By: Amy Andrews
Series: Marietta Chocolate Wars
Genre: Contemporary Christmas Romance
Release Date: November 15, 2021
Publisher: Tule Publishing
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This Christmas, a childhood promise comes calling…
Clementine Hardy always wanted to be a librarian in her Marietta hometown. But at thirty, she fears she’s become too predictable—so she quits, books a European vacation, and accepts a research job in New York. Then on her birthday, a hunky piece of her past arrives, drops to bended knee, and proposes in front of half the town.
Bad boy celebrity chef Jude Harlow is done with the bright lights and late nights. He sells his Manhattan restaurant and volunteers in Africa to clear his head. A year later, he’s a new man with a new goal: find the girl from summer camp—the most practical woman he knows—and collect on the pinky promise they made when they were twelve.
Clem won’t marry a guy she hasn’t seen in nearly two decades, no matter how attractive or how talented he is in and out of her kitchen. But why does he have to look more delicious than the chocolate creations he concocts for the Graff Hotel? More delicious than anything in New York?
Age: 30
Date of birth: September 30
Physical Description: Reddy/brown hair, gingery whiskers and pale, peridot eyes. Lean of hip, long of leg, flat of ab and broad of shoulder
Occupation: Ex- celebrity chef
3 likes in no particular order: Origami cranes, Cooking, Clementine
3 dislikes in no particular order: The limelight, Gossip and Fake people
Drink of choice: Wine
Favorite food: Anything French
Favorite song: Pour Some Sugar On Me – Def Leppard
Choice of transportation: SUV (recovering sports car addict)
Favorite way to spend an evening: Netflix and chill
Favorite holiday tradition: Baking cookies!
Best memory to date: Folding paper cranes with Clementine at summer camp.
If you could have a do-over, what would you do differently? Not follow through on a childhood pinkie swear and ask Clementine, my summer camp buddy, who I haven’t seen in 18 years, to marry me. In front of her entire assembled birthday party crowd.
What’s something you’ve said you would never do, but in fact have done? Compromise.
Most romantic gesture (done or received): Getting clementines to Marietta especially to flavour the Thanksgiving chocolate mousse for Clementine.
Words to live by: Life’s too short to eat terrible food.
Silence grew between them for a beat or two before she bugged her eyes at him. “Well?”
His brows drew together. “Well what?”
“I’m still waiting to hear a compliment? Honestly –” She shook her head. “How did you get so many women?”
Jesus, just how many women did she think he’d been with? “Would you believe through their stomachs?”
She gave a quick snort laugh. “Not for a second.” And then they both laughed until it petered out and Clementine tapped her index finger on their joined hands. “Still waiting, Barlow.”
“Okay, okay.” He withdrew his hand with no protest from Clementine as he leaned in, pretending to inspect her face, his gaze roaming all over from the spring of curls to the fullness of her chipmunk cheeks to the tip or her nose and the pointy-ness of her chin. She grinned at him, clearly amused.
“Yep.” He nodded solemnly. “You’ve grown into your teeth.”
Her mouth gaped in surprise and then she hooted out a laugh. “Oh my god.” She shook her head at him. “That is not a compliment.”
“No seriously.” He sat back a little as if to do a fuller assessment but mostly just to put himself out of reach of temptation. “Those two years of braces were definitely worth it.”
“Well that’s good to know. I hated them.”
“Yeah. I remember.” Clementine had shown up at their last camp with her newly applied braces. “You couldn’t stop lamenting in your letters that no boy would ever want to kiss you.”
Almost as soon as it was out, Jude wished he could take the k word back. Jesus. Don’t talk about kissing with Clementine, dickhead. And definitely do not think about kissing her, either. But it was easy in the dark with nothing but the crackle of the fire, to be lulled into reminiscing. The memories were fond and she was incredibly easy to talk to.
“That’s because Billy Marsh had told me that a girl with a mouthful of metal was too off putting to kiss. I was fourteen, it was important.”
Jude remembered that letter. They’d continued to correspond on and off over the remainder of their high school years which had made not seeing her again after that last camp together a little easier.
He shook his head. “Billy Marsh was clearly an idiot.”
She smiled. “I’ll have you know that according to Billy Marsh, he was the stud of ninth grade.”
“Colour me surprised.” Jude laughed. “I bet he’s bald with a paunch these days and didn’t do so well with the ladies outside of the gloried halls of high school.”
“He’s not bald. Although –” She squinted as if trying to recall what Billy dufus Marsh currently looked like. “He is thinning on top now you come to mention it. And he did marry. Twice.” Her lips twitched. “He’s currently living with his mother.”
It would be very bad form to crow at that morsel of information so Jude did not. Outwardly. But on the inside, he was laughing hard. “I rest my case.”
“I remember you tried to reassure me in one of your letters that boys would still want to kiss me.”
“That’s because I knew how fourteen-year-old boy brains worked.” Hell, he’d have cut his mouth to ribbons if a girl with braces had been up for some first base action.
“You would have kissed a girl with braces?”
“Are you kidding? I was a gangly redhead with giant ears, I would have kissed a girl who hadn’t brushed her teeth for a month.”
“Eww.” She laughed. “That is gross.”
Jude grinned. “That is teenage boys.”
Her laughter faded after a few beats and her gaze dropped to his mouth briefly and every cell in Jude’s body went on high alert.
“So why didn’t you ever try to kiss me?”
If Jude hadn’t been aware how close they were sitting before, he was now. Now Clementine was dissecting why they hadn’t made out when they’d been kids.
He shrugged. “Because we were friends. I didn’t…think about you like that.” He’d clearly been more of an idiot than Billy Marsh. “I didn’t think you thought about me like that either? Did you…” He knew he should probably be abandoning this topic but he didn’t seem to be able to stop, either. “Want me to kiss you?”
“Oh God, no.”
She didn’t recoil exactly but it was an emphatic rejection. Jude couldn’t figure out if he was relieved or annoyed.
“I’m just wondering why we never went there. I mean…I counted down the days until I could see you again and particularly during that last camp we were at that age where kids were suddenly looking at each other differently and yet we didn’t. And really –” She smiled. “We were practically engaged.”
Jude chuckled. “I counted down the days to camp, too,” he said. “It was such a…relief to get away from the tensions at home for those two weeks and you were part of that anticipation because you were just so easy to be around. You didn’t feel the need to talk all the time like so many girls I went to school with. If you had something to say, you said it, otherwise you listened. You were just so comfortable in your skin.”
He wasn’t sure Clementine wanted to hear a treatise on the complexities of their childhood relationship but it was stuff Jude hadn’t ever really analysed until now.
“Maybe I didn’t want to mess with that? For damn sure I would have screwed up any kind of pass.”
She smiled. “Nose bumping?”
“Definitely.” He nodded. “And teeth clashing. I had zero game.”
“How’s your game now?”
Jude’s pulse skipped a beat and he swallowed at the sudden intensity glittering in her eyes. Thanks to his celebrity Jude had gotten pretty damn smooth pretty damn fast but… where the hell was this going? “I’ve…not had any complaints.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Care to prove it?”
A hot surge of what could only be described as lust flooded Jude’s veins. Hot and rich and demanding, wrapping sticky fingers around his gut, shooting flaming arrows directly at his groin. And if another woman had asked him that question, he’d have proven the fuck out of it, but this was Clementine and he found himself trapped between the thrum of desire and an abundance of caution.
Christ, why had he even opened the door to a kissing conversation? Dufus.
“You are drunk,” he said with a husky laugh, desperate to lighten the moment.
Slowly shaking her head, Clementine said, “Nope.” Then she drew an x over the left side of her chest. “Cross my heart.”
Dragging his eyes of her boob, Jude drew in a ragged breath, his brain scrambling between what he felt was the right thing to do in this suddenly weird moment and what he really wanted to do.
“I take it from your silence you don’t –” Her eyes drifted to his mouth and lingered for a bit before returning. Jude’s pulsed accelerated as more heat flushed to his groin. “Want to kiss me?”
Hell no. That would be entirely the wrong way to take it. He was just…torn. Between the boundaries Clementine had already drawn up and the demands of his libido. “I…wouldn’t say that.”
