Thanks so much for having me over on Illustrious Illusions
for day two of The Executive Decisions
Blog Tour.
Don’t forget that I’m celebrating the tour by giving away
two print copies of the first book of the trilogy, An Executive Decision.
Enter to win at the end of this post.
Circle of Friends
The Executive Decisions Trilogy didn’t come into
the world easily. I could build a large bond fire with the original rejection
letters for the early version of the first novel, then called The Executive Sex Clause. That was over
five years ago. A lot has happened since then. I’ve published nine novels under
two different names, and Fifty Shades of Grey exploded onto the literary scene,
making the time was right to revisit The
Executive Sex Clause.
One of the few agents who bothered to actually
critique the original manuscript offered the advice that would ultimately open
the door for the trilogy. She told me that there were too many characters in
the novel.
It took me a long time to figure out exactly what
to do with all those characters without destroying what I thought was the
beauty of the book, which was the friendships that played a major, if sometimes
confusing, role in Dee Henning and Ellison Thorne’s lives.
The friends made the story because they were real,
and complex people. That meant that ultimately the answer to the agent’s
criticism was that the friends were book-worthy in their own right! The
original couple, Dee and Ellis, are workaholics who can totally see the logic
of an Executive Sex Clause in their working relationship, but their hearts have
other ideas.
An Executive Decision Blurb:
Overworked CEO Ellison Thorne has no time for sex, let alone romance. The
only answer, at least where his retiring business partner Beverly is concerned,
is a no-strings sex clause in her replacement’s contract, designed to make
Ellis’ busy life easier – and hotter. But she’s joking, right?
When Dee Henning takes over Beverly’s job, sparks fly between her and Ellis,
but work takes priority in driven Dee’s life too. Can one night of passion in a
Paris hotel room prove Beverly’s Sex Clause is their secret to success in the
boardroom and the bedroom, and what will happen if that private clause becomes
public knowledge?
*****
Dee and Ellis’ friends rally around them, as good
friends do, when the situation gets rough. And sometimes rallying friends cause
problems of their own. The line between being helpful and meddling is very
fine.
Identity Crisis is Garrett Thorne
and Kendra Davis’s story. Garret is Ellis’s slightly younger brother, the
troublemaker and the bad boy of the Thorne brothers … or is he? What Garrett
gets up to when no one else is around is astonishing, and it can only be kept
secret for so long.
Kendra Davis is Dee’s friend, who, along with
Harris Walker, form the Three Musketeers. Kendra is the queen of PR, a genius
at spin and fixing celebrity screw-ups. But she’s back in Portland after
mysteriously selling her lucrative PR firm and taking some down-time to rethink
her life. Her claim to fame is her volatile temper – at least the way Garrett
sees it. Blaming him for nearly breaking up Dee and Ellis before their
relationship could begin, she has slapped him soundly and then tried to drown
him in the lake at a bar-b-q run-amuck. But perhaps the two protest too much.
Identity Crisis Blurb:
PR rep extraordinaire, Kendra Davis, is elated when she gets
the chance to work for her hero, reclusive, romance novelist, Tess Delaney. Her
elation is short-lived when she discovers that Tess is none other than Garrett
Thorne, the bad-boy brother of business tycoon and eco-warrior, Ellison Thorne,
who is engaged to her best friend, Dee Henning. Kendra blames Garrett for the
comedy of errors that nearly destroyed their relationship. Garrett doesn’t like
Kendra either, but he’s desperate. His alter-ego, Tess has been nominated for
the prestigious Golden Kiss Award. No one knows who Tess really is, and he
needs Kendra to play Tess for the awards.
When Tess is stalked by a rabid
fan, the two unite to protect her identity. With Kendra, the body and Garrett
the soul of Tess Delaney, is there room in this strange ménage for romance? Can
a woman who doesn’t exist understand their hearts even better than they do?
*****
Successful New York gallery owner, Stacie Emerson,
is the woman everyone would love to hate but just can’t quite manage it. She
was engaged to one Thorne brother and married and divorced the other. She’s the
last person Dee’s friend -- wildlife photographer extraordinaire, Harris
Walker, wants anything to do with. But she wants Harris’s work in her new West
Coast gallery, and the woman is not used to taking no for an answer.
The
Exhibition Blurb:
Successful NYC gallery owner, Stacie Emerson, is ex-fiancée
to one Thorne brother and ex-wife to the other. Though the three have made
peace, Ellison Thorne’s friend, wildlife photographer, Harris Walker, still
doesn’t like her. When Stacie convinces Harris to exhibit his work for the
opening of her new gallery she never intended to include him in her other more
hazardous plans. But when those plans draw the attention of dangerous business
tycoon, Terrance Jamison, Harris comes to her aid. In the shadow of a threat
only Stacie understands, can she dare let Harris into her life and make room
for love?
