**BLOG TOUR** Sky's The Limit by Elle Aycart

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Tired of waiting for her big break in the fashion industry, Sky Gonzalez, eternal part-time student and overworked retail drone, quits her job, sublets her New York apartment, and embarks on a semester abroad study program in Paris. Paris! Time to throw caution to the winds and jump-start her dreams. What’s the worst that could happen?

How about getting sent to the wrong Paris? As in Paris-frigging-Minnesota?

Bye-bye career dreams. Bye-bye glamour and haute couture. Hello flannel shirts, mind-numbing cold, zero bars on the cell phone, and socially challenged mountain men with tons of unruly facial hair.

So yeah, let the truck barreling her way hit her, please. Less painful.


Logan should have dodged the little lost waif and kept on driving. Who in their right mind walked in the middle of the road, dressed in white from head to high heels, during a snowstorm? Clueless city girls, that's who. Sky is all that Logan has gladly left behind: stylish, cosmopolitan, and a massive pain in the butt. He wouldn’t trade a single day in his quirky little corner of the woods for all the high-maintenance beauties the city can offer.

Too bad this beauty has been deemed a health hazard and quarantined in his house. Damn his doomsday-prepper neighbors and their paranoid emergency protocols. Now he has to keep Sky in and the pandemic squad out until the roads are clear. The question is, will that happen before or after Sky realizes she's under house arrest?


Ah, the best-laid plans...

Logan addressed the pandemic squad up on the platform. “Sorry to break it to you. This is a free country. You can’t go quarantining people at will.”
“Wrong. Exactly because this is a free country, we can.”
There were some mumbles of agreement from the crowd, “That’s right” and “You got it” and “Try to stop us.”
“We live in a democracy. Let’s take a vote,” Carol suggested. “All in favor of quarantining Patient Zero, please raise your hands.”
Everyone, including a smirking Ty, raised their hands.
“Oh, come on,” Logan grumbled. “Really? You serious?”
“Motion accepted,” Carol said, wrestling the gavel from the mayor and banging it on the podium. “Besides, Patient Zero doesn’t have to know she’s been quarantined. Just keep her indoors by any means necessary until she gets better.”
“Or she kicks the bucket,” somebody chimed in.
Nuts. The whole bunch of them. Down to the very last one.
“She’s not Patient Zero, people. Her name is Sky and she’s got the flu, damn it. Not Ebola. Just a common, garden-variety flu.”
“By our calculations, Patient Zero has been here almost twenty-four hours. We’re late on containment,” Carol said.
Logan shook his head in dismay. Man, like talking to a wall.
“You had her hidden away for a whole day?” Ty asked impishly.
“She was just sleeping on my sofa.” Logan realized his mistake right away and turned to Carol and the rest. “You are not burning my sofa. Are we clear?”
Whether it was clear or not, Logan didn’t know, because Carol ignored his words. “And we’ll be monitoring you,” she added while the rest nodded. “At the slightest indication you’re sick—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll quarantine me too, and if I don’t get better fast enough, you’ll shoot me and cremate my remains.” Along with the damn couch, of course.
Carol rolled her eyes. “Don’t be silly.”
“Yeah, don’t be silly,” someone interjected. “We’ll autopsy you before that. Dissect you into tiny pieces.”
Jesus fucking Christ. Why couldn’t his neighbors have been the gearheads prepping for solar flares that would fry the grid? More kumbaya. Less ready to dissect.
“This is all your fault, Megan,” he said to his sister, who was sitting two rows behind him. “Couldn’t you have moved somewhere else? A normal fucking place?”
She just laughed. “You heard the lady. Keep Patient Zero indoors—by any means necessary.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“What? Skills too rusty to keep a woman indoors?” she asked.
“I can help,” Ty added. “Is she pretty?”
Gorgeous, actually. Big, dark eyes. Olive-colored skin. Delicate features. But that was beside the point too.
“Fuck off, both of you,” Logan muttered. Raising his voice, he addressed the crowd again. “You’re certifiable. All of you.”
“I totally agree,” Carol said. “We give you far too much leeway. Look at how flexible we’ve been about your toxic contaminants.”

After a colorful array of jobs all over Europe ranging from translator to chocolatier to travel agent to sushi chef to flight dispatcher, Elle Aycart is certain of one thing and one thing only: aside from writing romances, she has abso-frigging-lutely no clue what she wants to do when she grows up. Not that it stops her from trying all sorts of crazy stuff. While she is probably now thinking of a new profession, her head never stops churning new plots for her romances. She lives currently in Barcelona, Spain, with her husband and two daughters, although who knows, in no time she could be living at the Arctic Circle in Finland, breeding reindeer.

