The Boat Builder’s Bed by Kris Pearson @Krispiewrites is a Fall Into These Great Reads Pick #romance
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  • N. N. Light
    • Sep 13, 2019
    • 7 min read

The Boat Builder’s Bed by Kris Pearson @Krispiewrites is a Fall Into These Great Reads Pick #romance


Title: The Boat Builder’s Bed

Author: Kris Pearson

Genre: Sexy Contemporary Romance

Book Blurb:

A single mom and a billionaire. A beautiful house that needs her touch, and a beautiful man who needs her love even more.

Superyacht tycoon Rafe Severino wants a woman. Desperately. Someone who can decorate his lonely new mansion with its million-dollar views over Wellington harbor and return his life to normality. Rafe yearns to marry again and start a better family than the one he came from. He gets more than he bargains for with Sophie Calhoun.

Newly established decorator Sophie seeks to make her mark on the city, but to concentrate on her design studio she has been parted from her adored daughter for the last several years. When Rafe confesses the ugly truth of his upbringing, Sophie sees disaster ahead. Rafe was also hidden away, and it tore him apart. Will he ever forgive Sophie if he discovers she’s done the same?

A heart-warming story of family, love, loss, and dangerous currents.

Excerpt:

She pushed the creaky old gate open, and he followed her up the path. Far too close. She felt herself herded along with no choice but to fall in with his wishes. Her briefcase bumped against her knee as she hurried over the uneven surface of the pavers.

She cast her mind back to earlier that morning. She’d departed in a rush. How tidy had she left things? Her cereal bowl and coffee mug would be in the sink, but that was better than having them cluttering the small kitchen counter. The flowers on the sideboard were on their last legs but he probably wouldn’t notice those. The dining table had some paperwork spread out, but nothing confidential and nothing too messy.

“You’re close to town.” His husky voice caressed her ear.

How far away was he? Inches only. Sophie tried for bigger steps but feared his long legs would easily keep up.

“Walking distance,” she managed. “And I have the botanic gardens nearby, too. The best of both worlds.”

“Do you run?”

“It’s a great place for that. Some of those tracks through the wilder parts. Yes, when I can. Watch the steps,” she added as the path took a sudden dip.

She clattered down as fast as her high heeled sandals allowed, racing to put some room between them. “Around here.”

They arrived at the back door of the old timber cottage. A huge climbing rose frothed over a trellised archway—the path seemed ankle deep with its pink petals.

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to sweep all of this up, or Mrs Ferris the landlady,” she added. “She lives upstairs and does the gardening.”

A sudden gust of wind shook a shower of petals down as she hunted for her key.

“The Rose Queen.”

Sophie stilled at his quiet murmur. He’d stopped right behind her to sift petals from the wavy strands of her hair. So he had a thing for long hair?

She shivered as she felt him touching her. “Don’t. I’ll get rid of them in a minute.”

It felt unnerving having him so close again. Maybe he just intended being helpful but her jangling nerves told her she needed more distance between them.

And the jangling grew even louder when he moved in front of her and continued to pluck at the rose petals with his dark face now only inches above hers. She squeezed her eyes closed, unable to look at him. But she could smell his faint cologne over the swirling rose perfume.

And feel his hands.

Gentle but insistent.

“All gone,” he said, and she opened her eyes in time to find him holding the final petal. He brushed it over her mouth before he tossed it onto the path. Back and forth in the softest of caresses that made her think of warm days, gentle breezes, time to spare on sensual pleasures. How long since she’d been so instantly lost?

She parted her lips to object and Rafe grinned disarmingly.

“Just tidying you up. You looked like something out of a fairy story.”

“Not businesslike,” she snapped as her commonsense leaked back. “This is a business arrangement.”

Yeah, right, her body jeered, quaking at the knees, moistening and buzzing where an entirely different business seemed to be under way.

