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Harlequin Presents USA & Canada
as At The Billionaire's Bidding
March 2008
Sexy Sensation Australia & NZ
As a BONUS BOOK with Susan Napier's Sexy Sensation 'Accidental Mistress'
October 2007
ORDER FROM HARLEQUIN AUSTRALIA
Modern Extra UK & Ireland
JULY 2007
Check out the Behind the Scenes story of The Return Of The Rebel... Read What The Reviewers have to Say about The Return Of The Rebel...
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"At The Billionaire's Bidding"
"The bad-boy billionaire is back! Connor Flanaghan had always been out of her league. He was strong, gorgeous, and his charm was legendary! As a naive teenager Shannon could only gaze from the sidelines... as the love of her life stared straight past her. Now Shannon is all grown up, in control of her life, and she's left the past and her crush behind... or so she thinks. Connor has just walked in through her door, but the lazy smile is gone, replaced by a ruthless glint in his eye - the bad-boy billionaire is back, and he's better than ever!"
For more books like this one go to my Modern Heat page
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After a few breaths she pushed up and off the wall, yanking open the inner door to step into the small vestibule so that she could lock the outer door. She reached into the pocket of her sweats to find the key, looked up - and gasped when she found Connor looking back at her through the glass. The last of a glorious summer’s day was dying in the sky behind him while he stared at her, his jaw line clenching while he thought. And on the other side of the door Shannon stood transfixed, holding her breath, waiting to see what he was going to do next. “Open the door.” Shannon shook her head and he scowled in response, “Open, the door, Shannon.” She shook her head again, “It’s not locked.” Stating the obvious tore a small smile from him, before he glanced away, looked heavenwards, and then pulled open the door, stepping into the small space she made for him when she stepped back. Towering over her again, he searched her wide eyes for a long moment, watching as she pursed her lips together to stop from saying something that might start another argument. Then he took a breath, “I wasn’t trying to give you what you wanted to make things worse.” “I kn-“ He held up a hand, “No – don’t say a word. Let’s not do any more damage, okay?” Shannon pursed her lips again. While the hand in front of her curled until he had a forefinger to point at her, “You – are capable of making me angrier,” His hand uncurled again as he held both hands out in a sweeping movement, “than any other woman on this planet. I have no idea why it is you can do that.” She pursed her lips even tighter together. Because that statement was just begging for an answer. “But what beats the hell out of me even more is that I keep coming back, every damn time,” He took a deep, steadying breath, glancing briefly upwards again, “Alright, so I’m not perfect, but you’ve known me a long time, so you’ve always known that. And frankly, I have no interest in being perfect ‘cos that’s one hell of a lot of pressure to put on yourself. So yeah, occasionally I am going to mess up – like I apparently did five minutes ago when I tried to remove this great pink elephant that always seems to be standing between us communicating.” Shannon swallowed hard and allowed her mouth to relax. Because she genuinely didn’t want another argument with him, and when he was making this big a gesture by staying to talk it through with her there was just no way she was going to do anything to spoil it. She even attempted a small smile of encouragement on for size. Which brought his gaze to her mouth for a long, long while before he swallowed hard, locked eyes with her again, and his voice became huskier, “The thing about being a crusader Shannon is that you have to have a ‘She who casts the first stone’ quality to you. I could say plenty about you building some kind of stand-in family for yourself here rather than making one of your own with someone-“ Oh and that had to be answered! But he raised a hand again as her mouth opened,” No, now you know that’s true. Don’t bother denying it. Many things I may be but blind isn’t one of them.” She resorted to scowling up at him instead. “It’s like this. Neither of us are necessarily doing a good job with our lives right now this second. But you can’t make me find my path – that I’ll do on my own - which, right now leaves me with just the one problem to deal with…” Her eyebrows rose in question. And finally he smiled a small smile in return, “Aren’t you going to ask me what that problem might be?” “Oh, I’m allowed to speak now am I?” “Yes, you are.” “That’s gracious of you.” She smiled to negate the sarcasm in her words, "So what is your problem?" “You. You’re my problem.” The answer took her breath away, said with such intensity in his voice and his eyes that she was left in no doubt that his inner struggle was as torturous as her own. Placing them on equal ground for the first time. “You see,” He took a step closer, “While I seem to have this inability to stay away from you for long and together we seem to have this ability for ending up in an argument of some kind or another every damn time – I’m left with a real problem deciding whether to strangle you or kiss you senseless. Because you have to know as well as I do that most of this arguing comes down to one thing.” “And that is?” She knew the answer before he said it. “It’s sexual tension. What we ended on last time is exactly what we’ve started with this time. We’re not done. We’re nowhere near done.” Shannon damped her lips with the end of her tongue, watching him watch the movement with heavy eyes and without taking the time to think about the repercussions – she dove right in with the one choice that her pulse rate would be happy with. Her chin rising in challenge, “Well, I don’t want to be strangled.” Connor’s hands reached up to frame her face, his long fingers threading deep into the thick hair at her nape while his head lowered until his warm breath was fanning her lips, “Good choice.”