Elle loves to hear from readers!

elleaycart@gmail.com

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**RELEASE DAY** Sky's The Limit by Elle Aycart

iBooks

Amazon

Kobo

Tired of waiting for her big break in the fashion industry, Sky Gonzalez, eternal part-time student and overworked retail drone, quits her job, sublets her New York apartment, and embarks on a semester abroad study program in Paris. Paris! Time to throw caution to the winds and jump-start her dreams. What’s the worst that could happen?

How about getting sent to the wrong Paris? As in Paris-frigging-Minnesota?

Bye-bye career dreams. Bye-bye glamour and haute couture. Hello flannel shirts, mind-numbing cold, zero bars on the cell phone, and socially challenged mountain men with tons of unruly facial hair.

So yeah, let the truck barreling her way hit her, please. Less painful.


Logan should have dodged the little lost waif and kept on driving. Who in their right mind walked in the middle of the road, dressed in white from head to high heels, during a snowstorm? Clueless city girls, that's who. Sky is all that Logan has gladly left behind: stylish, cosmopolitan, and a massive pain in the butt. He wouldn’t trade a single day in his quirky little corner of the woods for all the high-maintenance beauties the city can offer.

Too bad this beauty has been deemed a health hazard and quarantined in his house. Damn his doomsday-prepper neighbors and their paranoid emergency protocols. Now he has to keep Sky in and the pandemic squad out until the roads are clear. The question is, will that happen before or after Sky realizes she's under house arrest?


Ah, the best-laid plans...

This was so not happening. “Are you serious?” Sky choked out.
“I’m afraid so. I’ll make it up to you later, I swear. Get dressed.” Logan reached for the keys, unlocked one cuff, freed her from the headboard, and jumped off the bed. “Dark clothes. Camo if you’ve got it.”
She snorted, sitting up. “You’re joking, right? The closest I’ve gotten to camo was watching—with contempt, I might add—an episode of Duck Dynasty.”
“Black sweatpants then.”
Sure, like she had packed that for Paris. The only sweatpants she had were gold and pink. Prada, spring collection.
“Where’s the key for the cuffs?” she asked, looking around.
“I left it on the bed,” Logan shouted from the closet.
Sky patted the bedsheets but no luck. “Can’t find it.”
Logan came back carrying a big rucksack. He left it on the floor and lifted the bedcovers. No key. “Maybe it fell on the floor?”
Sky pointed at the rucksack, ominously similar to the ones she’d seen the 10K participants carry. “Don’t tell me. Bug-out bag?”
“Bug-out bag. We need to hurry. They time these drills. If we mess up their schedule, we won’t ever live it down. Get ready. I’ll search for the key.”
Where had she gone wrong? She’d had a nice, comfortable city life. Friday meant cosmopolitans, sexy clothes, and a fancy date with dinner and dancing. Hot sex if she was lucky. Now? She was in the middle of nowhere, getting ready for an evacuation drill, her mascara down her chest, her hair a mess, and her clit hurting like a bitch from not coming. No dinner. No dancing.
She heard the front door opening and a woman yelling, “Logan! Move it! Where are you?”
“My sister got tired of waiting outside.”
“Forget the key and go meet her downstairs,” Sky urged him. “Before she gets in here. Or worse, before Arnie attacks her.”
“Fuck.” Logan grabbed the bag and dashed out of the room. “We’re coming! Go back to the car. Give us a minute.”
“You got thirty seconds,” was the annoyed reply.
Sky pulled the first long-sleeved-shirt she could find over herself, hoping to cover the cuffs hanging from one wrist. It was Logan’s, so it went down to her knees. Whatever. She ran to her room and put on the pink-and-gold sweatpants and the black-and-red rubber boots. Jesus Christ, talk about hillbillying it.
She dashed downstairs. Logan was holding the front door for her. Outside, the horn on a big, black truck was blaring.
“About time,” said the driver, a gruff man dressed in camo, as they jumped in the vehicle. A woman with pixie-cut hair, also wearing camo, was riding shotgun. Megan, Logan’s sister, Sky presumed.
“If you batshit wackos would schedule your damn drills at a more reasonable hour, or let us know beforehand, this wouldn’t happen,” Logan snapped back.
“It wouldn’t be much of an emergency evacuation drill if we gave notice beforehand, would it?” the pixie lady said.

After a colorful array of jobs all over Europe ranging from translator to chocolatier to travel agent to sushi chef to flight dispatcher, Elle Aycart is certain of one thing and one thing only: aside from writing romances, she has abso-frigging-lutely no clue what she wants to do when she grows up. Not that it stops her from trying all sorts of crazy stuff. While she is probably now thinking of a new profession, her head never stops churning new plots for her romances. She lives currently in Barcelona, Spain, with her husband and two daughters, although who knows, in no time she could be living at the Arctic Circle in Finland, breeding reindeer.

