Out Now—HASTY
(Do-Over Series Book 4) by Julia Kent (@jkentauthor) #romcom #romance
Author: Julia Kent
Release date: July 28, 2020
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Contemporary Romance
Cover Designer: Hang Le
Editor: Elisa Reed
Author: Julia Kent
Release date: July 28, 2020
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Contemporary Romance
Cover Designer: Hang Le
Editor: Elisa Reed
Description:
AN ALL-NEW STANDALONE FROM NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
JULIA KENT COMPLETES THE DO-OVER SERIES!
I never thought my perp walk would lead to true love.
Then again, I never thought I’d be arrested on RICO charges and hauled
away in zip ties on camera for the world to see, minutes after closing the most
amazing deal of my career.
And all of it in front of my biggest rival, billionaire wunderkind Ian
McRory.
I am broke.
I am disgraced.
I am alone.
I am a sucker.
But the worst part? I have to go back to my hometown and live in my
bedroom filled with relics from my childhood.
Lisa Frank never made me so mad before.
Just when I needed a rescue, I got one — in the form of help from my
biggest rival.
He can’t bring back my money.
He certainly can’t bring back my reputation or my pride.
But there’s one thing he can bring back to me.
A sense of hope.
Maybe even love.
Ian sees something in me no one else does, and he’s relentless about
making me see it, too. As we grow closer, I’m starting to see that while my
entire life used to be a lie, the truth is staring me in the present — and it’s
a truth I like very, very much, hot eyes and gorgeous smile and all.
But I have to be careful.
I can’t be too —
That’s right.
Hasty.
The final book in the USA Today bestselling Do-Over Series (Fluffy,
Perky, Feisty), as Mallory's sister, Hastings "Hasty" Monahan gets
her turn at a happily ever after that starts off with an arrest.
Hers.
Excerpt
Today is the best day of my
life.
I know people say that, and
they mean it, but they don’t mean this. My best day is better than anyone
else's. Trust me.
I know.
I’m sitting at a table at
Essentialz, a five-star restaurant in San Francisco. Everyone at the table
watches me as I tuck the signed paperwork away in my black Bottega Veneta woven
leather brief bag.
I, Hastings Monahan, just
signed a nine-figure investment deal on behalf of the venture capital firm I
work for.
Full partner, here I come.
Of course, lawyers will
handle the majority of this. The signatures are symbolic as much as they are
legal. But the fellow diners at my carefully crafted table will go back to
China with an exciting opportunity for their company, Zhangwa Telecommunications,
to enter the North American market with climate-change technology projecting
yields that are the best aphrodisiac ever.
As I sip from my glass of
Montrachet Grand Cru, I catch the eye of Ming Bannerton, a consultant with
Zhangwa whose father is a high-ranking U.S State Department official in China,
a woman who has a hunger for financial success that I can spot in anyone in
three seconds flat. There’s something special about a fellow hustler–and when I
use the word hustler, I don’t mean it pejoratively.
People who hustle get
things done.
We connect. We network. We
pattern match. We ruthlessly apply what we intuitively feel to what we
operationally know in order to produce optimal outcomes.
In short–we hustle.
And we win.
But in competition, there
can only be one winner.
One.
Tonight, I'm it.
Her smile mirrors mine, red
lips stretched over perfectly white teeth that are as straight as a new picket
fence. The smile doesn't reach her eyes, but an intensity infuses her. She’s
about five years younger than me, with a knowing eye that tells me we need to
stay in touch. Someday soon, she may shoot past me, and that’s where all the
legwork pays off.
In this business, you
network down as well as you network up, if you want to get anywhere.
And the manila folder
resting in my brief bag, the one that feels like a warm gold ingot pressed
against my lips? That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get somewhere.
“Where is Burke?” Mr. Zhao
Bai asks, his head at a slight tilt, a gesture of genuine curiosity as his eyes
survey me, looking for information that doesn't come directly from my mouth.
He's the youngest of the four men at the table, a fast talker who looks around
the room like he's a mob boss. Negotiating with him took a steady hand I didn't
know I possessed, but now I understand.
Burke is part of the deal,
and I didn't realize it.
The contracts are signed,
though. That makes my husband an off-the-books addendum. No matter what, this
is my accomplishment.
My husband, Burke Oonaj, is
one of the hottest market makers in finance right now. Even he will have no
choice but to be impressed by the deal I’ve just put together.
But the inquiry about my
husband makes my uterus fall.
And it’s not like he’s
around to catch it.
“Good question,” I say
before taking another sip of wine, needing to buy myself a smidgen of space and
time. I only need a split second.
Normally.
For some reason that I
can't explain, my emotions are tangling in my mind, and that's an unpredictable
variable I have to weed out.
Fast.
My heart feels strangely
heavy in my chest, a sense of dread filling me that has no right to be here.
This is MY night, I tell that sense of dread. This is MY deal. This is my
culmination of six years of careful work, all coming together, right now.
Go away, dread.
But Mr. Zhao’s question is
a good one, because Burke isn’t answering any of my texts or emails or phone
calls, and hasn’t for the last three days.
My husband has disappeared.
Not literally, of course,
because husbands don't just do that. Business travel can be intense. Plenty of
stretches of time have gone by without hearing from him. They involved
twenty-four hours or less, though.
Not eighty-one hours and
thirteen minutes.
Not that I'm counting.
