Title:
Baby by Design (Designing Love #1)
Author:
Elley Arden
Expected
Publish Date: November 11, 2013
Published
by: Crimson Romance
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Book
Synopsis:
Trish
DeVign knows what she needs to be single, successful and satisfied.
She needs a baby. With recent relationships falling short of her
expectations, she’s single by choice. With a thriving interior
design company, she’s got successful covered. It’s the satisfied
part that eludes her, and that’s her mother’s fault-not her
adopted mother, but the mother who gave her away, sentencing her to a
privileged life with two good people who don’t share with her a
single drop of DNA. Refusing to grow old bitter, Trish decides a baby
will calm the restlessness and lead her to true happiness. Instead,
it leads straight to her best friend’s brother.
Tony
Corcarelli has spent his adult life as the black sheep of his large
Italian-American family. The nickname became permanent when he took a
buyout from his sister rather than run the family carpentry company
after his father’s death. Now, Tony’s grandmother has cancer, and
he’s expected to join the family in making her wishes come true.
Unfortunately, the two things Nonna wants most for Tony, are two
things he can’t fathom-a wife and kids or the priesthood. There has
to be another way.
When
Trish asks Tony to escort her to a wedding, a night of fun and
flirtation turns serious, with Trish confessing she wants a
baby-Tony’s baby. Could a calculated conception be the answer he’s
looking for?
Thrown
together by a carefully constructed yet cockamamie plan, Trish and
Tony struggle to define terms they didn’t expect to become so
complicated. But what if neither disapproving family members nor
Nonna’s rapidly declining health is their biggest complication?
What if it’s love?
Book
Links:
Author
Bio:
Elley Arden is
a born and bred Pennsylvanian who has lived as far west as Utah and
as far north as Wisconsin. She drinks wine like it’s water (a
slight exaggeration), prefers a night at the ballpark to a night
on the town, and believes almond English toffee is the key to
happiness. Elley writes provocative, emotional, series contemporary
romances for Crimson Romance.
Author
Links:
Excerpt;
Tony turned back
to the chairs and Trish, who had removed the plastic covering and
settled onto the cushion, crossing her long legs and bouncing one
barefoot with red painted toes in his direction. As she sat, she
rubbed her palms over the arms of the chair and breathed deeply
enough that he risked hypnosis by the rise and fall of her breasts.
Not the sort of thing he wanted to notice about a woman he couldn’t
pursue.
“You really do
great work.”
He smiled and
stepped closer, because he was a gentleman who’d just been
complimented. “Thank you.” He squatted and ran his hand along the
nailhead trim, grazing her covered calf muscle, because he was a guy
who liked the way her face flushed whenever he stood too close. “I’m
glad you like it. When you’re in need of my
skills again, you
know where to find me.” And then he stood, taking two steps back
toward the hall, because even a screw-up like him knew where to draw
the line.
She sat ramrod
straight, gripping the arms of the chair. “Tony, I need a favor.”
He stopped.
“What’s up?”
“I need a…guest
for my cousin’s wedding on Saturday. Would you happen to be
interested?”
“I take it the
good doctor wasn’t so good.”
A nervous chuckle
escaped her lips. “Not good at all. And I RSVP’d for two with the
hope that he’d still be around, and now my mother is driving me
crazy, saying I can’t embarrass myself and her by cancelling this
late in the game. I’m stuck.”
It was Tony’s
turn to chuckle. “So you want me to unstick you?”
She shrugged,
managing cute, coy, and sexy with one pouty-mouthed look. “Would
you?”
If he was sane
and sensible, no, he wouldn’t. “Absolutely. What time should I
pick you up?”
“Thank you,”
she breathed on a noisy exhale. “We should leave at three, but I’ll
drive.”
“You don’t
trust my driving?”
“It’s a
wedding, Tony, and I’m wearing a dress. You should wear a suit,
like the one you wore to Nonna’s party.” He liked the way she
pulled her bottom lip between her teeth when she paused for a breath.
“Dress clothes can’t be worn on the back of a motorcycle.”
An image of her
creamy leg stretching out from beneath a short skirt and hanging
alongside the chrome of his bike made his skin itch. He grinned to
cover the not-so-innocent thought. “No bike. Got it. I’ll pick
you up at three.” And before she could protest, he turned around
and walked away.
He’d never been
the kind of guy to let a woman down, and that was a blessing and
curse. Now he needed a car worthy of escorting Trish DeVign to a
family wedding, in addition to a grand gesture for Nonna’s wish
list.
Talk about
pressure.
Baby by Design
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