One Week
(HaleStorm Series, bk #1)
By Elisabeth Staab
BLURB:
HE HAS A LEGACY TO SAVE…
Michael Hale's company is in jeopardy. In the wake of his father's death and transitioning to CEO, projects are circling the drain and that may cost him everything. Come to find out, the consultant hired to fix things is the "one who got away" many years ago. This time he's playing for keeps, and he intends to win.
SHE SHOULD NEVER SAY NEVER…
Elise Jackson swore she wouldn't come near Michael Hale again. He sucker punched her professionally, and he broke her heart. Still, a job’s a job, and they can both be adults. But high emotion and late nights working lead to passion neither of them can deny.
They have one week. Can the two of them pull Michael's company out of the fire and heal their old wounds?
Available for purchase at
Guest Post
by Elisabeth Staab
Is
corporate romance really sexy?
So what is it about office love
affairs? Of all the popular “tropes” the boardroom romance seems to be bigger
than ever. Why on earth?
Well, I have a few theories:
1) A hot guy in a classy suit is
nearly as appealing as a hot guy out of
a classy suit.
2) Nothing drops knickers like
confidence. Not arrogance, but confidence.
3) Romance in the workplace, even
if not strictly prohibited, carries an air of the forbidden. Anything forbidden
heightens tensions, making the sexy even sexier.
4) Did someone say after-hours
office sex?
5) A powerful man who will do
whatever it takes to win the woman he loves? *swoooooon*
6) Intelligence can be even hotter
than hotness, and it’s kind of a given that anyone who’s climbed a corporate
ladder or two has more than a few brain cells to rub together. Personally, I
dig a guy who scores high on the smart-meter.
Office environments can make for
interesting situations. You see the same people every day. You have lunch
together, maybe even dinners and happy hours. Sometimes you get to know people
in interesting ways, you get close, and you might work long hours late into the
night in your most attractive clothes. Would you call that a recipe for sexual
tension? It sure could be.
When I wrote One Week I decided to put a twist on my corporate romance. Everyone
loves a hunky, powerful CEO. But I like to see what a guy is made of when he’s
under pressure. How does he respond? Who does he turn to? I gave him a company
at risk of ruin. A family who had turned against him. At the start of One Week
Michael Hale is unmoored and left with very few people he is willing to trust
when Elise enters the picture.
I also wanted Michael Hale’s
heroine, Elise, to have equal footing in the relationship. While slightly
younger and perhaps possessing a lighter stock portfolio, she has the brains
and the financial stability to stand toe to toe with Michael, without feeling
like she needs his approval. She isn’t a damsel in distress looking for Michael
to rescue her. She is there to pull his ass out of a sticky situation.
When the rubber meets the road, we
see Michael pull out the big guns and go in ready to pull the trigger with
everyone except Elise, and that was my favorite thing about him as a character.
His father had just died, his brothers were estranged, the one thing he had was the company his father built, and fuck anybody
who tried to stand in his way. All that aside, when it came to Elise? She got
away once, he isn’t willing to let that happen again. And I so adore a man who
will do whatever it takes to win the woman he loves (reference point number 5,
above).
Remember Westley in The Princess
Bride? “As you wish.” Hot, right?
What about you? Does a hot guy in a
suit steam up your windows, and if so, what’s your favorite quality in a
suit-wearing hero?
Excerpt
“I should have looked for you.” He wrapped his arms
around her and groaned aloud at the warmth and softness of her skin against
his. The rough texture of her nipples against his chest, the dampness of her
hair on his shoulder. “Just touching you makes me crazy. My God, Elise. I
should have known. Fuck, I did know, and I ignored it. I’m so goddamned
stupid.”
“You’re not stupid.”
“I am stupid.” Michael
gripped her hips—fucking luscious, curvy hips—and ran his hands up that amazing
hourglass arc in her waist and over her shoulders, reveling in the magic of
Elise’s hands giving him the same treatment. “I’m stupid because I thought I
could push you away all those years ago and I’d forget and find someone else
who turned me on as much as your hand bumping my knee under a cubicle desk.
Christ, I tried to tell myself it was all innocent, but I lived for every
second.”
“Oh my God.” Elise’s eyes flew wide, her cheeks flushed
in the low light of her bedroom. “I had no idea.”
“You must have, if you
gathered up the nerve to kiss me.” He bent her back, one hand braced between
her shoulders, the other gripping her ass, trailing kisses along her jaw. Their
only-for-tonight agreement be damned, already he didn’t want to let her go.
“I hoped.” She gripped his
shoulders, smiling. “If I’m being honest, all that accidentally bumping your
knee wasn't so much an accident.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
world. She believes that all kinds of safe and sane love should be celebrated but she adores the fantasy-filled realm of paranormal romance the best. She lives in the Washington DC area with her family and one big scaredy cat, where she loves to spend time with good friends, go dancing, collect wacky coffee mugs from which to drink her favorite beverage, and sing off-key in her kitchen (when she isn’t making characters fall in love, that is).
Find Elisabeth at:
Giveaway
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You bet a hot guy steams up my windows! Those are my favorite heroes.
ReplyDeleteFavorite quality in a suit-wearing... Hummm... Maybe his confidence in "I can and I do it".
Congrats on One Week, it's a wonderful and romantic book.