She shrugged aside and jammed the key in the lock, relieved when it turned at the first attempt. Once the door swung open she stepped past him, releasing a huge and grateful sigh. Now she could hurry into the bedroom and get out of his disturbing presence.

“Have a seat,” she called back over her shoulder, indicating the only armchair, and hoping he’d sit instead of prowling around. “I’ll truly be fast.”

To her annoyance he chose the sofa, slouched down, leaned back against the cushions, crossed his very long legs at the ankle, and looked thoroughly at home.

Sophie bit back her resentment. Why did some people have all the confidence in the world? Money helped of course, but there was more to it than that.

Look at him—taking up half the room as though he owns the place.

She pushed the bedroom door almost closed.

“Definitely compact,” she heard him remark.

“More affordable that way,” she shot back, rattling her small selection of hangers along the wardrobe rail.

“Just the one bedroom?”

“All I need.”

“There’s only you?”

“I see plenty of clients during the day and like peace for my paperwork at night.”

“All work and no play...?”

She could hear definite amusement in his voice now.

“Plenty of play when it suits me,” she insisted, peeling off her skirt, struggling into her black jeans, and hopping about until she had both feet on the floor again. She zipped the jeans up with a savage rasp. They were much more sensible for a building site, but might they have to double as her lunch outfit? They looked okay with her white silk camisole, anyway.

If I take my leather jacket, that should work.

She glanced at her watch. No way would she exceed her estimated two minutes.

Shoes. Damn. Take the sandals, wear the ankle boots and hope the site is somewhere near civilized.

“And what do you consider play?”

She sighed to herself. There wasn’t much play...

“Dinner with friends. A run in the gardens. My art class. Movies, clubbing, all the usual stuff.”

She grabbed her black bomber jacket, hooked a finger through the straps of her sandals, and sneaked a quick look in the mirror. Her hair looked terrible. She gave it a few desperate strokes with her hairbrush, bundled it into a hair-tie, picked up her sandals and jacket again, and hurried back to the little sitting room.

She halted abruptly. Rafe was nowhere in sight. Then he leaned out of the small alcove that housed her kitchen. Camille’s splashy paintings dominated the fridge door.

“You have a child?”

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What makes this book a must-read and/or what inspired you to write this story:

I was chatting with my Maori neighbour, Joseph, as we were each doing some gardening, and he mentioned he’d been whangaied. This is reasonably common among the Maori people of New Zealand, and it’s an unofficial adoption, generally between family members. Things like a childless woman being given a baby by her sister who has several children already, or maybe the whole family going to live with relatives while the parents take on a work contract in another area.

Joseph told me he didn’t meet his brothers and sisters until they were all adult – and he obviously felt a lot had been stolen from him as a result. So that’s how my hero arrived for this book. A mixed-blood man who had been brought up away from his family.

And who was I to team him up with? A woman who, from no fault of her own, had had to give up her only daughter and had not yet managed to bring her home.

Giveaway:

Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card

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Open internationally

Runs September 1 – 30

Drawing will be held on October 1.

Author Biography:

I love words, and I use them to make the world a happier place by creating people who are perfect for each other – although maybe they can’t see that to start with!

I began writing at my local radio station in New Zealand. After living in Italy and London I returned home and worked in TV, radio again, several advertising agencies, and then spent happy years as a retail ad manager. Totally hooked on fabrics, I followed this by surprising everyone and going into business with my husband as a curtain installer and working for some of the capital city’s top designers. Good for my body, and it freed up my brain to write fiction. In twenty years I haven’t fallen off my ladder once through drifting into romantic dreams, but I’ve certainly seen many beautiful homes and met wonderful people, and I may just have stolen glimpses of them for the books. (I didn’t say that, did I?)

If you love contemporary romance in exotic settings, that’s what I write. They're mostly sexy stories about couples who fall in love and into bed along the way, just like real people do. I’m the author of sixteen novels, three of which were finalists in New Zealand’s Clendon Award. Each can be read as a stand-alone, but some make up linked series. I hope you enjoy them all.

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