Blog tour: Tease: Melanie Harlow
Tease
Melanie Harlow
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Release Date July 11, 2022
I didn’t mean to say I was engaged to a hot billionaire–it just slipped out.
In my defense, I’d had a really bad haircut, a really strong drink, and I was trying to save face in front of the Mean Girl at my high school reunion.
Lucky for me, I happen to know a hot billionaire. Hutton French and I have been friends forever, and even though big social gatherings are not his thing, I called him from the coat closet and begged him for a favor–show up and play my fake fiancé for the night.
Except that word of our engagement spreads like wildfire. Our families are ecstatic. We’re front page news. My little food blog is launched into the stratosphere.
Of course, I offer to set the record straight right away, but Hutton wants to give it a little time–the phony engagement will keep his matrimony-mad mother and every matchmaking granny in town off his back.
He even suggests I move in with him to make the ruse more real.
And we don’t stop there.
We practice kissing. Undressing each other. Saying things–and doing things–we’d never dare if we weren’t pretending. Because it’s all for show, right? We’re just role-playing. Hutton doesn’t want a real relationship, and I don’t want to get hurt. But the more time we spend faking it, the more I start to wonder.
Could Hutton French and I actually be right for each other, or is it all just one big tease?
Felicity MacAllister is kind of a hot mess. She is back home living with her parents, trying to get a catering business off the ground, and dealing with anxiety about mostly everything. She is smart, sweet, caring, but an overthinker and tends to blurt out things when nervous. She never feels like she fits in.
Hutton French has been her longtime friend. He is even more anxious and socially awkward and averse than she is, but he has the luxury of being a self-made billionaire so people look more favorably on him especially since he is generous and charitable. He is a brilliant, quiet, negative thinker, and would be happy being a hermit. He is just back in town for the summer, and has no plans to ever be vulnerable enough to be in a real relationship since he does not think anyone would ever put up with his idiosyncracies.
They have been friends for so long and understand each other's quirks, fear, panic, and coping mechanisms. But when Felicity pulls him into a situation that spirals out of control, all of a sudden he is playing her fake fiance' and things are about to get complicated. A short-term fake relationship seems to be the perfect time to act on impulses both have been afraid to in the past. Pretending and practicing are easy ways to avoid reality and explore things they were too afraid to try before.
This is a sweet, sexy, best friends, fake relationship romance with two of the most awkward and adorkable main characters I have ever read. But they are just so cute together. Their connection and understanding of each other are so wonderful, even though just initiating anything romantic took years. It is like they do not fit into a normal world but they fit together so well and help each other see themselves in a different light. But they do have some challenges and their own hang-ups to deal with. It's hard to trust and believe in love when you have a hard time believing in yourself.
Pretending to live life with the one that understands them is just a big tease if they are determined they cannot keep it. They are a mess of confusion, fear, and anxiety, and need all the help they can get to get out of their own way and navigate from fake to real...and temporary to possible forever.
Pretending to live life with the one that understands them is just a big tease if they are determined they cannot keep it. They are a mess of confusion, fear, and anxiety, and need all the help they can get to get out of their own way and navigate from fake to real...and temporary to possible forever.
This brings back the MacAllister sisters and other friends we have met in the Cloverleigh Farms books. I love visiting this world and these next-gen books are just as enjoyable as the ones for the parents.
Keep reading for a look inside TEASE!
"Want something to drink? Whiskey or scotch?”
“No, thanks. Mostly I just want to take these heels off.”
“Leave them on.”
I was already bending down to unbuckle one ankle strap. I looked up and saw him standing there with his glass in his hand. “What?”
“Leave them on. And come over here.”
I straightened up and took one tiny step.
“On your hands and knees.”
My breath caught. I could feel his eyes on me. Instantly I understood what this was, and even though I was a little nervous, I wanted to play along. I wanted to please him this way.
The only problem was, I wasn’t entirely sure I could get to my knees in this tight dress. But I said a quick prayer and dropped to my knees on the carpet in one smooth motion. Thankfully, the dress material had some stretch, and the seams didn’t pop.
“Good girl,” he said quietly, igniting a firestorm in my blood that surprised me. “Now come here.”
My heart thrummed fast and loud as I lowered my palms to the floor and slowly closed the distance between us. I’d never done anything like this in my life—who am I right now?—but I liked the way it made me feel.
Tempting. Seductive. Alluring. I’d never thought of myself that way before, but here and now, in this tight little black dress with the red satin heels, crawling toward a gorgeous, powerful man in a suit in our Manhattan hotel suite? My billionaire fake fiancé? It was easy to imagine I wasn’t myself at all.
When I reached his feet, I sat back on my heels and looked up. Our eyes met. His lean, muscular silhouette looked imposing above me. Even that rebel lock of hair had been tamed into submission tonight.
He took another sip of his drink and set the glass on the table. Pulled the chair at the head of the table aside. Loosened the knot in his tie. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“If there’s a point tonight where you are not, you should tell me.” He slipped the tie from his collar.
I swallowed hard. “Like a safe word?”
His mouth hooked up on one side. His hand freed the top button of his shirt. “You already have a safe word?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I’ve never needed one before.”
“You do now.” He undid a second button. “So what will it be?”
Of course, I couldn’t fucking think of anything, and I panicked.
“Roy Kent,” I blurted.
He cocked his head, his hand still on his shirt. “Who’s Roy Kent?”
“Never mind. I’ll think of another one.”
Do not say Oklahoma.
Do not say bumblebee.
I racked my brain for something else. “Romeo,” I said breathlessly. “That’s what I’ll say. Romeo.”
He set his tie on the table and offered me a hand.
Placing my palm in his, I rose to my feet. “Is anything going to hurt?” I asked, picturing whips, chains, ball gags, metal cuffs and clamps, shiny rubber gloves.
“I don’t need to inflict pain to feel in control, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Okay. Should I—”
But that was all I got out because he spun me around and clamped a hand over my mouth, pressing his body tight against my back.
Spin -off next-generation series of
Melanie Harlow
USA Today bestselling author Melanie Harlow likes her martinis dry, her heels high, and her history with the naughty bits left in. When she's not writing or reading, she gets her kicks from TV series like Ted, Lasso, Schitt’s Creek, and Fleabag. She occasionally runs three miles, but only so she can have more gin and steak.
Melanie is the author of the BELLAMY CREEK series, the CLOVERLEIGH FARMS series, the ONE & ONLY series, AFTER WE FALL series, the HAPPY CRAZY LOVE series, and the FRENCHED series. She lifts her glass to romance readers and writers from her home near Detroit, MI, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and pet rabbit.
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