Sweeten the Deal
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
She's lonely, rich, and ten years too young for him—but she’s also his "sugar daddy," and they couldn't have less in common. Opposites attract in this charming new romance by Katie Shepard.
MBA student Caroline Sedlacek knows her personal balance sheet is a little lopsided. On the asset side, at twenty-two she’s got an NCAA trophy, a great education...and the two million dollars she unexpectedly inherited. Liabilities? She's never had friends, a boyfriend, or any life experiences away from the tennis court or the classroom. She'd love to invest herself in everything else, but "everything else" never came easily for her.
In the ten years since he left art school as a vaunted prodigy, Adrian Landry has won shows and major prizes—and done his best to shed his reputation as a pretty man who makes pretty paintings. Though currently broke and sleeping off a bad break-up on his college roommate’s couch, he knows this is the chance to get his life back on track at thirty-three—he just needs the money to find a new gallery.
When Adrian’s roommate lists him on a thinly veiled escort site, Caroline is not the patron he expected. She’s way too young, way too naive, and loudly uninterested in having sex with him. Instead, they’re both going to get exactly what they want: a little culture on her side, and a lot of cash on his. Aside from their sugar baby arrangement, they’ve got nothing in common. But as they reel from the symphony to the Haymarket, they learn that what they want and what they need might be two very different things.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From Shepard (Bear with Me) comes a clever gender-swapped twist on Pretty Woman. At 22, Caroline Sedlacek is severely lacking in life experience. She grew up neurodivergent and sheltered in small-town Texas and devoted every waking moment to tennis at the urging of her overzealous father. An unexpected inheritance of $2 million from her grandmother finally frees her from her overbearing family. Now she's an MBA student at Boston College, but she's unsure how to make friends, let alone date. One thing she's realized, however, is that there's nothing money can't buy. Adrian Landry was once a rising star of the Boston art scene. Now, at 33, he's broke, recovering from a bad breakup, and living on his friend Tom's couch. When Tom suggests Adrian turn to a "sugar baby" website, Adrian reluctantly accepts that desperate times calls for desperate measures. He's not expecting his first and only client to be Caroline, who demands nothing from him sexually but wants to practice socializing and become more sophisticated through visits to the symphony and Boston's museums. Though Adrian initially fights his feelings for young, naive Caroline, they inevitably become closer. Shepard makes a strong case for their compatibility, showing how they grow and change together. Readers will have no trouble rooting for this unexpected pair.