A smile lifted one corner or her mouth. “So…you do want to kiss me?”
Oh, only since she’d walked through the door tonight. But he was pretty sure this boundary blurring of hers was coming from an emotional place and he didn’t know where that would leave them. He sure as hell didn’t want her to hate herself – or him - in the morning.
The tension in his quads and in his inner thighs as he held himself as distant as he could, cranked a little tighter. Still…he couldn’t help but ask. “Do you want to kiss me?”
“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “I really think I do.”
His brows drew together. “Well what?”
“I’m still waiting to hear a compliment? Honestly –” She shook her head. “How did you get so many women?”
Jesus, just how many women did she think he’d been with? “Would you believe through their stomachs?”
She gave a quick snort laugh. “Not for a second.” And then they both laughed until it petered out and Clementine tapped her index finger on their joined hands. “Still waiting, Barlow.”
“Okay, okay.” He withdrew his hand with no protest from Clementine as he leaned in, pretending to inspect her face, his gaze roaming all over from the spring of curls to the fullness of her chipmunk cheeks to the tip or her nose and the pointy-ness of her chin. She grinned at him, clearly amused.
“Yep.” He nodded solemnly. “You’ve grown into your teeth.”
Her mouth gaped in surprise and then she hooted out a laugh. “Oh my god.” She shook her head at him. “That is not a compliment.”
“No seriously.” He sat back a little as if to do a fuller assessment but mostly just to put himself out of reach of temptation. “Those two years of braces were definitely worth it.”
“Well that’s good to know. I hated them.”
“Yeah. I remember.” Clementine had shown up at their last camp with her newly applied braces. “You couldn’t stop lamenting in your letters that no boy would ever want to kiss you.”
Almost as soon as it was out, Jude wished he could take the k word back. Jesus. Don’t talk about kissing with Clementine, dickhead. And definitely do not think about kissing her, either. But it was easy in the dark with nothing but the crackle of the fire, to be lulled into reminiscing. The memories were fond and she was incredibly easy to talk to.
“That’s because Billy Marsh had told me that a girl with a mouthful of metal was too off putting to kiss. I was fourteen, it was important.”
Jude remembered that letter. They’d continued to correspond on and off over the remainder of their high school years which had made not seeing her again after that last camp together a little easier.
He shook his head. “Billy Marsh was clearly an idiot.”
She smiled. “I’ll have you know that according to Billy Marsh, he was the stud of ninth grade.”
“Colour me surprised.” Jude laughed. “I bet he’s bald with a paunch these days and didn’t do so well with the ladies outside of the gloried halls of high school.”
“He’s not bald. Although –” She squinted as if trying to recall what Billy dufus Marsh currently looked like. “He is thinning on top now you come to mention it. And he did marry. Twice.” Her lips twitched. “He’s currently living with his mother.”
It would be very bad form to crow at that morsel of information so Jude did not. Outwardly. But on the inside, he was laughing hard. “I rest my case.”
“I remember you tried to reassure me in one of your letters that boys would still want to kiss me.”
“That’s because I knew how fourteen-year-old boy brains worked.” Hell, he’d have cut his mouth to ribbons if a girl with braces had been up for some first base action.
“You would have kissed a girl with braces?”
“Are you kidding? I was a gangly redhead with giant ears, I would have kissed a girl who hadn’t brushed her teeth for a month.”
“Eww.” She laughed. “That is gross.”
Jude grinned. “That is teenage boys.”
Her laughter faded after a few beats and her gaze dropped to his mouth briefly and every cell in Jude’s body went on high alert.
“So why didn’t you ever try to kiss me?”
If Jude hadn’t been aware how close they were sitting before, he was now. Now Clementine was dissecting why they hadn’t made out when they’d been kids.
He shrugged. “Because we were friends. I didn’t…think about you like that.” He’d clearly been more of an idiot than Billy Marsh. “I didn’t think you thought about me like that either? Did you…” He knew he should probably be abandoning this topic but he didn’t seem to be able to stop, either. “Want me to kiss you?”
“Oh God, no.”
She didn’t recoil exactly but it was an emphatic rejection. Jude couldn’t figure out if he was relieved or annoyed.