I can’t admit any of this
to anyone at this table, of course, so instead, I give what my pattern-matching
brain tells me is the optimal answer, designed to make me look good.
“Burke’s fine,” I say with
a grin, the glass of wine still full enough to make more sips look like an
appropriate response. “He sends his best regards. He would have been here
tonight, but… you know.”
Two of the men share a look
I don’t like. It’s a fleeting glance, the type that is practiced and meant to
look like nothing. You think I'm paranoid, that I'm inventing it all?
Wrong.
I’m in a state of
hyperarousal.
No, not the sexual kind.
Haven’t felt that in a long time, at least not with Burke. My hyperarousal is
based around the stress hormones pumping through me from the excitement of what
I just accomplished.
Me. Myself. Alone.
Independent of Burke.
As workday smiles stretch
to become the more casual, intimate grins of people enjoying bottle after
bottle of excellent wine, I loosen up. The answer I gave them sufficed. We can
move on.
My body feels numb and
excited at the same time. I’m on top of the world. The pinnacle.
I am Peak Hastings.
Which is why, when the
maître d’ approaches my side, I don’t pick up on the gravity of his whisper. No
one would. Because learning that my credit card has been declined for this
business dinner is definitely not part of the plan, and the areas of my brain
assigned to processing language literally can't comprehend it.
“It’s what?” I whisper,
standing carefully, legs still steady, my alcohol consumption measured, even if
my tablemates have made their way through more wine than an entire wedding
party back home.
The maître d’, José, gives
me a wide-eyed but polite look. “I’m sorry, Ms. Monahan. This has never
happened before when you’ve dined with us. But the credit card company was very
firm. You cannot use this one.”
Mr. Zhao gives me an
inquiring look. My stomach sinks. Did he overhear?
“Will you all excuse me?” I
tell them, hating the disruption, my legs turning into two steel beams covered
in chilled skin.
“Something must be wrong
with the credit card processor,” I snap at the maître d’ as I hurry away from
my group. I want to get the taint of this failure out of the way and get back
to my stellar success.
Once we’re out of sight of
my table, I rifle through my purse and find another business credit card. “Use
this one. And let me be very clear, to you and to your boss, that this is
absolutely, abjectly unacceptable.”
He inserts the card, chip
side in. “I realize this, Ms. Monahan, but we cannot…”
Beep.
He stares at the credit
card terminal.
I read the display upside
down. “Declined!” I hiss. “This is impossible! That card has no limit!”
“Perhaps you’ve had your
identity stolen, or there are fraud alerts on your account? Perhaps you’re the
victim of a financial crime?” José suggests.
“I can’t be the victim of a
financial crime!” I snap at him. “I’m a financial expert! This doesn’t happen
to people like me. Here!” I shove a third company card at him. This one better
work.
I only have one more.
My mind races ahead,
conjuring contingency plans, even as my cheeks burn with shame.
Shame.
Why would I feel shame for
someone else’s mistake? And yet, there it is, and I have to override it fast.
Because if I don’t, it gets a toehold.
And that is the fastest way
to lose your edge.
José closes his eyes and
lets out a sigh through his nose, a split second before the display terminal
beeps.
Again.
“Your computer system is
down,” I declare, pulling out the fourth card and my phone, texting my office
manager. Maybe something went wrong. Maybe José is right. Maybe we were hacked.
But this is surreal enough to let the dread come inside me and have a seat, as
it decides whether to become an overnight guest.
It doesn’t matter. What
matters is that I’m staring at a mid-four-figure bill that I owe, right now,
and have no way to settle.
This cannot be happening.
As he runs the fourth card,
the main door opens. My spine straightens, calves stretching tall, and not just
from the five-inch heels I’m wearing.
I know that man.
I hate that man.
And he’s the last person on
Earth I want to see in the middle of this debacle.
Ian McCrory cannot see me
like this.
Other Standalone Books in the
Series:
Little Miss Perfect (FREE)
Fluffy
Perky
Feisty
Buy links:
BookBub: https://geni.us/HastyBBsm
Goodreads: https://geni.us/HastyGRsm
Audiobook narrated by Erin Mallon – Coming Soon
Author Bio:
New York Times and USA Today
bestselling author Julia Kent writes romantic comedy with an edge. Since 2013,
she has sold more than 2 million books, with 4 New York Times bestsellers and
more than 19 appearances on the USA Today bestseller list. Her books have been
translated into French and German, with more titles releasing in 2020 and
beyond.
From billionaires to BBWs to new adult rock stars, Julia finds a sensual, goofy joy in every contemporary romance she writes. Unlike Shannon from Shopping for a Billionaire, she did not meet her husband after dropping her phone in a men's room toilet (and he isn't a billionaire she met in a romantic comedy).
She lives in New England with her husband and three children where she is the only person in the household with the gene required to change empty toilet paper rolls.
From billionaires to BBWs to new adult rock stars, Julia finds a sensual, goofy joy in every contemporary romance she writes. Unlike Shannon from Shopping for a Billionaire, she did not meet her husband after dropping her phone in a men's room toilet (and he isn't a billionaire she met in a romantic comedy).
She lives in New England with her husband and three children where she is the only person in the household with the gene required to change empty toilet paper rolls.
Social Media Links:
Website: http://jkentauthor.com/
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/jkentauthor
Newsletter: http://bit.ly/2PIBi9n
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Amazon
Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Julia-Kent/e/B00A99V268/
Release blitz organized by Writer Marketing Services.
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