Elle loves to hear from readers!

elleaycart@gmail.com

Blog  Twitter  Facebook  Instagram  Goodreads  BookBub

**CHAPTER REVEAL** Sky's The Limit by Elle Aycart

iBooks

Amazon

Kobo

Tired of waiting for her big break in the fashion industry, Sky Gonzalez, eternal part-time student and overworked retail drone, quits her job, sublets her New York apartment, and embarks on a semester abroad study program in Paris. Paris! Time to throw caution to the winds and jump-start her dreams. What’s the worst that could happen?

How about getting sent to the wrong Paris? As in Paris-frigging-Minnesota?

Bye-bye career dreams. Bye-bye glamour and haute couture. Hello flannel shirts, mind-numbing cold, zero bars on the cell phone, and socially challenged mountain men with tons of unruly facial hair.

So yeah, let the truck barreling her way hit her, please. Less painful.


Logan should have dodged the little lost waif and kept on driving. Who in their right mind walked in the middle of the road, dressed in white from head to high heels, during a snowstorm? Clueless city girls, that's who. Sky is all that Logan has gladly left behind: stylish, cosmopolitan, and a massive pain in the butt. He wouldn’t trade a single day in his quirky little corner of the woods for all the high-maintenance beauties the city can offer.

Too bad this beauty has been deemed a health hazard and quarantined in his house. Damn his doomsday-prepper neighbors and their paranoid emergency protocols. Now he has to keep Sky in and the pandemic squad out until the roads are clear. The question is, will that happen before or after Sky realizes she's under house arrest?




Ah, the best-laid plans...

Somewhere in the back of beyond, Minnesota

SOS. Car broke down. Stuck in snowstorm. Check my location and alert troopers.

Sky Gonzalez pressed Send and threw her cell in the air as high as she could. There was nothing but trees and snow around, no cell coverage to be had where she was standing. Maybe another six feet up, the situation was different.

She caught the phone on its way down. Checked the screen. Nope. Jesus Christ, the whole country was infested with butt-ugly, fake-tree cell towers, and she had to get lost in a place where all the damn trees were real.

Turning against the gusts of wind and brushing flakes away from her face, she gave it another go, tossing as far as she dared. Which wasn’t far, really, because she wasn’t the most coordinated person in the world. If she dropped the phone and it smashed into a million pieces, or she lost sight of where it landed, that was it for her last lifeline to the outside world. She’d never find her cute, sparkly cell again—slick and thin and white.

In hindsight, going for that color had been a very poor decision.

Still no dice. Squinting, she tossed the device up again. Hopefully her message would eventually go through, and Lola would contact the authorities. After all, it was Lola’s fault Sky was in this bind. Of all the crazy shit her sister had pulled over the years, this stunt trumped every one of them.

Every. Single. One.

She caught her cell a third time. Nothing. Well, practice made perfect, right? Besides, she didn’t have much else to do except throw that stupid phone into the sky and continue walking. The road must lead somewhere. Sooner or later she’d arrive there. Or she’d get lucky and her cell would catch a signal. Or she’d freeze to death and become a cautionary tale to stupid girls. Whatever came first.

She looked back to where her car was being buried under a steady fall of big flakes. Steam was still coming from the hood. How a car could overheat in the middle of a snowstorm, she didn’t know. That annoying little red light on the dashboard that had flashed at her for the last twenty miles might have had something to do with it. Not that she could have done shit about it, seeing as the last person she’d crossed paths with was at a gas station a hundred miles away. Or so. She wasn’t great at calculating distances or reading maps.

Orienting herself wasn’t one of her fortes either, evidenced by the embarrassing fact that her destination should only have been about fifteen miles from the regional airport and she’d still managed to miss it. She’d tried backtracking, but she’d only succeeded in getting more lost. And that was hours ago. The car’s GPS had stopped working right after she left the airport, and her cell had been without a steady signal for a long while before the car itself died. For all she knew, she’d crossed state lines. Heck, she might be in Canada. Or in frigging Alaska.

Great way to kick off the New Year. Best first of January ever.

Eyes on her airborne cell, she tripped and fell flat on her face, the useless device landing on the back of her head.

Coordinate colors? Forecast fashion trends? Put together a knockout outfit from a thrift shop? All that she could do, no problem. But apparently, throwing an object up in a straight line and catching it on the fly were not in her skill set.

