For the next few weeks, as I countdown
to the release date for Chocolate Chip Christmas Wishes I will be
revisiting some of my older stories. This week I am talking about my first full
length published story, The Model Man.
Single mom and romance novelist Kelly Michaels has no time for a man in her life. But when mega-famous cover model Derek Calavicci puts the moves on her at a romance writers' conference, she succumbs to temptation. Common sense prevails, however, and after a few passionate kisses she turns him down; she has impressionable teenagers at home, after all, she doesn't need a one-night-stand with a much younger man, no matter how hot he is. When photos of their passionate moonlight kiss hit the tabloids, her agent has to do some fast footwork to save her reputation. Will the notorious bad boy go along with her scheme?
Derek rarely hears a woman say "no" — it's been that way his entire life. If Kelly isn't interested, he's not going to push her-- even if she does melt like ice cream on a hot sidewalk every time he touches her. But when an unexpected opportunity falls into his lap by way of Kelly's scheming agent, he jumps at the chance. Pretend he's in love with Kelly Michaels for two weeks? No problem. After all, the lady may say she's never going to sleep with him... but he's got two weeks to convince her otherwise.
Publication
date: 3/28/08
Buy
link at Amazon:
After finally
getting published, I was hooked. This whole
writing thing was definitely for me!
I was
writing an historical story in my spare time; it was really my dream to write
westerns. But I wasn’t brave enough to submit it just yet.
My next
story idea began with a dream. It
involved a handsome actor and me in a rather steamy situation. But even in the dream all I could think was –what’s
he doing with me??
So I began
to toy with the idea of a regular girl and a hot guy. At the time the idea of an older
woman/younger man story was a bit unusual.
And I knew I didn’t want my hero to be an actor.
They say to
write what you know, so my heroine was a mom.
And a romance novelist. But who
should her hero be?
Why not a romance
novel cover model?
Usually for
me once I put the two characters on a page together they take it from
there. But Kelly, my heroine, took a little
time to warm up to the whole idea. Derek
was very strong from day one, he sort of strode onto the scene, over confident as
always and took over. Kelly was much
slower to begin talking to me.
Once I added
Kelly’s side kick, her best friend Sharon, into the story, Kelly began to loosen
up a bit. Turns out she’s pretty introverted
(like most authors) and it took Sharon to pull her out of her shell a bit.
So where for
the two characters to meet?
A romance writer’s
conference, of course!
Turns out
Derek has always wondered about this mysterious romance novelist who likes to
keep him as naked as possible on the covers of all her books.
Kelly, on
the other hand, liked to keep pictures of Derek around when writing about her
heroes.
Only when
they meet she is unimpressed. He’s
conceited and nothing at all like she imagined. He is also pursued constantly by the paparazzi,
and she begins to suspect he likes that.
A bit too much
champagne and some heady moonlight finds her defenses down and his lips on hers—only
to have the paparazzi find them. After
that Kelly’s agent capitalizes on the idea and the two are forced to pretend
they are having an affair. Derek only
goes along with it because he’s pretty sure he can get her to sleep with
him.
This story
was written in 2007/8 before we had social media and smart phones so in some
ways it feels a little dated to me, but I still love this story.
As it turns
out, The Model Man was my last contemporary story for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment