Robin Kaye on wrting heroes and heroines who don’t like each other.

The third funny, sexy, contemporary romance from a fresh new voice in romance fiction

Rich, the epitome of “anti-domestic,” can’t cook to save his life, and his idea of cleaning his apartment is to invite his mother over. But he’s ready to settle down, and he can’t stop thinking about the ex-girlfriend who got away. When he notices that his soon-to-be-married friends cooked and cleaned their way into their women’s hearts, he asks his friend Becca to help transform him into a nurturing man to win back his ex.

Rich is the only guy who’s taken the time to know Becca for herself. She decides she’ll give him the makeover he’s asking for, though she’ll be damned if she’s going to turn him into a domestic god for another woman. She wants Rich for herself, but how can she convince him that her kitchen and her bedroom are the only domestic locales he desires?

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People are like onions­—they have lots of layers. I enjoy removing one layer at a time as I write my characters, discovering their true natures. This process is so much fun for me and hopefully you, the reader, when the characters dislike each other right from the get-go.

Writing heroes and heroines who clash gives me great conflict to work with right from the first page, and enough sexual tension to propel the plot forward. It’s one of my favorite plot devices and allows me to peel away those layers.

In Breakfast in Bed my hero and heroine don’t like each other when they first meet. Okay, Rich Ronaldi has nothing against Rebecca Larsen. But for Becca, it’s definitely dislike at first sight. When she finds out that, through no fault of her own, she’s stuck sharing the same apartment with Rich, all she can think of is how to get rid of him. Her apartment is her sanctuary, her escape from the social demands of family life and Brooklyn. Only now her sanctuary is occupied by a cocky guy who is too handsome for his (or her) own good.

Likewise, Rich isn’t happy that Becca has moved in. But when his girlfriend breaks up with him because he’s not relationship material, and his boss hints that it might be a good time for him to grow up, Rich takes a page from his Brothers-in-law’s books and decides to become a domestic god. He talks Becca into becoming his coach in return for a temporary home. He’s aware Becca doesn’t like him and decides to enjoy himself. Rich takes great pleasure in ruffling Miss prim-and-proper-ice-princess’ feathers and the fun begins.

I’ve always thought that love and hate are two sides of the same coin. You know if there’s enough emotion for people to really dislike the other, there’s enough emotion for the opposite to happen.

When Becca finds herself coaching Rich in the Domestic Arts in order for him to win back his ex, a whole set of new complications arise. She discovers the hero lurking under all those layers of cockiness.

Rich is so busy going after his ex, he is slow to realize that the woman he wants is right in front of him.

Rich and Becca, who seem destined to despise each other, are really a romance ready to happen. The fun is in getting them to realize it. Here is an excerpt:

Rich Ronaldi looked over his shoulder to find his sister’s best friend staring wide-eyed at his bare ass. Well, maybe it wasn’t only his ass she stared at because when he turned, she got a load of the full monty.

Becca rested the end of the bat she carried on the floor. “Excuse me, but what the hell are you doing here?”

Rich had never been the shy type, but the women who got a load of him in the buff were usually invited to do so. Becca, Miss prim-and-proper-ice-princess, wasn’t. He wished he knew where the damn towels were. He’d just moved in, well, in a figurative sense of the word. He’d stayed there for a few days, and he had a towel somewhere, but knowing himself, it was on the floor along with his dirty socks and underwear.

If he’d known she’d be coming by, he’d have kicked them into the closet or at least under the bed. But then, Becca was the last woman he’d expected to darken his doorstep. He had no clue why, but since their first meeting, he got the distinct impression she wasn’t overly fond of him. “How did you get in here?”

Becca didn’t seem to grasp the fact that standing naked in front of a woman who wouldn’t normally give him the time of day is not the most comfortable thing to do. She didn’t turn away or hand him a towel, not that there was one at hand. He brushed past her into the bedroom, saw a towel hanging off the footboard of his bed, and quickly tied it around his waist. The only reaction he saw from Becca was a blink.

“I used my key. What are you dong in my bedroom, taking a shower in my bathroom, which is conveniently located in my apartment?”

Rich let out a laugh. “Hold on, I’m the one asking the questions here. This is my apartment. I’m leasing it from Rosalie and Nick.”

She crossed her arms, the action pulling her baggy sweatshirt taut across her chest. A chest he forgot she even had. When he realized he was staring, he returned his gaze to her face and found her rolling her eyes.

“You’re impossible. So is your story since I’m subletting the apartment from Annabelle. It was her apartment, and now it’s mine. You need to leave.

She looked like one of those sexy Anime cartoon characters. She was tall, just a few inches shorter than his own 6’3”, and thin along with long, long legs and short, choppy, platinum blonde, perpetually tussled hair that gave her a sexy as hell, just-been-fucked look. Rich mimicked her stance, careful not to spread his legs wide enough to dislodge the towel, though it would serve her right if he did. “You’re wrong. Rosalie and Nick own the apartment. They rented it to Annabelle, who has since moved out. I moved in. If anyone is leaving, it’s you.”

“Well then, we have a problem. Because as of right now, I’m living here.”

“Not with me, you’re not.”

“Exactly.”

He waved his arm to encompass the whole apartment, and the whole mess he had scattered across it. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

“The only possession I see here is your mess. Everything I own that’s not in storage is now in the living room, so, in that respect, as in others too numerous to count, you come up…” She looked him up and down with a critical eye. “…decidedly short.”

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Thank you, Ms Kaye! To learn more about these books, visiting Ms Kaye’s website.

Leave a comment to enter a drawing for one of two copies of Breakfast in Bed, courtesy of the fab folks at Sourcebooks. (Giveaway limited to US and Canada residents)