Spotlight & Giveaway: The Davis Deal by Jennifer Hayward

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Jennifer Hayward to HJ!

Hi Jennifer and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Davis Deal!

Hello! It’s so lovely to be back with you!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

A curvy fashion designer, in danger of losing her Hollywood clientele, blurts out a fake engagement to her best friend, Rafael Sánchez, a famous soccer star. Rafe is disciplined to a fault. Yet when the one woman he’s declared off-limits impulsively proclaims he’s her fiancé, the retired soccer star turned team owner helps her save face in front of the cameras. When their mutual attraction catches fire and they embark on a scorching summer affair, someone’s about to get burned. Will obliterating long-held boundaries ruin their best-friend status, or can they turn their embraces into a Hollywood-style happy ending?
 

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

“You walked into my office in lingerie last night and propositioned me, querida. Then, we did what we did, and you are shy, now?”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• It’s a little bit The Devil Wears Prada meets Mean Girls meets a Spanish David Beckham 😉
• Theme song: We Can’t Be Friends – Ariana Grande
• The Instagram sabotage pool scene might be my favourite ever

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

Scarlett and Rafe have been best friends for the past five years, after they were paired together on a celebrity cooking show called Dinner Date. They were dating other people when they did the show, but negotiating that tiny 6×6 ft cooking space together? Sometimes it had felt a bit…charged in there. Rafe loves Scarlett’s fiery, never-say-never demeanour. She loves his perseverance in the face of the loss of his soccer career. And the way he always has her back. Even with this crazy fake engagement she’s hatched.

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

This scene in Rafe’s office. (blushes)

“Get up,” he murmured. “Turn around, bend over and put your hands on the desk.”

An electric current of anticipation coursed through her. “What are you going to do to me?”

“You know what I’m going to do.” His low rasp hollowed out her stomach.

Rising to her feet, she turned her back to him and bent over, legs trembling, and placed her palms on the desk. Rafe moved behind her, slipped the dress up over her hips and palmed her ass with his big hands. Moving them up to hook his thumbs in the waistband of her lacy panties, he slid them down her legs with a leisurely reverence that stole her breath, squatting on those powerful thighs behind her as he nudged her out of them.

Readers should read this book….

If you love:
Best friends to lovers
Fake engagement
Sports romance
Retired soccer player x curvy fashion designer
Secret pining

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

I’m working on a new sports series for Kindle Unlimited. Stay tuned for more info!
 
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: An Amazon gift certificate for $20 and signed paperback or ebook copy of The Davis Deal. Open internationally. (Book will be either ebook or paperback depending on winner location). 

To enter Giveaway, share this post and leave a comment to this Q: Is Friends to Lovers a favourite trope of yours? Or what is?

 
Giveaway will end 3 days for post date.

Excerpt from The Davis Deal:

Taking a deep breath, she gathered every bit of courage she’d ever possessed, because it took a lot, opened her bedroom door, and walked down the hallway, across the living room and toward Rafe’s office, with its spectacular view of the park. It was shrouded in a dim glow, light spilling from the sconces mounted on the wall, onto the dark, polished floor beneath.

The first thing she noticed was that he was still working, eyes on the laptop in front of him, immersed in that distracted, slightly haunted mood he’d been in all evening. The second was how hot he looked in the exquisitely tailored black suit, which emphasized every inch of perfectly honed muscle, his jacket discarded, the crisp white shirt he wore open at the throat to reveal the bronzed column of his throat, an expanse of powerful male flesh that left her dry in the mouth.

“Do you need any—” He looked up, a frown creasing his brow, the words out of his mouth before he absorbed what she was wearing. Which was not a lot, the lace revealing more than it concealed. Which sent a wave of heat cascading between them, as she watched his ebony gaze move from her face, to the curve of her breasts, barely contained in the silky material and shown off to full advantage, to the curve of her hips, clad in a sexy, barely-there thong. Which was followed by a foray down the length of her smooth, toned legs, defined by about a million squats at the gym.

“Scarlett.” His voice sounded a little strangled as he moved his perusal back up to her face. “What are you doing?”

“Making a decision,” she murmured, padding across the polished wood to where he sat behind his desk. “You won’t acknowledge this thing between us, so I am.”

He pushed his chair back as she came to a halt and leaned against his mahogany desk, the smooth wood cool against her skin. Actually, physically retreated, his burning ebony gaze fixed on hers. “So,” he rasped, “I get that you’ve had a good night tonight and you’ve had a few drinks and your confidence is high, which it should be, but this is incredibly unwise. So, I suggest you gather up all of that superior confidence of yours, get some sleep and use it on some other man, where the result will be infinitely less complicated.”

She arched a brow at him, trying desperately to maintain said confidence, because truly, she only had so much of it. “What if I don’t want anyone else? What if that’s been the problem all along with us? We keep trying to deny this and it’s only ended up with us making unwise decisions about other people and coming back to the same, inevitable thing?”

“Which is?” he murmured, looking half-loathe to hear it.

“Us,” she said, her gaze fixed on his. “Do you really think we’re going to make it
through the summer without satisfying this urge? Because I don’t.”

“Sì,” he said staunchly, “I do. Because what’s the alternative? We take everything we’ve built and throw it away on sex? On a hot night or two, before we both regain our sanity?”

She absorbed the combustible heat in his gaze. The tumultuous battle he was fighting. “We won’t be throwing away our friendship. We will always be there for each other, Rafe. The bond we share is inviolate. Indestructible. We’ve proven that time and time again.”

