Spotlight & Giveaway: Still the Greek’s Wife by Emmy Grayson

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Emmy Grayson to HJ!

Hi Emmy and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Still the Greek’s Wife!

Hello, romance readers! Thank you so much for checking out my latest release, STILL THE GREEK’S WIFE.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

This is the second story in my Brides for Greek Brothers trilogy with Harlequin Presents. Tessa, an interior decorator, has fled to Paris after her wedding. She married Rafe, a man she’s loved for years, to escape an unhappy home. But after discovering Rafe only married her for business and will never fall in love with her, she decides to make her own happiness and divorce Rafe.
This, of course, comes at an inopportune times for Rafe, who has just found out he has to reach his first anniversary to retain his portion of the family business. Rafe tracks Tessa down in Paris and asks her to consider delaying the divorce. Tessa agrees…if Rafe will introduce her to the physical pleasures of marriage!
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

I’VE NEVER CONTEMPLATED murder before. There are more logical and efficient methods of dealing with people. Having a net worth of one point seven billion euros at my disposal gives me more options than the average person.
But as I watch my wife smile up at a strange man on a Paris sidewalk, my fingers tightening on the wheel of my car as he leans down and kisses her enthusiastically on the cheek, I evaluate several possibilities.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

Tessa’s experience with adapted scuba diving comes after getting my own PADI Open Water certification last year. My husband and I had the chance to dive in Grand Cayman and even navigate a shipwreck! It was an incredible experience, and one I was so excited to share with readers through Tessa and Rafe’s adventure.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Rafe sees Tessa as a fellow wounded soul, someone he can simply exist with. For Tessa, Rafe is the hero of her very lonely existence. She pins a lot of her hopes and dreams on him, which makes his choice to marry her for business even more painful.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

Tessa uses crutches and a wheelchair. Writing this scene where Rafe helps her finally realize her dream of dancing at a gala made me tear up:

“I’m not sure what to do.” She glances down at her crutches. “I thought about taking dance lessons, but I haven’t found the time yet.”
“Is there anything you haven’t planned on doing?”
“No,” she says with a laugh. “It’s like the whole world is opened to me. I want to do it all.”
Moonlight makes her hair glow and her smile radiant. For once, I don’t want the comfort of that emotionless void, the knowledge that will guide my choices and actions. No, I want an ounce of Tessa’s excitement, her zest for life, her drive to push past everything that is held her back and succeed.
Yes, the potential for her to fall, to suffer, is far greater. But seeing her now, like this, I also get a glimpse of the rewards that life is bestowing upon her. Rewards I have never experienced.
“Can you maneuver at all without the crunches?”
She shakes her head. “I can support some weight. But I need something to brace on.”
“What about me?”
I can almost feel her inhale, blood starting to pump harder through my veins at the side of her eyes darkening.
“That might work. Just don’t drop me.”
“I won’t.”

Readers should read this book….

• If you love European destinations like Paris and Greece and love the luxury element that comes with a Harlequin romance.
• If you love heroines who stand up for themselves and carve out their own path to success.
• If you love heroes who realize they’ve made mistakes and work to become better people.
• If you love second-chance romance, marriage-of-convenience!

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I just turned in the second round of edits for a friends-to-lovers romance set in New York City and Iceland! It’s the second book in a duet featuring three friends ripped apart by a scheming manipulator. But don’t worry! They not only find their way back to each other, but also discover love along the way.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: $25 Amazon gift card
Signed copies of STILL THE GREEK’S WIFE and DECEPTION AT THE ALTAR (Book One)
Piper & Ivy shirt

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Tessa goes after her dreams of scuba diving, living by herself in Paris, running her own business, and even dancing at a gala. What’s a dream you’ve put off that you’d like to try and achieve this year, or at least take steps towards achieving?

