Heart of Stone Author: S.I. Hayes

Title: Heart of Stone

Author: S.I. Hayes

Genre: Contemporary Romance

                                                 Hosted by: Lady Amber's Tours

Donnella Stone is as her name describes, cold, powerful and rich. She is a true Manhattan Blue Blood. This has left her with a problem, the men in her life have often only come for what they can take from her, and it has never been her heart.

To protect herself she has rules and a non-disclosure agreement for all of her relationships with men, she gets what she needs, and promises opportunity, means and her silence once the length of the arrangement ends. It has worked for a decade.

Until she meets Matthew Mayfield, an adorable, awkward artist from Connecticut whose work and passionate attitude instantly intrigue her. The problem? He takes more of an interest in her, than any man she has met before.

Can he get past the dragon and heal her heart of stone or will her past be too much for him to handle, leaving them both on the wayside?

Author Bio:
Shannon (S. I.) Hayes has been telling tales for so long as she has been able to talk, and began writing them down shortly thereafter. She is the singular author of the In Dreams... Series, and a Paranormal Historical Romance called Centuries Of Blood: Becoming. Shannon is the Co-Author to Awakenings: The Wrath Saga, a Paranormal Drama likened to Big Brother meets The Real World of the Preternatural, as well as several blogs and host to her own website. S.I.Hayes.com.

In her own words... I have a mind that is easily distracted and prone to wandering. Tangents are my forte, and if you think my characters are going to fit a cookie cutter shape of any kind, think again. They live, they love, they eat, sleep and f***. I believe that people are inherently sexual creatures and my characters be they human or something altogether else are no exception.

I don't adhere to a single genera, I toe the line on several and wouldn't presume to be a master of any. So I suppose you could call me jack-of-all-trade-paperbacks.

I am a truth seeker, in my life, in my work. I’d apologize for it, but I kinda cannot help m’self. It is my best and worst personality trait, well mostly, being Bi-Polar I guess you could say that is the worse. But I believe that the disorder has made me, well... Me.

I have taken this life and twisted, carved, shaped and molded it in to the worlds of my characters. Albeit with a chainsaw, and it has made all the difference

Links:

A Writer’s Mind, More or Less

The 131 Preview Review

Amazon UK

Facebook

Website

Amazon

Twitter 

If the above doesn’t copy/paste use the below urls

http://www.amazon.com/S.I.-Hayes/e/B008RAV3JW

http://www.amazon.co.uk/S.I.-Hayes/e/B008RAV3JW

https://www.facebook.com/S.I.Hayes.Author

http://131previewreview.blogspot.com/

http://shannonihayes.blogspot.com/

https://twitter.com/shannonihayes

http://www.sihayes.com/

EXCERPT:

1

Her opalescent green eyes locked on him, surveying him as he pushed his glasses up and back on to his face. “Would you mind pouring me a Brandy?” She watched as he looked at the crystal bottles lifting one then another. Her smiled broadened. “It’s the darkest one…Turns reddish purple in the light. Three fingers deep.” Adorable. She thought to herself suddenly, as she held her fingers sideway to show him how much to fill the glass.

He poured the brandy, and brought it to her, she took it with and arch of her brow up at him. He stood a good seven inches taller than her even in her four and a half inch heels. He couldn’t help from his angle but notice that the top three buttons of her crisp white blouse were undone and he could just make out the outline of a white camisole beneath before she turned from him toward her desk, hips swaying in the tight skirt he had spied her in earlier. It hugged her back end perfectly and from the look of it she didn’t appear to be wearing any panties underneath. He clicked his jaw at the thought. Trying to change the subject in his mind as his heart beat increased.

“So…” She looked down at the portfolio, seeing his name typed neatly upon it. “Matthew? Is it?”

He nodded still standing with the bottle of water in his hands.

She gestured for him to have a seat. He sat down the depth of the chair overwhelming him at first as his legs had not realized the lowness of it. He pulled up before she had time to take notice, bringing himself to the edge of the seat. Trepidation filled him as she flipped through the photos without sitting down, sipping the brandy. She let out a deep sigh and suddenly her height changed by several inches, he looked to the floor realizing she had slipped off what he now deemed to be her ridiculously high heels. His attention was now off of her flippant turning and on her perfect little toes, as she rubbed the instep of one foot gently up her own ankle to relieve what must have been all of her daily tension. Matthew found himself imagining having her in the bath, rubbing those insteps, helping her get rid of all of her stress. Then moving up her toned calves, to her knees. He wondered if she were ticklish there.

“Did you find something of interest under my desk Mr. Mayfield?” Donnella asked abruptly, bringing him back from his sudden daydream.

“I’m sorry, Miss Stone. But have you perchance ever wanted to be in front of the lens?”

“Well there’s one I haven’t heard before.” She mocked, putting her shoes back on to come back around the desk.

“I mean it. I was distracted by you, by the curves of your foot, the length of your leg. I wanted to photograph you before I knew you were who you are. The moment you stepped on the photograph, it was like a bell went Ding!” Matthew couldn’t believe what he was saying. Sure he meant it. He just wasn’t the type to come out and say such things. That was Janet’s job. She procured his models for him. He was the one behind the lens, behind the scenes. He could make the art, he could see the beauty. Speaking to a woman as sexy as the one in front of him, typically left him in knots with a wet dream for later.  Now here he was standing in this woman’s office demanding that she let him photograph her.

“Easy, there. I don’t like photographs of me. So you can slow your roll on that. But I do like that you’re passionate about it.” She pushed him back down into the chair once more. “I like these wounded soldier photos, especially the women. There’s something about the vulnerability and the bravery intermingled…”

“Yes, That’s where I was going, I-”

“Shh…” She put her finger to his lips and he could smell the lotion she used on her skin. It reminded him of lilies after a rainstorm, when their scent would waft through his mother’s garden back home, how he loved that smell. He took a steady breath, as she looked at him, pulling her finger away, abruptly.

“Sorry, just when I get on a tangent I don’t like to be interrupted.”

He nodded. She leaned up against the desk in front of him. “I also noticed that you then paint them as well… Why?”

“It’s what I want to do. I take the photos because they sell, and frankly I need the money. But the painting is what I want to do. I use my photos as my guides, rather than having to continuously pay the models. But when I sell the photos, I hope to make donations to the funds they are a part of, they need the help, especially now that we’re not really over anywhere, but everywhere you know?”

“Mmm… I think I could get behind something like that.” She strummed her fingers on the table. “But you’re not there yet, and I’m not really taking on photographers right now.”

Matthew blinked at her, the stunned look on his face apparent. “You kept me out there for three hours to tell me, no.” The words dripped from his lips with a tremble of anger he could not hold back. “You could have let me leave with my pride intact.” He stood his fist balled, hands shaking. “Instead you give me hope, you ply me with complements. What kind of heartless bitch does something like that to another human being?”

“Easy there, I’m the kind that can make or break you, everywhere. One call form me and no one will touch you. Like I said, I like your passion.” She scrawled something on a post- it note, tacking it to one of the photographs. “Be at this address, tomorrow night, after having seen a razor and a clean shirt for Christ’s sake. We’ll see just what you’re made of, shall we?”