READ in the New Year! Secret Santa Baby by Robin Covington (Guest Post)

Welcome back to our New Years celebration! Tessa from Robin Covington's Secret Santa Baby is joining us with a special surprise for her beau, Nick...

This little scene is set a week after the ending of Secret Santa Baby…New Year’s Eve…

Tessa made a final adjustment to the table setting, shifting the candle to the right and leaning down to inhale the scent of the roses in the vase. She sifted her fingers through the glitter tossed about on the tablecloth, loving the way the light from the fireplace caught it and gave it a glamorous, romantic glow.

She glanced at her watch—five minutes until eight—and shivered with anticipation that Nick would be here any minute. She wished she could have seen his face when he came home to her apartment and found the note:

Nick – Meet at the mountain house. I love you, Tessa.

But, she’d get to see his face when he heard the good news—their offer on the mountain house was accepted and within sixty days they would be living here, loving here, building a life together. Yes, the house needed some TLC but they’d make it their own and they’d have the amazing vistas of the Blue Ridge Mountains from every window. 

If she had her way, they would marry here. On the back lawn with the majestic peaks giving silent testament to their promises.

Tessa walked over to the bed—it was just an air mattress—but it would do very well for tonight. They would eat the exquisitely prepared meal from their favorite restaurant, dance a little bit, kiss a lot, and spend the night making love in their new home. She’d once heard that they way you would spend your new year’s eve was dictated by the way you started it and she was determined they would start 2013 in each other’s arms.

“Tessa? Sweetheart?” Nick’s voice, edged with uncertainty, carried to her from the back door and she turned to see him walk through the doorway.

His long, lanky muscled body filled up the space of the doorway and her breath caught in her chest like it always did when she first saw him. His blonde hair caught the firelight, the halo effect giving him an angelic look that was in deep contrast with the devilish grin covering his face at the sight of the bed.

“What’s going on?” he asked when he finally returned his gaze to her face. ‘Why are we here?”

She smiled. “Oh…have I got some news for you…”

Tessa Stoneman hasn’t been able to get long-time friend and business partner Nicholas Boone out of her head since they shared a single kiss in college. Even when she dated Nicholas’s best friend. Now that she’s giving up her position at GameNerdz to strike out on her own—and now that she’s single—maybe it’s the right time to see if there’s still something between them. Nicholas knows once Tessa leaves the company she helped found, they might drift apart. Before she starts her own company in the new year, he wants to woo the woman he fell in love with during college. So he poses as her Secret Santa, gifts her with items from the song “Santa Baby,” and plans a big reveal at the company holiday party. But when his best friend wants to rekindle his romance with Tessa, will Nicholas lose his last chance?

Buy links for Secret Santa Baby: Amazon - Barnes and Noble

Robin Covington, who NYT Best Selling authors, Robyn Carr and Carly Phillips, said was their new “auto-buy author”, writes sizzling hot contemporary and paranormal romance. A Night of Southern Comfort, her best-selling debut was nominated by RT Book Reviews for the 2012 Best Contemporary Romance from an Indie Press for bringing a “fresh, modern feel to the genre while still sticking to the things that get our adrenaline pumping — sex and danger”. When she's not exploring the theme of fooling around and falling in love, she’s collecting tasty man candy, indulging in a little comic book geek love, and stalking Joe Mangianello. Robin is a member of the Romance Writers of America, the Washington Romance Writers, a faculty member at Romance University, a member of the Waterworld Mermaids, a Goddess at The Naked Hero, and a contributor to the Happy Ever After blog at USA Today. You can find Robin on her website, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter (@RobinCovington).