 
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Excerpt from Still the Greek’s Wife:

Tessa
THE FIRST TIME I imagined myself to be in love with Rafael Drakos, I was nineteen years old. I’d known him since I was seven and my father moved us from a small town outside of Dublin to Santorini . As a child, he’d intimidated me, dark-eyed and brooding. He rarely interacted with Gavriil or me. It didn’t bother me. Gavriil preferred to keep his distance from the man he described as having a block of ice for a heart. I got enough moodiness from my father and his never-ending quest to earn my grandfather’s approval, so staying away from the older Drakos brother wasn’t hard.
Until that summer when I went to my first event at the Drakos villa. A birthday party for Lucifer. The massive estate, set on a private island I could see from our front porch, was just a short boat ride away from Santorini’s famous caldera. The mansion dwarfed our home, playing host to Corinthian pillars and too many balconies to count, all of them offering unobstructed views of the sea. There was beauty there, but also opulence, so much that I felt smothered by the sheer luxury of it all.
My mother had insisted on pushing my wheelchair up the ramp and into the main hall, a cavernous room lined with Greek sculptures that should have been in museums instead of someone’s private home. Most people gave me looks of pity. A few whispered behind their hands, as if being in a wheelchair meant I couldn’t hear. Gavriil hadn’t come down yet. Lucifer had made a beeline for my father as soon as we’d entered. He’d coveted Sullivan Legacy for years and wasted no opportunity to speak with my father.
Despite my parents’ tense marriage, my mother had sensed my father’s rising irritation. She’d wheeled me off to the side and told me to wait while she went to serve as a buffer between Father and Lucifer.
So I’d sat, as I often did. Observing. Waiting for a few acquaintances to arrive who didn’t let my wheelchair stand as an obstacle between us.
Until a glimpse of the sea just beyond a balcony had called to me. I’d wheeled myself outside and up to the railing, only to belatedly realize I wasn’t alone.
“Good evening, Tessa.”
That voice…to this day, I sometimes wake up to the memory of that voice sliding over my skin, sinking deep into my veins and winding its way through my body. My first experience, I would later realize, as a woman responding to a man.
I’d started to look behind me. But before I could crane my neck back, Rafe had shifted out of the shadows and knelt down next to my chair. He made small talk about the weather, recently completing a diving course with the CEO of some company he wanted to buy, asked me about my nonexistent social life.
When he had glanced back toward the ballroom, it gave me a moment to appreciate the details I had seen before but never noticed. His face was narrower than Gavriil’s, but the blades of his cheekbones were just as sharp, his black beard cut to precision along the straight lines of his jaw. He possessed the same pale blue eyes as Gavriil and his father. For so long, I had imagined them as Gavriil had, tiny glaciers existing inside a man who might as well have been made of stone for all the emotion he displayed.
But that night, as he looked back at me with that hint of warmth, I didn’t see a man of stone. I saw a man living behind a shield. A man I suddenly suspected had far greater depths than the child I had been would have recognized.
My mother had come out moments later, her voice shrill with nerves as she’d lectured me on not straying too far away from her. I’d been mortified. But Rafe hadn’t run away. Instead, he’d taken my hand in his and bowed over it. His touch, warm and firm, had lasted for a single heartbeat.
One heartbeat was all it took to fall for Rafael Drakos.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Book Info:

What his wife wants:
A night with her husband!

Tessa. My marriage to Greek billionaire Rafael Drakos wasn’t the whirlwind union I desperately wanted it to be. Discovering that opened my eyes to how sheltered my existence really is. I’ll no longer deny myself the love and passion I deserve—so I want a divorce…

Rafe. My convenient bride can’t have what she wants…yet. Not until we’ve been wed a year and I can inherit my birthright. Still, I don’t expect what innocent Tessa requests in return: a wedding night. Or the wildfire of raw need it unleashes in me!
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Meet the Author:

Emmy’s interest in romance can be traced back to her love of Nancy Drew books, when she tried to solve the mysteries of her favorite detective while rereading the romantic chapters with Ned Nickerson. Fast-forward a few years when she discovered a worn copy of “A Rose in Winter” by Kathleen Woodiwiss on her mother’s bookshelf, and she was hooked. Over 20 years later, Harlequin Presents made her dream come true by offering her a contract for her first book.

When Emmy isn’t writing or reading, she’s chasing around her two kids, feeding her menagerie of fur babies or carving out a little time on her front porch with her firefighter hubby.
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