Shopping for a Billionaire’s Fiancee by Julia Kent
(Shopping for a Billionaire #6)
Publication date: February 26th 2015
Genres: Comedy, New Adult, Romance
All of our best dates end up in the emergency room….
I planned the perfect proposal. Plenty of lobster, caviar, champagne
and–her favorite–tiramisu. The perfect setting. The perfect woman. The
perfect everything.
Dad gave me my late mother’s engagement ring, platinum and diamonds
galore. Shannon wouldn’t care if I slid a giant hard-candy ring on her
finger instead of a three-carat diamond designed to impress. But my
future mother-in-law, Marie, will pass out when she sets eyes on that
rock, which will give us two minutes of blessed silence. That woman
talks more than Kim Kardashian flashes her naked backside on the
internet.
I was going to make it perfect, from the color of the tablecloth to the freshness of the roses. And it was perfect.
Until Shannon swallowed the ring.
* * *
Shopping for a Billionaire’s Fiancée gives near-billionaire Declan
McCormick the chance to tell his story in this continuation of the New
York Times and USA Today bestselling Shopping for a Billionaire series.
When
I was sixteen, the year before my mother died, Mom took me and my
little brother, Andrew, to New York City for a long weekend. Pulled
us out of school over the objections of the headmaster at our
academy. Mom didn’t care. We spent three nights at the Waldorf
Astoria, skated at Rockefeller Center, had the best seats at the top
Broadway musicals, and dined on the finest footlongs you could get
for $3. Loaded with mustard and sauerkraut, plus a cream soda or two.
(Do
you have something against footlongs? Too bad. Two teenagers can only
handle so much caviar and lobster.)
What
I remember most about that trip, and what Shannon reminds me of every
moment I look at her, was our trip to the Museum of Modern Art. Mom
insisted we go, and Andrew and I rolled our eyes like sets of dice at
a craps table.
And
then.
And
then I got
it, right there in front of a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece. In art
history class we’d covered this painting in detail. We were taught
the biography of Van Gogh, how he came to create the series of
paintings, his motivation, and his flaws. We’d dissected the
meaning so thoroughly that I felt like I could recreate the art by
automation, our elite prep-school instruction clinical and
impeccable.
Standing
in front of the painting, a few feet away, with my eyes trailing the
curve of brush strokes, my mind taking in the nuance of color, my
senses dazzled by the sheer essence of the whole, I halted. Froze.
Was completely in the painting’s spell.
You
can study something in the abstract. Know it’s real somewhere out
there in the world, and understand intellectually that what you read
in a book or what you’re told by someone else is true.
You
have to stand in front of it and have it stare back at you, though,
to really know
it.
That’s
how I feel when I look at Shannon. Every single time my eyes find
her. Shannon’s smile is warm and sweet, yet better every time she
flashes it at me. Her honey-colored hair shines in the sunlight but
looks richer when it’s tangled, in bed, highlighted by the moon and
messed by me.
Those warm eyes see only me when we’re together. That luscious body
craves my touch. My hands. My...all of it.
When
I’m with her, the world is more nuanced. Deeper. Authentic. Real.
She’s
a work of art, one of a kind. And one I get to hold next to my body,
tuck away in my heart, and...grow old with.
I
have planned the perfect proposal. No footlongs and sauerkraut,
unfortunately, but plenty of lobster, caviar, champagne and—her
favorite—tiramisu. (What is it with women and tiramisu? It’s
cream, cheese, sugar, cake and rum, not some magic potion that
generates mouth orgasms. My Y chromosome scratches its head in
confusion, but hey, if it’s her favorite...I give my woman what she
wants.)
Dad
gave me Mom’s engagement ring, platinum and diamonds galore, a
monstrosity he’d bought for her nearly four decades ago as his
business took off. The ring is designed to impress. I doubt Shannon
would care if I slid a giant hard-candy ring on her finger instead of
a three-carat diamond.
And,
frankly, I don’t
care, either. But the thought of my Shannon sharing such an important
part of my mother’s life makes my chest swell. Only Shannon—and
my mom—can do that. Only love can do that.
Plus,
Marie will pass out when she sets eyes on that rock, and that will
give us two minutes of blessed silence. That woman talks more than
Kim Kardashian flashes her naked ass on the internet.
“It’s
not as if your brothers are planning to tie themselves down to one
woman any time soon, if ever,” Dad had said when he gave it to me.
He’s about as sentimental as a pet rock. After having it resized to
fit my future fiancée, it was ready to rest on yet another McCormick
woman’s finger.
It
was going to be calculatedly perfect, down to the color of the
tablecloth and the freshness of the roses.
And
it was
perfect.
Until
Shannon swallowed the ring.
--
Purchase:
New
York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Julia Kent writes romantic
comedy with an edge, and new adult books that push
contemporary boundaries. From billionaires to BBWs to rock stars, Julia
finds a sensual, goofy joy in every book she writes, but unlike Trevor
from Random Acts of Crazy, she has never kissed a chicken.
Blitz-wide giveaway (INT)
- $25 Starbucks gift card
- Signed paperback of the Shopping for a Billionaire Boxed Set (Parts 1-5)
The grand prize giveaway - ends March 10th:
Awesome excerpt, loving it! Can't wait to read this one.
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