapid Spanish, he refused her and smiled. She grabbed her suitcase out of
the trunk, took a deep breath, and walked up to the door.
Even though the exterior
needed a whole mess of masonry work, the colonial mansion was still impressive.
Carla wasn’t sure how it had stayed in the family. She knew that her father’s
aunt ran a casa particulare. She rented out some of the bedrooms to
tourists for more money than anyone in Cuba could afford, but she wasn’t sure
how that was enough to keep the place up—especially since Americans hadn’t been
able to come here for fun for almost half a century.
That was changing, and
Carla was here to help turn her aunt’s house into a boutique hotel so that her tia
could retire and so that her family’s home could sustain itself.
When she knocked, she was
expecting her sixty-something-year-old great aunt to open the massive, carved,
wooden door. Instead, a giant stood on the threshold. A bare-chested
giant with biceps the size of her head. Her mouth popped open—and went dry to
be perfectly honest. She made the mistake of looking down, hoping for more
clothing. What she found were thighs, just massive thighs, encased in black
boxer briefs.

“Seen enough, princess?”
The giant’s voice resonated to her very marrow, and she nearly shivered with
the desire to climb him like a tree. She barely registered that he spoke
English with an American accent. She didn’t even take exception to the fact
that he’d called her “princess.” That should hit a sore spot, but she wasn’t
about to let it. Now that she was single, she needed to store this kind of
thing up for her spank-bank.
But she knew it was probably better if she said something sooner
or later. Before that drool started from the corner of her mouth and after
memorizing the pattern of his chest hair. “Who are you?”
“Who the fuck are you?”
He reared back a bit and seemed to pull air with him. That’s the only way she
could explain following him into the foyer, pushing past his big body without
spending too much time trying to cop a feel. Indeed, who the fuck was she,
trying to cop a feel of an angry giant? It might be time to admit that she was
beyond needing spank-bank material and right in the neighborhood of
need-to-get-laid-right-now.
“Where’s Tia Lola?”
“You mean Señora
Hernandez?”
“Do you ever answer
questions without questions?”
“Only when I get my
questions answered, princess.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Answer my questions.”
She’d had about enough of
his bullshit, but she surmised that the best way to get her questions answered
was to give him what he wanted. “Okay. No, I haven’t seen enough because I’ve
been sleeping with the same guy for three years, and he doesn’t look nearly as
good as you in boxer briefs. Or at least he didn’t before he dumped me.” It
felt so good to say exactly what was on her mind. With Geoff, she’d always had
to watch her words. She took a breath, and continued while he still looked
taken aback. “I’m Carla Hernandez. Lola Hernandez is my father’s aunt. I’m here
to bring her—something.” She felt like a drug dealer carrying around this much
money, but it was impossible to transfer American money to Lola’s bank account
in Cuba. She didn’t want to say money, because while the giant appeared
to be benevolent and had certainly made himself at home here, she couldn’t be
sure. “Now, who are you?”
“Jonah Kane.” Of course
he had to have a name that sounded like he looked. He appeared to be wearing
boulders under his skin. Of course his name would be hard, like rock. “I’m here
working on a book, and I’m renting a room here.”
“You’re a writer?” she
asked, surprised. “I know some writers have crazy rituals to make sure things
get done, but leaving the U.S. just to get away from reliable Internet seems
extreme.”
“I’m a photojournalist.”
That piqued her interest,
but it seemed past due for him to put his pants on. For one thing, his body was
going to give her a heatstroke-related seizure if she was exposed to it any
longer. He was so hot it was starting to make her mad. For another thing, she
could feel his judgmental glare and didn’t like the way he said princess—it
was an insult disguised as an endearment, and she didn’t need that.
“Can you please go put
some pants on?”
He leaned one hand on the
bannister of the stairway leading to the bedrooms, with a sexy, cocky
half-smile on his face. “Why? I thought you were getting a great show?”
Carla wasn’t going to
rise to the bait of a jerk like that. She’d grown up with two of them—both her
father and brother were a handful—so she just pointed upstairs. “Pants now,
unbearable ego later.”
USA Today Bestselling author Andie J. Christopher writes edgy, funny, sexy contemporary romance. She grew up in a family of voracious readers, and picked up her first Harlequin Romance novel at age twelve when she’d finished reading everything else in her grandmother’s house. It was love at first read. It wasn’t too long before she started writing her own stories — her first heroine drank Campari and wore a lot of Esprit.
Although, she set aside writing
fiction for a while, her love of romance novels stayed with her through
college, law school, and multiple cross-country moves. During one long East
Coast winter, she decided writing a book would be a good excuse to avoid
braving the elements. It was love at first write. Her heroes are dirty-talking
alphas, and her heroines traded Esprit for Free People. (None of them would
turn down a Campari, though.)
You can visit her
online at the following places: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon
| BookBub | Instagram | Pinterest
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