The Bad Boy Billionaire’s Wicked Arrangement
Series: Bad Boys
& Wallflowers #1.5
by Maya Rodale
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Publication
Date: December 31st, 2013
The first
installment of a sexy, whirlwind romance about a modern day heroine writing
historical romance novels based on her romantic misadventures with the bad boy
billionaire.
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 150 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.
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EXCERPT - SEE HOW IT ALL STARTED!
Bar Veloce—the next day Jane and Roxanna meet to catch up.
@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
Author Bio
Maya Rodale
began reading romance novels in college at her mother’s insistence. She is now
the author of numerous smart, sexy and fun historical romance novels. A
champion of the romance genre and its readers, she is also the author of the
non-fiction book Dangerous
Books For Girls: The Bad Reputation Of Romance Novels, Explained and
a co-founder of Lady Jane’s Salon,
a national reading series devoted to romantic fiction. Maya lives in New York
City with her darling dog and a rogue of her own.
Website: http://www.mayarodale.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mayarodale
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/mayarodale/
Book Tour Giveaway
Here’s
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with an awesome giveaway? THE BAD BOY BILLIONAIRE’S WICKED ARRANGEMENT
kicks off the sexy series following the whirlwind, romantic
misadventures of Jane Sparks—librarian by day and aspiring writer by
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