Monday, May 11, 2015

Book Blitz and Giveaway: Escorting the Billionaire by Leigh James


Escorting the Billionaire by Leigh James
(Escorting the Billionaire #1)
Publication date: April 30th 2015
Genres: New Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

Love don’t cost a thing…except everything.

 When billionaire mogul James Preston hires an escort as a date for his brother’s wedding, he knows he’s taking a risk. One thing he won’t be taking? The escort’s clothes off. He just wants a date—not a girlfriend. Not a relationship. No strings. No ties. No games. No sex. He has his reasons. He lost someone he loved, and isn’t interested in trying again. Too many opportunities for mistakes or worse, heartbreak.

Audrey Reynolds became a high-end escort to keep her brother in his expensive group home. James Preston is the client of her dreams—he’s offering to pay her more money for two weeks than she’s ever made before. But James is…difficult. He’s gorgeous, troubled and all too human for Audrey’s business-like tastes. Determined to complete her assignment and collect the money, Audrey tries to play by James’s rules. But before she knows what’s happening, he’s rewriting the contract.

When Audrey ends up in James’s bed, he realizes that she’s everything he’s wanted…and everything he’s been running from.

This is PART ONE of the Escorting the Billionaire New Adult romance trilogy. It is novella-length (30,000 words) and has a wicked cliffhanger.



 Excerpts:

One

All I wanted was a date for my stupid asshole brother’s wedding.
Not a girlfriend. Not a relationship. A date.
No strings. No ties. No games.
No sex.
So when I called Elena at the escort service, I was very clear.
“I want someone beautiful. Who can function at high-society events,” I said. “She needs to be able to use her silverware properly and to be discreet. I can’t have someone who gets drunk and falls down in public. Also, no one who looks cheap. I don’t want a lot of makeup and big, fake boobs.”
“I don’t have any cheap-looking girls, Mr. Preston,” Elena said. “Unless the client is into that. Then I have plenty.” She laughed.
I waited for her to finish. “I need her to be available for two weeks. I have cocktail parties, lunches, brunches, the rehearsal dinner, then the wedding. And then for some ungodly reason, my brother wants us all to go on his honeymoon to the Caribbean with him. It’s going to be the wedding from hell.”
I sighed and rubbed my temples; two weeks with my family was going to be bad enough. And now I was going to have to babysit a hooker the whole time.
But it was better than going alone. I hoped.
“She’ll need a passport. And a drug test. I don’t want any users.” I winced, remembering the last time I’d hired an escort. It had been over ten years ago, but I still clearly remembered waking up and finding her in the bathroom, shooting up in between her toes.
I went on a penicillin and no-whore diet after that.
“All my girls are drug tested,” Elena said smoothly, “and they all have passports. They have to travel frequently. It’s not a problem.” She paused for a beat. “Speaking of tests, you’re going to have to be screened for STDs. I’ll need those results emailed to me before we make the final arrangements.”
“I’m not planning on actually sleeping with her—” I said.
“Excuse me?” Elena asked.
“I don’t want to sleep with her,” I insisted. “I need her as a buffer from my family.”
“Whatever you like,” Elena said sweetly. “But she will be young and gorgeous. And completely at your disposal.”
I exhaled and stalked around my living room, my footsteps bouncing off the hardwood floors. I was dressed in a suit and ready for work. I looked out at the sun rising over Los Angeles, the light flooding my house. I didn’t want to leave here. I had everything I needed, including my favorite leather couch and an enormous flatscreen television, and nothing I didn’t, including a prostitute and my family.
I didn’t argue with the madam. Still, I had no plans to sleep with the girl I was hiring—I wanted to keep her at arm’s length, just like everyone else. I didn’t want any messy emotional entanglements. I just needed a fake relationship to keep my family at bay. No more questions about why I was alone, no more wondering or whispers. The whispers that I was gay. Or worse, that I was lonely.

The truth was that I preferred to be alone, left to my own devices. And it was nobody’s damn business.