Aggravated, she got up, patted the snow from her pants, and burrowed her hands under her jacket. The wind wasn’t too strong, but the constant bee stings of flakes on her skin, along with her shitty clothes, made her feel like she was freezing. The extremely fashionable hand-me-downs from her boss were not designed for off-road snow trudging.

Then again, she should have been strolling around Paris’s Golden Triangle of luxury boutiques and haute couture labels. Or sitting in a cute little café, watching the sun set over the Champs Elysées, enjoying the mild chill of the French winter—which this year was supposed to be warmer than usual—sipping red wine, and munching on a baguette slathered in gooey cheese. For that, she was perfectly dressed.

Thank God she’d gotten that ridiculous white bunny-ear hat at the airport, ugly as it was, and the white bunny-paw mittens. The snowstorm must have caught other travelers off guard, because those had been the only winter garments in the tiny store. High heels and a bunny hat. Hell of a fashion statement. On the plus side, she was color coordinated down to her underwear. White pants. White jacket. White boots. White hat.

She should have stayed in the broken car. No heat and a cramped space were a thousand times preferable to walking in the open, but she was so tired, she couldn’t afford to sit idle. She’d fall asleep in a second and wake up a Popsicle. Or, more to the point, not wake up at all.

That she’d been awake thirty hours and counting wasn’t helping. But why would she have wasted her last night in New York City sleeping when she thought she had a transatlantic flight ahead of her? Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Sky was infamous for drifting off in the weirdest places and the most impossible positions. Tourist class, no leg room, screaming babies? Bring it on. Heck, once she’d zonked out in a jumper seat and snored there for hours, back in the day when she flew standby, courtesy of a friend’s industry-discount tickets.

Looking forward to a cozy nap in coach, she’d gone partying with friends instead of resting—and checking her flight details. Now she was stuck in the middle of nowhere, sleep-deprived, knee-deep in snow, freezing her butt off, and probably catching the mother of all flus.

Minnesota. Where the heck was Minnesota? She was an East Coast person through and through. She hadn’t been this far west since that time she took the wrong train and ended up in Newark. That had been traumatic enough, thank you very much.

She glanced around. It was beautiful, though. Perfect snowflakes poured out of the sky, blanketing the whole landscape in white. Very… Christmassy. Too bad it wasn’t Christmas, and she was lost, alone, and irremediably soaked. Her hair and makeup were ruined. And let’s not talk about her brand-new manicure. Hansel and Gretel dropped bread crumbs. Her? She was dropping fake nails all over the place.

Damn the countryside. Not a single soul around to ask for directions. Where were aggressive taxi drivers when one needed them? Rude walkers, honking cars, hotdog vendors, a Starbucks on every corner—there was nothing like that here. No landmarks she would recognize.

Just snow, trees, and a back road, poorly delineated and with worse signage, all of it getting fuzzier by the second.

And that was the view in the middle of the day. She shuddered to think how all this would look when it started getting dark. Were there wolves in Minnesota? Bears? Because if her high-heeled boots were shit walking in the snow, just wait until she had to climb a tree.

Sky was about to toss the cell up again, but she stopped. Sighed. Who was she kidding? She’d need a rocket launcher to make it past the treetops. She might as well put her phone to better use before the battery died or it got buried in the snow, Fargo style, until the end of time. She pressed the recording function and started talking. “This is the last will and testament of Sky Gonzalez. This message is addressed to my sister Lola. I leave you, Lola, all my belongings, which you’ll find in a car buried under a ton of snow somewhere in the middle of Minnesota, where you sent me!” she yelled into the device. “Know that I blame you for everything, and I will haunt you from the afterlife for freaking ever! You’ll never have a good night’s sleep, I guarantee you. Damn your presbyopia! Yes, you’ve hit forty. Yes, you need glasses. Own it, for Christ’s sake!”

Screaming seemed to help, marginally. To vent her frustration, if nothing else. She knew she shouldn’t be mad at Lola. After all, it wasn’t completely her sister’s fault. Never mind how busy she’d been, Sky should not have asked her sister to fill out her application for the semester-abroad program. At the very least, she should have suspected something was fishy when the secretary in the placement department had been so glad about Sky’s choice of location, she not only arranged the flight for her, but also informed her that the position came with a voucher for a car rental. Big red flag if Sky ever saw one.

“I don’t need a car,” she’d told the woman. Why would she? Public transportation was a far better option in European cities.

The secretary had sounded confused. “Uhh, believe me, you’ll need a car. Any preferences?”

In all her years as a part-time undergrad at that school, taking classes here and there whenever she could afford it, Sky had never heard the old hag be so nice to anyone. So she went for broke. “Okay, if I can choose, a cute little Mini would work.” Driving in style trumped trunk space any day. Besides, parking would be at a premium in Paris.

“A what?”

She’d gone too far. “If it’s too much, I can—”

“No, no,” the secretary had hurried to interrupt. “It will be arranged.”

Probably she’d thought Sky was going to pull her application if she didn’t get her preferred car. Which she would have. In a heartbeat. Not because of the car, but because she had thought she was going to Paris, France. Not Paris, Minnesota. Who in her right mind would choose an internship in Minnesota when Europe was available?

Sky Gonzalez, apparently.

Entering the semester-abroad program had been an ill-omened idea. She should have accepted her destiny as an eternal student and sales clerk turned personal shopper’s assistant. Dressing in castoffs from her boss and living vicariously through others people’s pics on Instagram. Making ends meet, a big smile on her face, happy and satisfied with her lot.

But traveling to Europe in the hopes of becoming a buyer for a classy continental retailer? Not in the cards for a Gonzalez.

Sky blew warm air over her frozen fingers. Manipulating her cell with the mittens had been a no-go, so she’d stashed them in her jacket. Time to fish them out, or she was going to lose more than her nails. Rummaging in her pockets produced only one mitten. Oh, shit. She must have dropped the other one. Fantastic. Getting better and better. Her teeth were chattering. The storm didn’t look like it was lightening up anytime soon, so she put on the one mitten and picked up her speed.

She pressed Record again and spoke into the phone.“I left Arnie at the dog hotel, so you are getting your sorry ass over there and picking him up, Lola. To hell with your allergies.”

Arnie hated it there. Ungrateful mutt. Much as it pained Sky, she couldn’t take him with her overseas. She’d dished out an indecent amount of money, money she couldn’t afford, to that first-class kennel, and he’d looked at her as if she were dumping him into the pound. “If I freeze to death… which at this stage is a very strong possibility, because the clattering sound you’re hearing is my teeth… I expect you to care for him. The expensive doggie treats he likes. His massage and spa days. The whole shebang, Lola. Do not cut corners with my baby. You owe me.”

When Sky stopped yelling into the phone, she realized the screeching she was hearing wasn’t coming from her. It sounded like brakes locking. She turned around in time to see the shiny grill of a black monster truck barreling her way.

Her eyes opened wide. Holy shit.

It was a damn good thing she couldn’t feel half her body anymore, because this was sooo going to hurt.




* * *



The second that Logan saw a flash of long red hair and something resembling human eyes, he wrenched the wheel, sending the truck spinning to the shoulder, barely missing the tiny figure in the middle of the road. Jesus Christ. Who in her right mind wore white from head to toe in a blizzard? The truck screeched to a halt, the passenger side a mere half an inch from the woman. He jumped down and ran around the front. She had fallen to the ground. Fuck, had he hit her? “You okay?”

“You… almost… ran… me… over,” she said, her teeth chattering. From fear or cold, he couldn’t tell. Well, he could. It had to be cold. Her clothes were flimsy at best. Flashy, but not warm at all.

“Are you crazy? Standing in the middle of the road, all in white? I could have killed you.”

He saw a gleam of defiance in her eyes. “White’s… trendy… this… year.”

Right. “There’s nothing ‘trendy’ in this part of Minnesota, lady. Where’s your car?”

“There.” She pointed in the direction Logan had come from. “Or there,” she corrected herself, pointing in the opposite direction. “Not sure now. It all looks… white.”

No shit.

He tried to help her stand, but her legs buckled, so he lifted her in his arms. “Let’s get you somewhere warm, shall we?” After placing her on the passenger seat, he cranked up the heat.

“Can’t leave… without… my bags.”

He stepped outside and scouted the ground a little.

Her footsteps indicated she’d been walking in the same direction he’d been driving, which meant he must have passed her vehicle and missed it. “What car are you driving?”

She sneezed, the useless synthetic-fur hood on her jacket flopping over her bunny-eared head. Out of the whole stupid outfit, that bunny-eared hat was the most sensible piece. “A Mini.”

Great. Wherever she’d left the car, it was probably buried now.

“We’ll come back for it tomorrow,” he decided, jumping back in and revving up the engine.

“My Manolos are in there.”

Manolos. Oh, boy, wasn’t that a blast from the past? Another shoe whore. Just what he needed. “They’ll still be here tomorrow, believe me.”

She was going to object, but a sudden sneeze derailed her. And another and another. He opened the glove compartment, took out a wad of napkins, and offered it to her. “Why did you leave the car?”

“Stopped working,” she answered, grabbing a napkin and wiping her nose. “And when I began walking… it wasn’t snowing so much.”