He shook his head, rebuilding his walls, minute by minute. “You don’t play by the same rules as I do, Scarlett. Sex is something I enjoy, without strings attached. I burn it out and then I move on. You are not like that. You are careful, you are sensitive and you feel everything deeply.”

“I do,” she conceded, because that was true, and attempting to lie to Rafe was pointless. “But I also know that I want this. That I can handle it. That I’ve dreamed of it, imagined it, then made myself dismiss it so many times in my head, but it never goes away. Because it’s always been about you.” She shook her head. “The only thing I will regret is not pursuing this thing with you,” she said huskily, “because I know it will be amazing, Rafe. Special. So rather than spending the rest of my life wondering what if, and torturing ourselves all summer, because truly it will be torture, maybe we should just give into it.”

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple convulsing. “I’m not sure you know what you’re doing, Scar. You say you know what you want, but I’m not sure you do.”

“I do,” she whispered. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. And you are too.”

She moved then. Pushed away from the desk and closed the remaining distance between them. Straddling his powerful thighs, she absorbed the fine material of his suit trousers as it brushed against the soft flesh of her inner thighs. All of the leashed, bunched muscle beneath. And had never felt a headier sensation in her life.

His olive-skinned hands closed around the sides of his chair, refusing to engage. She almost would have lost her nerve, then, if it weren’t for the smoky embers in his ebony gaze that were most definitely burning with the same unresolved need as she was. She pressed her palms to his chest, absorbing the heat of his skin through the fine material of his shirt. He was like a furnace in the cool depths of the climate-controlled space, as if he was burning up from the inside out.

She moved her fingers to the top button of his shirt, just this side of unsteady, plunging forward, because there was no other alternative. He didn’t encourage her, but he didn’t stop her either. As if he were in a state of perpetual limbo. Which was fine with her, because she was too busy uncovering his drool-inducing chest and eight-pack, which was like discovering what silk felt like, underpinned by steel. Hot, malleable steel, which moved beneath her fingers in time with his deep, slightly uneven breathing.

Job complete, she slid her palms over the awe-inspiring expanse of smooth, olive skin, up over the defined juncture of his clavicle, to his face, where she rested her palms against his cheeks, which felt as hot as the rest of him. “You made your decision when you kissed me in the pool that day, Rafe.” She brushed her fingers across his lean, sensual mouth, paying close attention to his full lower lip she knew could elicit so such pleasure. “Tell me you don’t think of it, constantly, like I do.”

She was so afraid he was going to reject her in that moment, her insides felt like a giant cauldron of roiling emotion, fisted into a tight ball. It could not happen. Would not happen. She knew how he felt. She was positive. And then, he finally moved, catching one of her hands in his and holding it captive. “You are sure?” he murmured. “You can walk away from this intact when it’s all over? Because it will be, Scarlett. I’m not a forever guy.”

“Si,” she replied, a mischievous smile curving her lips. “I am positive. I want to know what it’s like to be with you, Rafe. I have no illusions about who and what you are. I do not, however,” she qualified, “have limitless amounts of confidence, so if you’re going to take me up on this offer, you’d better do it soon.”

He didn’t move at first, and she wasn’t actually sure he was breathing. Then she felt the tension seep from him, his body uncoiling in a powerful movement as he caught her chin in his hand, forcing her gaze up to his. And the blazing heat she found there, took her breath away. “We start this,” he rasped, “and we see it through. Every hot, insane moment of it. We satisfy our urges, drown ourselves in it, and then we are done.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

America’s favorite youngest child, Manhattan’s most notorious womanizer, and a highly publicized proposal. What could possibly go wrong?

Scarlett Davis loathes the limelight. Long labeled the least compelling sister of a popular reality show family, the diligent fashion designer hopes to be left alone to run her growing company in peace. But a mean girl rival’s attempt to steal a red carpet client has the sassy businesswoman scrambling to generate positive buzz…until she blurts out a fake engagement to her majorly famous best friend.

Rafael Sánchez has turned his back on love. Yet when the most important person in his life impulsively proclaims he’s her fiancé, he helps her save face in front of the cameras.
And, as the retired soccer star attempts to sell the ruse while hiding the way the voluptuous blonde makes his blood sizzle, he worries they’re about to send both their reputations up in flames.

As Scarlett’s insecurities flare up under scrutiny from her glitterati peers, she can’t resist the temptation of a red-hot kiss. And when their pent-up attraction explodes into a scorching summer fling, Rafael can’t shake the fear he’s about to get burned.

Will they stage a quiet breakup, or can their chemistry carry them into a Hollywood-style happy ending?

The Davis Deal is a steamy contemporary romance novel. If you like heart-melting characters, laugh-out-loud humor, and a hefty dose of celebrity drama, then you’ll adore Jennifer Hayward’s sparkling, stylish, and spicy tale.
Book Links: Amazon |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Jennifer Hayward has been a fan of romance since filching her sister’s novels to escape her teenage angst. Her career in journalism and PR, including years of working alongside powerful, charismatic CEOs and traveling the world, has provided perfect fodder for the fast-paced, sexy stories she likes to write—always with a touch of humor. Since her debut in 2013, as the winner of Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write global writing contest, she’s written over eighteen titles and sold over two million copies of her books to readers in 31 countries, in 25 languages. A native of Canada’s East Coast, Jennifer lives in picturesque Nova Scotia with her husband and son.
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