***
Too many characters was the key to transforming The Executive Sex Clause into An Executive Decision and the Executive Decisions Trilogy. The
friendships that are revealed, that develop and evolve over the course of three
novels give a sense of continuity and a sense of family. A dear friend of mine
once said you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. Dee
Henning and Ellison Thorne chose wisely, and the Executive Decisions Trilogy is
all the stronger for it.
Identity Crisis Excerpt:
Book 2 of The
Executive Decision Trilogy
Before Garrett could say anything else, the line went dead
and he and Kendra sat staring at each other. Garrett reached for the remote and
switched off the television. ‘So what do you think?’ He said. ‘I mean you are
K. Ryde.’
She ran a hand through her hair and tightened the sash at
the waist of the robe. In the kitchen they could hear the coffee maker gurgling
out the last of the coffee into the pot. ‘Garrett, I work for Tess Delaney, not
Don Bachman, and I think it’s up to you. You’ve done what was asked of you.
It’s had better than expected results, and now I think you should do what you
want. I mean a huge part of Tess’s appeal is her mystique. The more public she
becomes the more she risks losing that mystique. If you do decide to have Tess
make the odd public appearance, then I’ll happily oblige, but the more I
pretend to be Tess Delaney, the more risk we run of her really being outed.’
He tugged a strand of her red hair. ‘You think I should do
what I want?’ He scooted closer and brushed a kiss against her parted lips.
‘Because I’m pretty sure you have a good idea of what I want right now.’
She made a half-hearted effort to pull away from him.
‘Garrett, this is serious business, you know. I need to know, K. Ryde needs to
know what to do next.’
He gently nipped her lip and felt her breath catch. ‘I know
that, Kendra, believe me, I do.’ He guided her hand to rest against the bulge
barely contained by his straining shorts. ‘But I can’t think very well at the
moment. Perhaps if you could just help me out a little bit here --’ with his
other hand, he slid open the bottom of the robe to reveal her lush thighs and
beyond, ‘-- then maybe I could concentrate on business a little better.’
She forced an irritated sigh that ended in a soft giggle as
he pulled her to him, shoving the robe open still further, exposing her breasts
to the explorations of his lips and the cupping of his hands as he eased her
back onto the sofa, wriggling his way in between her legs. He had just worried
open the sash and slipped a hand down to cup her and stroke the unbelievable
warmth of her when a loud crash on the front porch caused them both to jump.
She jerked the robe back around her, and he shot up from the couch like he was
spring loaded.
‘What the hell?’ He scrambled to the door with her right
behind him, tightening the sash of the robe as she went.
‘Wait, Garrett. Don’t open it.’ She reached for his hand,
but it was already too late. He wasn’t thinking straight. How could he possibly
be thinking straight when he had been just about to make love to Kendra Davis?
He swung the door open wide and found himself, in nothing but his scant and
somewhat bulging work-out shorts, with Kendra barely covered in his over-sized
robe, on center stage to a sea of reporters. Cameras flashed, the press surged
and before Garrett could close the door, the irritating Mike Pittman shoved a
microphone in his face, shouldering his way into the breach of the door.
Garrett remembered Pittman from Dee and Ellis’s meeting with the press a few
weeks ago. The microphone might have been in Garrett’s face, but Pittman’s eyes
and the lens of the cameraman’s camera were focused on Kendra, hair thoroughly
mussed from last night’s romp, still tying the over-sized robe that was clearly
his, and looking more than a little like she’d just been caught in the act.
‘So it’s true, then, Tess Delaney did spend the night with
you after the Golden Kiss debacle?’
The Golden Kiss debacle! That slimy little rat! ‘Get out of
my face.’ Garrett’s voice was a dangerous growl, and he wasn’t sure what would
have happened if Kendra hadn’t pushed her way front and center.
‘Mr. Pittman,’ she said, in a voice way too good-natured for
what Garrett was sure she must have felt. ‘The answer to that question is
obvious. Where did you think I would be on such an occasion?’ As if to
demonstrate, she ran her arm through Garrett’s and smiled up at him.
‘And what about Barker Blessing?’ Pittman pressed on. ‘Have
you heard from him? From his lawyers?’