“You aren’t from anywhere around here, are you?” Her dumb clothes were a dead giveaway. Her actions too. She shook her head, placing her hands in front of the air vent. “New York City.”

It figured.

She narrowed her dark eyes on him. “Why?”

The heat had kicked in. She must have finally felt it, because her teeth weren’t chattering as hard. She was even getting some color back in her face.

He looked resolutely forward and edged the truck into motion. “For your information—next time you decide to take a stroll in the Minnesota countryside, you need better shoes. And clothes. You don’t assume the weather conditions will improve. And you never leave your vehicle. Ever. Under any circumstances. You don’t stand in the middle of the road without wearing reflectors. And—”

A sudden move from the passenger side caught his attention. He gave her a quick glance and saw, flabbergasted, that her head had lolled to the side.

“Lady, you okay?”

A light snore was all the answer he got. “And you don’t get into a stranger’s ride and proceed to check out,” he muttered. Jesus fucking Christ. Talk about a lack of common sense.

After a colorful array of jobs all over Europe ranging from translator to chocolatier to travel agent to sushi chef to flight dispatcher, Elle Aycart is certain of one thing and one thing only: aside from writing romances, she has abso-frigging-lutely no clue what she wants to do when she grows up. Not that it stops her from trying all sorts of crazy stuff. While she is probably now thinking of a new profession, her head never stops churning new plots for her romances. She lives currently in Barcelona, Spain, with her husband and two daughters, although who knows, in no time she could be living at the Arctic Circle in Finland, breeding reindeer.

Elle loves to hear from readers!

elleaycart@gmail.com

Blog  Twitter  Facebook  Instagram  Goodreads  BookBub

**COVER REVEAL** Sky's The Limit by Elle Aycart

 

Tired of waiting for her big break in the fashion industry, Sky Gonzalez, eternal part-time
student and overworked retail drone, quits her job, sublets her New York apartment, and
embarks on a semester abroad study program in Paris. Paris! Time to throw caution to the
winds and jump-start her dreams. What’s the worst that could happen?

How about getting sent to the wrong Paris? As in Paris-frigging-Minnesota?

Bye-bye career dreams. Bye-bye glamour and haute couture. Hello flannel shirts,
mind-numbing cold, zero bars on the cell phone, and socially challenged mountain men with
tons of unruly facial hair.

So yeah, let the truck barreling her way hit her, please. Less painful.


Logan should have dodged the little lost waif and kept on driving. Who in their right mind
walked in the middle of the road, dressed in white from head to high heels, during a
snowstorm? Clueless city girls, that's who. Sky is all that Logan has gladly left behind:
stylish, cosmopolitan, and a massive pain in the butt. He wouldn’t trade a single day in his
quirky little corner of the woods for all the high-maintenance beauties the city can offer.

Too bad this beauty has been deemed a health hazard and quarantined in his house. Damn
his doomsday-prepper neighbors and their paranoid emergency protocols. Now  he has to
keep Sky in and the pandemic squad out until the roads are clear. The question is, will that
happen before or after Sky realizes she's under house arrest?

Ah, the best-laid plans...

Coming January 16th

Pre-order via iBooks now

After a colorful array of jobs all over Europe ranging from translator to chocolatier to travel
agent to sushi chef to flight dispatcher, Elle Aycart is certain of one thing and one thing only:
aside from writing romances, she has abso-frigging-lutely no clue what she wants to do when
she grows up. Not that it stops her from trying all sorts of crazy stuff. While she is probably
now thinking of a new profession, her head never stops churning new plots for her romances.
She lives currently in Barcelona, Spain, with her husband and two daughters, although who
knows, in no time she could be living at the Arctic Circle in Finland, breeding reindeer.

Elle loves to hear from readers!

elleaycart@gmail.com

Blog  Twitter  Facebook  Instagram  Goodreads  BookBub

**RELEASE BLITZ** Hard Limits by Elle Aycart

Get to know Nico and Paige in Hard Limits by Elle Aycart!

NOW LIVE!

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2nZMIXT

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2n5zPbm

Full Blurb

Nico Grabar, head of one of the most ruthless cartels in the world, is in the last stretch of a two-year nightmare, his agenda extremely busy. He has a criminal organization to run. A cover to maintain. A promise to fulfill. Too bad he’s bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere, about to meet his maker on a deserted street. A fitting ending to a bleak existence, really. When a beautiful Vintage bride with racoon eyes and a choke collar, covered from head to military boots in blood, came to him. It looked like the Grim Reaper had gotten a makeover just for him. What an honor.

Who finds a frigging drug lord in serious need of resuscitation while coming back from a bachelorette party at the wee hours? Paige, aka magnet for psychopaths, of course.