From "The Return Of The Rebel" by Trish Wylie
The Return Of The Rebel, is another story that stemmed from the characters in a book I had already worked on...
That happens
I think the temptation also stemmed from my own reading preferences - I've always been a sucker for a family of brothers - especially if the brothers are all gorgeous and strong and sexy and a little on the arrogant side...
But Connor's story became a very different ball
game from Rory's. For starters, after a chat with my editor about 'hooks'
and 'themes' in the Modern Extra line, I changed
his back story some. And then there's the fact that Rory had been the
Both these facts meant that Connor's story was more of a challenge than I had initially thought it would be. He was darker than he had been in Breathless!, had more to tell me than I had known about him in Breathless! and for a long time the things he was trying to tell me where at odds with the character I had known. Which made it, erm, *a tough one to write*...And that was before I even touched on Shannon's story...
Thankfully however, during revisions Shannon's quirky personality helped pull everything together. Otherwise Connor's story might never have made it into print at all! Next time I think about a linked story - someone just shoot me, okay???
Locations in this book:
Everything in The Return Of The Rebel centres
But we do get the occasional reference to Galway
itself, the City where the book is set... Another place I have visited and one
that's very name can suggest a certain 'feel' without too
Soundtrack playing:
The music I was playing while writing The Return Of The Rebel even
made it into the book itself, when
Because it means if anyone reading it has listened to the Norah Jones album they will have a sense of the atmosphere in the room when Connor walks in... That slow, sensual tone to the music... that very beautiful voice... Added in to the soft lighting in the room... and the attraction already there between Connor and Shannon - it just adds an extra dimension...Sigh...Sometimes I think these books should be sold with a 'soundtrack' you could listen to while reading. How cool would that be??
You can order a copy of the album here if you want to try out that theory - and if you do, then watch out for the track Feelin The Same Way - cos the words pretty much sum up Shannon's dilemma!
Or you can have a listen to it here.
*All Photographs are used to give a visible representation of the Authors 'view' and are in no way representative of the people or places in real life beyond the realms of the Authors imagination.
"The Return of the Rebel is an exceptional romantic novel written by one of the shining stars of category romance! Steamy, witty and sophisticated and laden with lots of drama, intensity and heart, The Return of the Rebel is another winner for one of the queens of feel-good romantic fiction, Trish Wylie." Julie Bonello - Cataromance
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home | books | bio | ireland | tips | blog | links | Press Info | contact
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sometimes,
and sometimes readers can even tempt me by emailing to ask about characters I
didn't do follow up stories for! But this time it just seemed like the most
natural thing in the world to do, because in
around
the run down old building that Shannon leases from Devenish Enterprises -
the fictional company Connor inherits... So the majority of the scenes happen
there, and a lot of the arguments they have are because of it. I guess there are
shades of the building in Two Weeks Notice - the Hugh Grant,
Sandra Bullock
movie
there - with all of Shannon's varying community groups and it's eclectic
conglomeration of folks being so important to her that they lead her to butt
heads with Connor... (watch out for Mario - he's my favourite!)
much
description. The thing with a Modern Extra is that it is more about the 'feel'
than great long descriptive passages about places. The characters, their way of
talking, their modern day thoughts and approaches to things are more important
than the naming of specific streets or areas in the City they live in. Which was
just as well with this particular story I think, cos Shannon and Connor had so
much to deal with as it was that having to add a lot of descriptive 'atmosphere'
would have made the book waaaayyyy too long!
Connor
goes to see Shannon in her apartment and she has it playing in the background -
which is great! 