Book
Title: The
Tenant
Author: Sotia
Lazu
Genre: Contemporary
Romance
Length: 55K
Release
Date: 08.07.2014
ISBN: 978-1-62916-082-5
The
Tenant
by Sotia Lazu
Blurb
In hopes of getting her fiancé to consummate their relationship before the wedding, Amanda convinces him they should check out the apartment her father gave her as a gift for their upcoming nuptials. Darkness and privacy are supposed to work in her favor, but there is one parameter she doesn’t know about: the apartment is not empty yet, and the current tenant has no plans of moving.
Derek
has had a hell of a few months. His girlfriend turned out to be a
cheater and then stole his restaurant. He's not about to also give up
the place he's called home for three years—even if his hot but
infuriating landlady threatens to move in by the end of the week.
When
her own lease is up, Amanda is forced to make good on her threat. As
if life isn't already hard enough, her tenant-turned-roommate is as
sexy as he is annoying, and her fiancé is caught with a half-naked
woman.
Now
she and Derek need to find a way to survive their forced
cohabitation. They soon discover sleeping with the enemy can be fun.
Excerpt
Hushed voices. There
were people whispering inside his home, and—
Something crashed.
It might have been
fury at whoever dared vandalize his home that drove his feet from
bathroom to bedroom, naked as the day he was born. It could have been
hope he’d finally get out some of his frustration that curled his
fingers around the baseball bat lying beneath his bed and led him the
rest of the distance to his living room in the pitch black.
Weighing the bat in
one hand, he pressed the fingers of the other to the light switch he
knew to be at his left, and took in the lit room.
A couple was making
out on his floor. By his overturned table and his smashed lamp.
He scowled so hard
his forehead hurt, but it was all he could do not to charge them and
bash their heads in.
“What
the fuck are you doing in my place?” he asked the kneeling hulk.
He’d heard about people making out in parks, playgrounds, even
cemeteries, but breaking into someone’s home to get some was
unbelievable.
The small blonde
lying on the floor sat upright, eyes blazing. “Your place? My
father gave me this apartment!”
Her boyfriend simply
blinked at him.
Was it Derek’s
imagination, or was the blonde having a hard time looking him in the
eye? He was tempted to mention his face was an entire torso—and
then some—higher than what she was staring at, but his ego needed
some stroking, so he let her take all of him in, while his mind
caught up to what she’d just said.
“You’re
Kenneth’s daughter?” he finally asked, the bat only slightly
lowered. Alice’s sister. This one was shorter, and Alice dyed her
hair dark brown these days, but Derek could see the resemblance.
She finally lifted
her gaze to meet his, and her eyes were the same bright green as her
sister’s. “You’re the guy who’s supposed to be gone?”
He could apologize
and say he’d forgotten because of the rain of utter shit falling on
him lately.
He could ask for a
bit more time until he’d found a new place.
Or he could be an
ass. Nobody else seemed to think twice about being an ass to him.
“Hardly,” he said with a snort. “I’m supposed to be right
where I am. You, on the other hand, are trespassing. Or is it
breaking and entering?”
The young woman
scrunched her nose, which was adorable in a snooty, bratty way. “No
breaking. I’ve got a key.” She narrowed her eyes. “When Mason
and I were first engaged, Dad said he asked you to move. That was
three months ago.”
Mason. That was the
silent brute’s name. “I remember no such thing, and” —he
looked pointedly at the remains of his favorite lamp— “there has
definitely been some breaking.”
Blondie bounced up
and glared. Funny, but she was intimidating despite her small
stature. Maybe that was why Mason stood back and let her handle
things. “Dad bought the place for me, to begin with,” she said.
“You knew when you first moved in that I was eventually going to be
needing it.”
That was true. Derek
had heard all about how this was one day going to be a wedding
present for Kenneth’s oldest daughter—and what was her name,
again?—though said daughter hadn’t even been dating back then.
Kenneth said his daughter was picky and needed a man with serious
backbone before she settled down.
Things had
apparently changed.
Derek considered
waving the bat to see if the big guy would flinch, but decided to be
the bigger man—and wasn’t that ironic, when Mason had at least
four inches on him? “Kenneth mentioned something, but he didn’t
give me the sixty days notice he was supposed to.” Blondie opened
her mouth, probably to repeat her father let him know three months
ago. Now was time for the coup de grace, and Derek somehow knew he’d
love watching her squirm. “As you know, the notice is supposed to
be in writing or it doesn’t count,” he said.
And smirked.
And winked.
Mason grabbed
Blondie’s shoulder, flexing his arm in the process. The look on his
face indicated that Derek’s nudity might have offended him more
than Derek’s intention to not vacate the premises for at least two
more months. “Let’s go, Mandi.” Ah, that was her name. “We’ll
talk to your father. He’ll know what to do.”
Her gaze said she
knew what to do too, and it involved the painful insertion of the
baseball bat in Derek’s most private orifice.
Derek’s smirk
widened into a grin. “And now get out of here, before I have to
call the police and report you for harassment on top of everything
else.”
Mandi stared him
down for a split second, but when Derek swung his bat in the air, her
overly inflated toy boy all but dragged her out the door.
Derek propped his
weapon on his shoulder, grabbed a bottle of scotch, and went to bed.
He sensed his swagger had returned. Maybe that was because he’d
actually felt he had balls, for the first time in days.
Odd way for his day
to improve, but it had. He would give anything for another
opportunity to bait Mandi Murphy. If he couldn’t torture the woman
who’d hurt him, he’d torture the one who wanted to evict him. He
had to be subtle about it, though. He didn’t want to make Kenneth
mad at him.
Purchase links:
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-tenant-sotia-lazu/1120059390?ean=2940149651603
Taliesin Publishing: http://www.taliesinpublishing.com/the-tenant-by-sotia-lazu-p66.php
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/464564
AllRomance Ebooks: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thetenant-1588143-149.html
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-tenant-sotia-lazu/1120059390?ean=2940149651603
Taliesin Publishing: http://www.taliesinpublishing.com/the-tenant-by-sotia-lazu-p66.php
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/464564
AllRomance Ebooks: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thetenant-1588143-149.html
About the
Author
Sotia’s
making do with Greek reality, while writing and mostly thinking in
English.
She
loves romances with a twist and urban fantasy novels, always with
vivid erotic elements. Her favorite characters to write are not
conventional hero-material at first glance, and she enjoys making
them fight for their happiness.
Sotia
shares her life and living quarters with her husband, their son, and
two rescue dogs, one of which may be part-pony. Sappy movies make her
bawl like a baby, and she wishes she could take in all the stray dogs
in the world.
Also,
she hates mornings!
Thank you very very much for having me :)
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