Two

He gave me a small smile; behind it, I thought I saw his temples pulse. He was stressed. I reached for his hand again and squeezed it. “Let’s go have a drink,” I said.
“Let’s stay drunk for the next two weeks,” he said and led me through the door.
Then maybe we’ll end up in bed, I thought, ignoring the clench of desire that tore through me at the thought. I looked at James as we walked through the door: tall, steel-grey hair, powerful shoulders, a square-cut chin. He was expensive looking.
He was also totally clench-worthy.
I heard him suck in his breath as he took in the restaurant; it was wall-to-wall fancy people, probably all related to him in one way or another. I suddenly wished I wasn’t wearing cubic zirconia. A waspy-looking woman with a white-blond bob was already heading for us. She was wearing a classic Chanel pink suit and a string of pearls.
“Is that your mom?” I asked James through the fake smile I’d plastered on.
“Yep.”
“She’s petrifying,” I said.
“Absofuckinglutely,” he said, and I saw that he’d plastered on a smile, too.
She reached us before we were ready for her, before we’d even had a chance to catch our breath.
“James,” she said, reaching out and giving him a hug, careful not to get makeup on his suit coat.
“Mother,” he said, and he did not sound friendly, even though the fake smile was still in place. He pulled pack and grabbed my hand. “This is Audrey Reynolds.”
“Mrs. Preston,” I said, holding out my hand to her.
She didn’t take it. Instead, she looked me up and down, and looked back at James. “Very nice, James. Very nice.” She turned back to me and beamed. I could almost hear her buzzing, a bundle of sharp edges, nerves, and plans.
She finally took my hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Audrey,” she said. “James never lets us meet his girlfriends. It’s lovely to see that you not only exist, but that you aren’t designed to embarrass his family.”
I looked at her, shocked and wondering what she meant by that. I shook her hand limply. I noted that my plastered-on smile was intact; if the rest of his family was this bad, I was going to need a steady supply of alcohol to keep it in place.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so many wonderful things,” I said.
“Oh, nonsense. You don’t need to bother with that, dear—I know what my son really thinks of me,” she said without bothering to look offended.
“Enough,” James said. He sounded defeated, and we’d been here for less than five minutes. “Let Audrey at least think we’re civilized for the first night. Can you show us to the bar? And where’s Dad? And Todd and his bitch-ass fiancée?”
Mrs. Preston stopped inspecting me and turned to him with a glare. It must have been the way she normally looked at him—her face relaxed into it. “You watch your mouth, James. And here’s a waiter—be sure to take your medicine. Just make sure it’s not the kind that has you hurling the c-word, or any other of your trash talk, at your new sister-in-law.”
“Yes, ma’am,” James said.
She rolled her eyes at him and turned to me. “You better order a double, young lady,” she said, nodding her head toward her son. “You’re going to need it.”

Three

“Audrey.”
She turned around and looked at me, biting her lip.
“Can you sleep with me tonight? No sex,” I said, holding up my hands. “I promised you—and even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t ask you like that. I just want you to stay with me.”
“Like a sleepover?” she asked, a little skeptically, but she looked pleased.
“Yes, like a sleepover. Just don’t try to put a mud mask on me or put warm water on my hand. That would piss me off,” I said.
“Let me change. Your room or mine?”
“Mine,” I said. “I have the best bed.”
“Of course you do,” she said.
* * *
She came in a few minutes later in those pink sweatpants again, her face scrubbed clean of makeup. She looked so beautiful and innocent it made my heart actually hurt, and I wasn’t technically sure that I even had a heart.
“Hey,” she said and sat on the edge of my bed. “You’re still in your clothes.”
“I wasn’t sure what you were going to wear,” I admitted. “I wanted to show you some solidarity and dress similarly.” I got up and pulled out an old Wharton T-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. “Is this okay?” I asked.
“It’s fine, James. I approve of the flannel.” She scooted up on the bed and grabbed the remote off the side table. She turned the flatscreen on and switched the channel to NESN, the New England Sports Network.
I was pretty sure that I still had a heart because it felt right then like I loved her, at least a little.
* * *
Later, after an hour of sports news, we turned out the lights.
“No sex?” she asked.
“That’s right,” I said. I paused. “Why are you asking?”
“I just don’t want this to be awkward. If we’re not doing it, let’s go to sleep.” She rolled over onto her side, toward me.
I rolled over toward her, too.
Eight hours later, I woke up holding her hand.




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AUTHOR BIO:

Leigh James writes contemporary romance with a healthy dose of action and adventure. In addition to writing, endlessly re-watching "Pitch Perfect" and scouring the house for leftover Halloween candy to eat, Leigh is a wife and mother of three.

She is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of New Hampshire's Journalism program and earned her J.D. from Suffolk University School of Law in Boston.

She lives with her husband and children in New Hampshire.

Join my mailing list at www.leighjamesbooks.com.

Author links:



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