The Goth waitress at Rosita’s has already survived a major asshole, narrowly escaping with her life. The last she needs is to have to play Nightingale to a dangerous kingpin. What if he dies on her? Or worse; what if he doesn’t?

Excerpt

“I think that man is calling the cops on us,” Ronnie said, glancing through the window and waving.

Paige leaned against the steering wheel and smiled innocently at the driver in the next car, but it didn’t help. Eyes about to bug out of their sockets, he spoke even faster into his phone, while automatically locking the doors. “We are sooo ending up in jail.”

Who would have guessed people would be more scared of her clad in white than in her normal Goth clothes? Then again, she was wearing a wedding dress splattered with red, Carrie style, and Ronnie was too, so yeah, she could understand the horrified expression in the neighboring car. That they were driving at three o’clock in the morning through the Boston suburbs—makeup all smudged and hair in messy snarls of paint and party—didn’t improve matters.

“Probably,” Ronnie conceded, trying to pat her frizzy curls down. “You better floor it.”

No shit. When the light changed, Paige put the pedal to the metal and soon lost the spooked driver. Whichever came next, the arrest or the speeding ticket, she would let her lovely lunatic of a boss deal with it.

After all, their current predicament was entirely Elle’s fault. She’d declared her bachelorette party would happen in stages over a whole month, the coed paintball game being the first installment. As if the women hadn’t already been an easy mark for those testosterone-ridden, military-trained guys, Elle had made them wear thrift-store wedding gowns over the protective gear. Wrong move. Not even leveling the odds by mixing the teams had helped.

After the shooting fest, looking like vampire gore brides, they’d gone partying downtown. How Elle had gotten them into the club dressed like that, Paige didn’t know, although it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Elle always got her way. Now, with that ominous weapon of mass destruction called Jack shadowing her 24/7, it was a miracle anyone dared blink at her, regardless of how nuts her requests were.

All in all, a memorable first installment. Paige couldn’t wait to see what was to come. By Jack’s aggrieved looks, he couldn’t either.

Paige glanced at the rearview mirror. No spooked driver, no police cars chasing them. Just empty, quiet road. “We might avoid jail after all.”

“Jail would have been a fitting ending for the night. Can’t believe it didn’t happen before, at the club.”

“You seemed to hit it off with Kai,” Paige said. “How come I’m driving you home and he’s not? Not that I mind. Just curious.”

Ronnie laughed. “Didn’t you see the way Jack looked at him when we were talking? I didn’t want to give my brother a coronary. Besides, better not jinx it now that he’s more relaxed and all that crazy stuff about the drug cartel is over.”

And thank God for that. At the time, when Jack had suddenly started following Elle everywhere, Paige had not known what was going on. Then Elle had gone underground, and James Bowen, Elle’s brother-in-law, had gathered the staff of Rosita’s and informed them he was taking over management of the restaurant temporarily. From then on, there were 250-pound, heavily tattooed bodyguard types on the premises at all hours. In hindsight, no frigging wonder. It was not every day that you had a South American cartel gunning for you.

When all was said and done, Jack had almost lost his life rescuing Elle. Now, though, they were happily in love and about to get married. If the groom or the guests could survive the bachelorette party, that was.

“What about you?” Ronnie asked. “How come you’re driving me home and not with some sexy stranger? You were by far the prettiest bride, the way you Goth-customized the outfit.”

She shrugged. “No one tickled my fancy.”

The last guy who managed that feat had been one of the enforcers for said cartel. The second in command, as she later found out. He had come to Rosita’s to scout the place and had struck up a conversation with her. Nick, oil-rig worker, a reluctant participant on a blind date gone wrong. Extremely handsome, interesting, and easy-going, with a fascinating wit and a deep, husky voice, the man had almost convinced Paige to go out with him.

It figured that the lying psychopath would zero in on her. They always did.

Worst of all? She could still feel how badly she’d wanted him.

“You need to give them a chance,” Ronnie insisted, distracting Paige from her gloomy thoughts. “Talk to them at least. Like that cute guy who kept sending drinks your way even though you kept turning them down.”

A frat boy interested in taking a stroll on the kinky side. No, thank you. Either they ended up disappointed or she freaked out. Both options were unacceptable, really. And unpleasant. Not to mention totally unsexy.

“You need more than drinks to impress a bartender,” Paige answered with a wink.

“So that’s me,” Ronnie said as they turned onto her street, and she pointed at a building. “Thanks for getting me home.”

“No problem. It was on my way.”

