Sometime toward the end of 2014, I was finishing up my last book in my contract with Harlequin Presents and began to consider what I would propose next. I think the idea of a baby swap came to me from a gossip magazine. (I buy them for the Sudoku puzzles, I swear!)
I knew pure negligence on the hospital’s part wouldn’t do, not in this day and age where we have locked-down nurseries and vigilance to procedures. There had to be a villain. But whom?
I love my Italian heroes and I love the sinister richness of secrets and unexpected betrayals. Alessandro deeply trusts the villain in this story and is devastated by the treachery when it’s exposed, especially since it nearly costs his wife’s life. Coming back from that, earning Octavia’s trust all over again, is hard. (But he is a Presents hero, so he is up to the task!)
Octavia has been too trusting as well. When she realizes her marriage was more a power play than a true desire for her on Alessandro’s part, she’s heartbroken. And no longer willing to be a game piece in his power struggles. They have a long way to go, both emotionally scarred from past pain, but they have a son together so they try.
Given this is a baby swap story, I had two books to write. The other mother in the hospital is Sorcha and the father of her baby doesn’t even know they had sex! You’ll meet her and Cesar here and you can read their journey to HEA in The Consequence He Must Claim, releasing February 2016.
