Title: Will &
Patrick Wake Up Married
Author: Leta Blake & Alice Griffiths
Series Title: Wake Up Married, Episode 1
Publisher: Leta Blake Books
Release Date: October 27, 2015
Genre: Romantic Comedy M/M Romance
Book Blurb
Join the wild ride in
this vibrant and fun first installment of the new romantic comedy serial by
best-selling author Leta Blake and newcomer Alice Griffiths!
After a drunken night
of hot sex in Vegas, strangers Will Patterson and Dr. Patrick McCloud wake up
married. A quickie divorce is the most obvious way out—unless you’re the heir
of a staunchly Catholic mafia boss with a draconian position on the sanctity of
marriage.
Stuck between a rock
and a hard place, Will and Patrick don't like it, or each other, but they have
to make the best of it until they can find another way out of their marriage.
To ensure the trust fund Will's charitable foundation relies on isn't revoked
by his mobster grandfather, he and Patrick travel to Will’s hometown of
Healing, South Dakota, posing as a newlywed couple in the throes of true love
at first sight.
Complicating their
scheme are Will’s unresolved feelings for his all-too-recent ex-boyfriend Ryan,
and Patrick’s desire to get back to the only thing that really matters to him in
life: neurosurgery. Will they fool everyone? Or will the mafia get wind that
their marriage is a fake? Throw their simmering attraction into the mix and all
bets are off!
Episode 1 of 6 in the Wake Up Married Serial.
Excerpt
Patrick
sits down beside Will and rubs his hands together in anticipation. “So, what
did Granny say? Can she free me from the shackles of our loveless union?”
Will
puts his head in his hands. “It’s not going to be as easy as I hoped initially.
It might take some time.”
“We
knew that. How much time? A week? Two?”
“Maybe
a month?”
“What?”
Patrick’s voice is loud.
“Maybe
more than a month? Possibly up to a year?”
Patrick’s
eyes grow dark with anger. "Don’t tell me the all-powerful Eleanora
Molinaro you were going on about so enthusiastically when you were convincing
me of this half-baked scheme can’t make a little inadvertent marriage
disappear.”
“Could
you hold it down?” Will whispers. "Or do you want someone to hear?”
“Oooh,
right, the Molinaro spies. Might have the place bugged. Guess I shouldn’t yell
then? I’m not your toy, Will. I want a divorce and I want one now,” Patrick
hollers.
Will
glares at him. He raises his own voice, saying, “Don’t be so dramatic, baby!”
He
stares Patrick down, daring him to say something else. "You know I love
you more than life!”
Patrick
looks daggers at him. "Who do you think you’re fooling, Will? The
bellhops? The maids?” He wipes a hand across his face and rises. "You
know, no. I can’t believe I’ve let your paranoia and insanity drag me across
the country into this hornet’s nest of absurdity and—”
Patrick
rants on, but Will’s not paying attention anymore, because Patrick’s tossing
his new clothes onto the bed, and getting out his suitcases.
“Wait,”
Will says, putting his hands on Patrick’s arms. "Wait, don’t.”
Patrick
throws a shirt into the bag and sighs. "What do you want from me? I gave
your plan a chance, but there is no way in hell I’m going to hang around this
town for a year. Not when I could be at the Mayo Clinic or Cedars-Sinai or
Vandy. Not when I can be honing my skills and expanding my practice. I am not
small-town material, Will. I’m the big-time. I have absolutely no desire to
play your loving spouse indefinitely and if
your
grandmother can’t get us out of this mess? Well, I sure as hell can.”
“Look,”
Will says. "I know you can. I just need you...no, no, stop that. You’re
not going anywhere.” Will pushes Patrick, trying to move him away from the
bags.
Patrick
lurches toward him, gripping his forearms and shoving him back with surprising
strength. "I’ve been pushed around enough in my life, Will. Now, if you’ll
excuse me. I’m going to take care of this my way.”
Will
breathes in hard. Terror and attraction jolts through him at once. He swallows
and backs away from Patrick, his hands shaking, and his throat dry. Blood
rushes in his ears.
Patrick
picks up his bag and heads for the door. Will tries to block Patrick from
getting it open.
“Really?
It’s come to this? Holding me against my will?”
Will
pushes the barely open door shut with a hard slam. “I don’t know what you’re
talking about, Patrick. This is just our first lover’s spat. That’s all. The
first of many to come in our long, wonderfully happy marriage.”
Patrick
stares at him like he’s kind of impressed by this level of insanity. “Good God,
you’re drinking your own Kool-Aid.”
“Yeah,
well, it’s a very, very expensive drink.”
“You
think you’re so clever don’t you?”
Will
shrugs. "I think I don’t know what else to do.”
Author Bios
Leta Blake
Author of the bestselling book Smoky
Mountain Dreams and the fan favorite Training Season, Leta Blake's educational
and professional background is in psychology and finance, respectively.
However, her passion has always been for writing. She enjoys crafting romance
stories and exploring the psyches of made up people. At home in the Southern U.S., Leta works hard at achieving balance
between her day job, her writing, and her family.
Follow her online:
On the web: http://letablake.wordpress.com/
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/letablake
Alice Griffiths
A long-time reader of
romance novels, Alice Griffiths finally took the plunge into writing, teaming
up with best-selling author Leta Blake for the 'Woke up Married' serialized
comedy. A lover of tropes, Alice
enjoys mining old ideas and putting a fresh, funny spin on them. Formerly
working in the newspaper industry, Alice
is now an art curator. She lives in Sydney,
Australia.
Follow her online:
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alice_Author