“I’m just wondering why we never went there. I mean…I counted down the days until I could see you again and particularly during that last camp we were at that age where kids were suddenly looking at each other differently and yet we didn’t. And really –” She smiled. “We were practically engaged.”
Jude chuckled. “I counted down the days to camp, too,” he said. “It was such a…relief to get away from the tensions at home for those two weeks and you were part of that anticipation because you were just so easy to be around. You didn’t feel the need to talk all the time like so many girls I went to school with. If you had something to say, you said it, otherwise you listened. You were just so comfortable in your skin.”
He wasn’t sure Clementine wanted to hear a treatise on the complexities of their childhood relationship but it was stuff Jude hadn’t ever really analysed until now.
“Maybe I didn’t want to mess with that? For damn sure I would have screwed up any kind of pass.”
She smiled. “Nose bumping?”
“Definitely.” He nodded. “And teeth clashing. I had zero game.”
“How’s your game now?”
Jude’s pulse skipped a beat and he swallowed at the sudden intensity glittering in her eyes. Thanks to his celebrity Jude had gotten pretty damn smooth pretty damn fast but… where the hell was this going? “I’ve…not had any complaints.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Care to prove it?”
A hot surge of what could only be described as lust flooded Jude’s veins. Hot and rich and demanding, wrapping sticky fingers around his gut, shooting flaming arrows directly at his groin. And if another woman had asked him that question, he’d have proven the fuck out of it, but this was Clementine and he found himself trapped between the thrum of desire and an abundance of caution.
Christ, why had he even opened the door to a kissing conversation? Dufus.
“You are drunk,” he said with a husky laugh, desperate to lighten the moment.
Slowly shaking her head, Clementine said, “Nope.” Then she drew an x over the left side of her chest. “Cross my heart.”
Dragging his eyes of her boob, Jude drew in a ragged breath, his brain scrambling between what he felt was the right thing to do in this suddenly weird moment and what he really wanted to do.
“I take it from your silence you don’t –” Her eyes drifted to his mouth and lingered for a bit before returning. Jude’s pulsed accelerated as more heat flushed to his groin. “Want to kiss me?”
Hell no. That would be entirely the wrong way to take it. He was just…torn. Between the boundaries Clementine had already drawn up and the demands of his libido. “I…wouldn’t say that.”
A smile lifted one corner or her mouth. “So…you do want to kiss me?”
Oh, only since she’d walked through the door tonight. But he was pretty sure this boundary blurring of hers was coming from an emotional place and he didn’t know where that would leave them. He sure as hell didn’t want her to hate herself – or him - in the morning.
The tension in his quads and in his inner thighs as he held himself as distant as he could, cranked a little tighter. Still…he couldn’t help but ask. “Do you want to kiss me?”
“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “I really think I do.”
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The Marietta Chocolate Wars Series:
A USA Today Bestselling Author, Amy is an award-winning, USA Today best-selling, triple RITA nominated Aussie author who has written eighty contemporary romances in both the traditional and digital markets and sold over 3 million books.
Her books bring all the feels from sass and quirk and laughter to emotional grit to panty-melting heat. She loves frequent travel, good books and great booze although she’ll take mediocre booze if there’s nothing else. For many, many years she was a registered nurse. Which means she knows things. Anatomical things. And she’s not afraid to use them!
She’s lives in the pretty little coastal town of Yeppoon where she gets to stare at the ocean all day.
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To enter: Answer Amy's question. “What non-traditional food do you like to eat on either Thanksgiving or Christmas day?”
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I have made lasagna a few times for holiday meals.
ReplyDeleteI've never thought of having lasagna for holiday meals. I'm always toying with the idea of having Chinese food for Christmas.
DeleteRibs!!!
ReplyDeleteNot something I've thought of before.
DeleteLasagna every Christmas Eve since I was a kid, except I make it now, not my mom.
ReplyDeleteI love the tradition of this.
DeleteI have made hamburger helper
ReplyDeleteI've never had any non-traditional food.
ReplyDeleteAm loving these answers :-) Lasanga - yummy!
ReplyDelete