Paige would have gone straight home because she was dead on her feet, but she was about to have three days off in a row. She needed to make sure all was in order at Rosita’s, especially as she had been the one closing and at the moment couldn’t recall if she’d verified the lock. Besides, Paige’s colorful roommate was having her boyfriend over. The only thing they did more than fuck was fight, so she was not in too much of a hurry to get into that mess.

She parked in front of the restaurant. Time to make her OCD proud.

The lock on the roller shutter was closed. She opened and closed it again, fixing the moment in her mind, and pulled at it three times to ensure she wouldn’t forget.

Then from the corner of her eye, she detected movement in a nearby parked car, the door ajar.

There was a man inside, hunched over, one leg out.

Probably one of those inebriated morons who thought they drove better intoxicated. She’d met her fair share of those. He didn’t make a sound. No drunken babble or dribble, but it was cold outside. Maybe he was freezing. Or choking on his own vomit.

Paige approached. “Yo, buddy, you okay?”

No answer. The guy wasn’t moving, his head still flung forward. She couldn’t see properly through the window, so she opened the door a bit more, and the huddled figure tipped sideways until his face was half-buried in her stomach. Not cool. At all. She took a step backward and noticed a fresh splotch on her dress. Oh, God. That was blood. Real blood. Thick. Sticky. Dripping from the side of his abdomen too.

She reached for him, and the second she touched him, a strong hand clamped on her forearm.

The man lifted his bloody face to her, his expression a snarl, his deep-blue eyes cold and murderous. Suddenly, he shoved a gun against Paige’s neck.

Oh, shit. She knew that man. “Nick?”

NICO HAD TROUBLE focusing. Everything was blurry. Distorted. He narrowed his eyes, his trigger finger twitching. The image in front of him sharpened little by little: a bride covered in blood. Looked like the Grim Reaper had gotten a makeover just for him. What an honor. Or maybe he was hallucinating. It wouldn’t be the first time tonight.

“It’s me. Paige,” the bride blurted.

Who? He couldn’t recognize the face, but her eyes were strangely familiar. Not sensing any immediate danger, he lowered his gun. It must have been the right call because the bride didn’t grab his weapon and shoot him with it.

He let her go and put pressure on the wound beneath his ribs, his hand sinking into warm blood. How he had any left, he didn’t know.

“You’re bleeding,” he heard her say. “Have you been shot?”

And drugged. Or poisoned. Hell, both probably. He wasn’t sure he could articulate so many words, so he just nodded.

“You need a doctor. A hospital,” she continued.

“No hospital,” he choked out. A hospital meant police. Too many questions. If by any miracle he managed to survive, he didn’t want to wake up in a government black site. Or in a hole in the jungle, compliments of the cartel.

The bride hesitated for a second. “Okay. No hospital. But you can’t stay here.”

That was true. Remaining in the open was a sure death sentence.

Without waiting for his response, she sprinted around the car. Then he heard the door of the passenger side open and felt her beside him.

“Lift your ass when I tell you to,” she ordered, grabbing him by his armpits and taking a deep breath. “Now.”

With the last of his strength, Nico obeyed, gritting his teeth, almost blacking out from the agonizing pain in his side. She was small, but damn if she didn’t manage to drag him over the console onto the passenger seat.

“Sorry,” she whispered, flinching as she helped him bend his knees over the gear shift. Then she ran to the driver’s side, jumped in, and revved the engine.

Nico struggled to keep conscious, but his vision became fuzzy again. Fuck, not now. He had to get to a safe location before he passed out completely. “Where are we going?” Hopefully she was not turning him in, because he was too weak to mount any substantial resistance.

She didn’t answer, just continued driving, throwing furtive glances his way.

He tried to fight the blackness, but he couldn’t. He was drifting away. Resignation blanketed him, dulling his senses as his body started shutting down. He looked at his driver. Vintage wedding dress, covered in blood. Military boots. Spiked choke collar. Crazy hair. Black lips. Weirdly pretty raccoon eyes. He’d always thought the last thing he would see in this world was the snarl of the guy sending him to hell.

If a beautiful Goth bride was the last image he witnessed before biting the big one, he was happy. Considering the life he’d led, it was more than he deserved.

About the Author

After a colorful array of jobs all over Europe ranging from translator to chocolatier to travel agent to sushi chef to flight dispatcher, Elle Aycart is certain of one thing and one thing only: aside from writing romances, she has abso-frigging-lutely no clue what she wants to do when she grows up. Not that it stops her from trying all sorts of crazy stuff. While she is probably now thinking of a new profession, her head never stops churning new plots for her romances. She lives currently in Barcelona, Spain, with her husband and two daughters, although who knows, in no time she could be living at the Arctic Circle in Finland, breeding reindeer.

Elle loves to hear from readers!

elleaycart@gmail.com

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