A Game of Vows and the Bad Girl Heroine

Clara couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open. “You were going to do business on your honeymoon?”

“Hannah had some work to do as well. Time doesn’t stop just because you get married.”

“No wonder she left you at the altar.” She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“You did, and that’s fine. Unlike you, Hannah had no romantic illusions, you can trust me on that. Her reasons for not showing up today may very well have had something to do with a Wall Street crisis. There’s actually a good chance she’s at her apartment, in her wedding gown, screaming obscenities at her computer screen watching the cost of grain go down.”

She had to concede that the scenario was actually almost plausible. Hannah was all icy cool composure, and generally nice and polite, until someone crossed her in the corporate world. Clara had overheard the other woman’s phone conversations become seriously cutthroat in tense business situations. Threats of removal of tender body parts had crossed her lips without hesitation.

She sort of admired her for it. For the the intense way she went after what she wanted. She’d done it with Zack. It had been sort of awe inspiring to watch. Mostly it had been awe-inspiringly depressing. Because Clara wasn’t cutthroat, or intense. And she hadn’t been brave enough to pursue what she really wanted. She’d never been brave enough to pursue Zack.

The above is where we first ‘meet’ Hannah Weston, even though we don’t actually meet her. But she’s introduced in One Night in Paradise…or rather, not introduced since she never shows up at her own wedding. When I wrote One Night in Paradise, I wondered what had happened to Hannah. Yes, she sent Zack a text while he was in Thailand with Clara to say she’d fallen in love with someone else. But I didn’t buy it. Hannah wasn’t that soft, or that romantic. I just knew she wasn’t.

By the time I realized I had to write Hannah’s book, One Night in Paradise was finalized. There were things about Hannah that were set in stone, things I couldn’t change. She was the skinny blonde other woman. She was ruthless. She was planning on marrying Zack for status and business. She could curse proficiently enough to make a sailor blush.

So that was Hannah. But I needed to know why this woman, who was marrying Zack for personal gain, would back out.

So this is why…

Hannah Weston swore as she tripped over the hem of her wedding dress, her focus diverted by the scrolling numbers on the screen of her smart phone. She’d said she wouldn’t work today. She’d lied.
The exchange was closed today, but she had a lead and she needed to chase it up before she made her vows. She had clients depending on her. And he would never know.

She dropped into the limo, her eyes still trained on her phone as she gathered her dress up into a satin ball and pulled it inside, slamming the door behind her.

“Going to the chapel?”

Hannah froze, her blood turning to ice as the limo pulled away from the curb and mainstreamed into the San Francisco traffic. That voice. She knew that voice.

She couldn’t look up, her eyes still set on her phone. She curled her fingers more tightly around the heavy fabric of her wedding gown wedding gown, as she took a breath and raised her gaze, locking with dark, intense eyes in the rear view mirror.

She knew those eyes too. No one had eyes like him. They seemed to cut through you, possessing the ability to read your innermost secrets. Able to mock and flirt in a single glance. She still saw those eyes in her dreams. And sometimes her nightmares.

Eduardo Vega. One of the many skeletons in her closet. Except, he wasn’t staying put.
“And I’m going to get married,” she said tightly. She didn’t get intimidated. She did the intimidating. Back in NY she’d had more guts than any man on the trading room floor. She’d had Wall Street by the balls. And now, she was a force to be reckoned with in the world of finance. She didn’t do fear.

“Oh, I don’t think so, Hannah. Not today. Unless you’re interested in getting arrested for bigamy.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “I am not a bigamist.”

“You aren’t single.”

“Yes, I am. The paperwork was…”

“Never filed. If you don’t believe me, do some research on the matter.”

So Ms. Hannah has some skeletons in her closet. And Eduardo is only one of them. Hannah is the female counterpart to a lot of the heroes I’ve written. While Eduardo was born with status and money, Hannah had to claw her way up from a poverty and neglect. And she was willing to do it by any means necessary. She was smart, she was determined, and she bent the traditional definitions of right and wrong to change her position in life.

In contrast, Eduardo had it all from moment one, only to have it stolen from him after sustaining terrible head trauma in an accident. Since then, his business has been in decline. And he needs Hannah, not only to bring it back from the brink, but to remind him of the man he used to be.

Eduardo is seriously alpha. But so is Hannah. And the clash between these two was epic and so much fun for me to write. Hannah doesn’t hesitate to go for the jugular in a fight, and honestly, Eduardo and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So if you’re down with a hero searching for a new place in the world and a way to work with his new limitations, while becoming a better man than he was before, and a heroine with serious dirt in her past looking for a chance to have love for the first time in her life…well, A Game of Vows might be for you. 🙂 Coming to the UK in October.