Title:
Have
Gown, Will Wed
Author:
Killian
McRae
Release
date: September
25, 2013
Age
Group: Adult
Genre:
Contemporary
Romance/Chick Lit
Back
in college, the bras-before-bros sisterhood decided to live for
achievement in the boardroom, not the bedroom. Rosalind Betters
embraced that philosophy, pursuing her career and little else. But
when her last single friend, Kamakshi, announces her engagement in of
all things, an arranged marriage, Rosalind reevaluates the merits of
matrimony. In her typical gung ho fashion, she names a date, books a
venue, hires a caterer, and picks out a dress, all before finding a
groom. Taking a lesson from Kamakshi and too busy to do otherwise,
Rosalind hires San Francisco's best headhunter, Xavier Hommes, to
find her better half for her.
At
first, Xavier thinks Rosalind is one of the eccentric personalities
for which the city is famous. As the search starts, however, Xavier
finds himself hating his task for reasons he never would have
suspected. If Rosalind really wants a man who will make her happy,
she need look no further. As W-Day approaches and Rosalind starts
falling for someone Xavier himself headhunted, he walks the line
between professionalism and passion, trying to decide if competing to
become Mr. Betters is worth the risk to his commission, his
reputation, and Rosalind's happiness.
EXCERPT
4
Tonight’s
agenda would feature lots of high-priced, high-spirited, celebratory
drinking.
She’d
done it, she’d actually closed the biggest deal of her life with
one of the biggest corporations in the world. Now, half the laptops,
smartphones and cheese graters in the world would carry BetaHouse
applications, with an easy option to upgrade to the pro version with
just a few clicks and a credit card. Already, she was looking forward
to the huge bonus she’d be able to give her employees this year.
The hundred or so employees she had had really been working their
tails off, pulling sixty hour weeks without any time off for months.
She was committed to making sure each and everyone one of them shared
in this victory. For the moment, however, she was going to celebrate
her own success in sealing the deal.
Had
she really thought six years ago when she left Stanford as a
wide-eyed masters student, that she’d come so far, so fast?
Of
course she had; that’s how she’d planned it, after all.
The
click-clack of Rosalind Betters’s Prada pumps laid down a driving
tempo for the victory parade through SFO. In typical fashion, the
moment the captain flicked off the seatbelt light, she had her iPhone
in hand, catching her up on all the news she missed since in the
twenty minutes since the in-flight WiFi had been cut off. A small
time in the grand scheme of things, but enough time for the world to
change in the Silicon Valley Pacific time zone.
But
atypically, this time reports about the goings on of her competitors
and the latest stock prices took a back burner. The big clock on the
wall in the terminal read three fifty-eight. Two more minutes until
the embargo passed, and the news about her deal went out in an
automated press release. Two minutes until she was officially the
toast of the industry and, oh yes, not less than a little wealthier
for the exchange.
Top
shelf liquor tonight. And tapas. For some reason, she really wanted
tapas.
Like
all breaking news, Twitter caught fire first. At four-o-six,
@TechBizTimes declared “Bigger and Betters gets bigger and better
in $30 million contract from leading industry firm.” Then slowly at
first, but with growing momentum, the headline infected all the
ping-pong accounts, creating leader links which harvested readers to
advertising-cluttered websites, each echoing the details of the deal
with further clarity, a new angle, a deeper, more exclusive snippet.
BetaHouse was hotter than celebrity trash, in the right circles, that
was.
Rosalind
was just about to shove her phone back in her bag when she felt it
buzz against her palm. The text message made her grin like the cat
that got the cream.
Kam:
Oh my god, Raz, is this true?
Rosalind
had been bursting to tell Kamakshi the news since the ink was on the
paper earlier in the day. She had had no doubt her best friend of ten
years would be surfing the news streams to see what had Rosalind’s
Facebook emoticon showing a toothy smile.
A
driver stood curbside just outside the baggage claim, holding a
placard on which Rosalind’s name was printed in clinical text.
Rosalind held the phone to her ear as she maneuvered through the
crowd, her other hand pulling her roller carryon bag as though it
were an unruly child insistently out of a candy shop. Somewhere
between Washington and California, she’d misplaced her earpiece.
Her neck would remind her of the injury all night. After depositing
herself in the backseat, she dialed Kamakshi’s cell.
“You
think news programs lie?” she asked before her best friend had even
had time to say hello.
There
was no reply from the other party.
“I
mean about something like this,” Rosalind clarified. “Kam, I
wanted to call you and tell you this morning right after I got out of
the meeting, but they convinced me someone might be listening in on
the call. I had to wait until it went public.”
“No,
I understand. Sometimes you have to keep things confidential. But you
really think that someone might have bugged your phone or tapped your
signal?”
“Your
brother told me he hooked me up proper when he outfitted BetaHouse’s
cells, but with everything you see in the news these day…” Her
voice tapered off as she remembered the look on the executives’
faces when they had made the request of her. “To tell the truth, I
think they were just pissed that I had an iPhone. Apple is their
biggest competitor, but it wasn’t as though half of their corporate
office didn’t have them either. Geesh. You want to test it to make
sure?”
Kamakshi
giggled. “Sure, how?”
“Say
something you think would make Perez Hilton or the bloggers on CNET
salivate.”
“Naked
Justin Bieber!”
“Salivate,
not squirm!” The squawking laugh drew a raised eyebrow via the
rearview mirror from the driver. “Seriously, though. About me.”
“Rosalind
Betters hasn’t had sex in two years!”
Rosalind’s
hand slapped over her mouth, a mixture of surprise and incredulity.
“Kam!”
It
wasn’t untrue, unfortunately. Not as though she’d marked the date
and kept track. Scanning through the Google calendar in her mind,
however, she supposed the math worked out about right. Her brief
fling with Craig Ipswitch counted as just another statistic in the
graveyard of dead-end relationships, a scenic scattering hosting more
than one unkempt and overgrown crypt. All serious suitors had been
killed off or seriously maimed – metaphorically speaking- by the
growth of her startup the past few years.
C’est
la vie.
Every silver lining had its cloud. One thing Rosalind knew for sure:
unlike scores of literary inventions and hallmark movie heroines, no
empty place in her heart existed where a widget called “man”
would fit. It wasn’t as though she and Craig had parted on bad
terms either. They had a fling both had enjoyed, a few rounds of
sheet tag, and then they parted with best wishes to the other. She
just couldn’t seem to convince herself the benefit of the
relationship justified all the effort to keep it going.
About
the Author
Killian
McRae would tell you that she is a rather boring lass, an authoress
whose characters’ lives are so much more exciting than her own. She
would be right. Sadly, this sarcastic lexophile leads a rather
mundane existence in the San Francisco Bay Area. She once dreamed of
being the female Indiana Jones, and to that end she earned a degree
in Middle Eastern History from the University of Michigan. However,
when she learned that real archaeologist spend more time lovingly
removing dust with toothbrushes from shards of pottery than
outrunning intriguing villains with exotic accents, she decided to
become a writer instead. She writes across many genres, including
science fiction, fantasy, romance, and historical fiction.
Author
Social Media Links:
Site/Blog:
www.killianmcrae.com
Event
Giveaway:
The
author is offering an event giveaway.
Giveaway ends
October 12th.
(1)
Gift
basket including signed book, Mae
West glamour collection, a
CD of Glenn Miller ( Xavier’s favorite musical act), along with
other goodies and swag, (1) $25 Amazon, iTunes or BN gift card -
International