‘I think you need to talk to Mr. Blessing about that.’ She
stepped forward into the man’s personal space and forced him back with nothing
more than the power of presence. ‘If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Pittman --’ she shot
a quick look around and offered a smile, and a polite nod to the rest of the
rabble ‘-- everyone. Coffee’s getting cold.’ Her smile turned wicked. ‘I’m
starving, and Garrett promised to make me pancakes.’ Then she stepped back and
shut the door in the man’s face -- not slammed it -- just shut it and turned to
face Garrett, her back pressed against the door.
‘Make you pancakes?’ Garrett manages before she hijacked the
conversation.
‘Rule number one,’ she said, before he could even utter the
curse that was on the tip of his tongue ‘Don’t give the press any reason to up the
ante.’ She shrugged. ‘Alright, you already blew that one last night, and this
is the result.’ She nodded to the shuffling and mumbling they could still hear
beyond the closed door. ‘This is why we needed things to go smoothly last
night, and why we need them eating out of our hands now.’ She made her way into
the living room and peeked around the edge of the curtain at the reporters on
the lawn.
‘I blew it?’ He bristled and followed her to the window.
‘You’re the one who dumped your dessert in Blessing’s lap.’
And that was his fatal mistake. Would he never learn to hold
his tongue around Kendra Davis? He could see the tension in her shoulders
before she turned to face him. ‘It was dessert Garrett, just dessert, not your
fist to the man’s face, not a law suit, not jail.’ She stood facing him with
her hands on her hips, her eyes bright and fiery. ‘And would you have hit
Pittman there, if I hadn’t stepped in?’
‘Oh you’re a fine one to talk about not resorting to
violence,’ he said following her around the living room as she scooped together
her clothing. ‘You, who nearly dislocated my jaw.’
She turned on him. ‘Oh pa-lease. You deserved it. You’ve
deserved everything you got so far, and last night, well if you’d have just let
me handle it, then this,’ she stabbed a finger at the door, ‘this wouldn’t be
happening.’ She jerked off the robe and stood naked in front of him tugging her
panties up over her hips and then shoving into the green dress. And fuck it was
hard to stay focused with her doing that. Did she do that on purpose – get his
cock’s full attention so his brain wouldn’t work? She probably did. She was a
bitch, he reminded himself. How the hell could he forget the number one fact
about Kendra Davis? The woman was a bitch. Interact with her at your own risk.
He watched her stuff her stockings and garter belt into her bag like they were
the enemy, and he was sympathetic.
‘Where’s the back door,’ she said.
‘Through the kitchen,’ he replied, his brain still
half-occupied by her angry reverse strip-tease that had left him in a bad way.
‘Wait a minute. Where are you going? What are you doing?’ He followed her into
the kitchen with her stumbling into her killer heels as she went.
‘Fixing it,’ she huffed. Then she fumbled in her bag for her
iPhone. ‘Hi Dee. You home? Can you come get me. I’m at Garrett’s.’ He was
pretty sure Dee got the “don’t ask” warning in her voice. She would have to be
deaf and stupid not to. ‘Come around back. The alley yes. Now.’ Dee lived
close. Garrett hadn’t planned it that way, but it was a nice neighborhood.
Kendra shoved her phone back into her bag and headed for the door. Then she
turned her attention to him. ‘You stay put. Don’t go out until I give you the
all clear. I mean it, or you can find someone else to fix your fuck-ups.’ Then
she shoved her way out the back door, pulling it to carefully to behind her.
Identity Crisis is Available from:
http://gracemarshallromance.co.uk/books/identity-crisis/
About K D Grace/Grace Marshall
Grace and KD both believes Freud was right. In the end, it really IS all
about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she is,
otherwise, what would she write about?
When she’s not writing, Grace is veg gardening. When she’s not gardening,
she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her
husband have walked Coast to Coast across England, along with several other
long-distance routes. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how
quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots. She also enjoys martial arts,
reading, watching the birds and anything that gets her outdoors.
Grace and KD have erotica published with SourceBooks, Xcite Books, Harper
Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Erotic Review,
Ravenous Romance, Sweetmeats Press and others.
K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of
Ms Holly, Fulfilling the
Contract, The Pet Shop. Her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature
and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Heatwave trilogy, was listed
as honorable mention on Violet
Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011. Books two and three, Riding
the Ether, and Elemental
Fire, are now also available. She was nominated for ETO’s Best Erotic
Author 2013 and 2014.
Grace Marshall’s sizzling
hot romance novels, An
Executive Decision, Identity Crisis,
The Exhibition
are published by Xcite Books.
Find
Grace and KD Here:
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