Aleena Moore is content with her life. She has goals and dreams and an easy smile. She also has a secret she holds locked inside.Jared Holt believes he doesn't deserve to love or be loved. He destroys everything he touches. Haunted by the mistake that shattered his life, he's fled from the memory of that pain.Jared doesn't know why he's compelled to return, but finds himself drawn back to the place where it all began. The exact place where it ended. When he runs into his childhood best friend, Aleena's older brother Christopher, he agrees to share Christopher and Aleena's apartment while he looks for a place of his own.Aleena is no longer the little girl Jared remembers from his past and evokes feelings in him he never wanted to feel again. Terrified of destroying her, he fights to keep her away. But her touch is something he can't resist—the touch that sealed his fate.Their pasts are intertwined and their futures uncertain. The only truths they know are the secrets they whisper in the night.
For my family. Nothing is worth doing if I don’t do it for you.
I have a few very special people who I would like to thank:
My momma… who always supports me… no matter what.
Katie, because you know I couldn’t do this without you.
Molly, Kristen, and Rebecca for sprinting with me every morning and listening to me whine that you all write way faster than I do.
Kevan Lyon for working with me through a brand-new experience, for your patience in answering all of my questions, and for the advice you give. I’m so thankful for you.
Claire Zion of New American Library for helping
I would also like to say a special thank-you to Robyn Rosenberg. Robyn participated in a fund-raiser hosted by My Secret Romance for Vicki Rose Stewart, who was undergoing treatment for cancer. Robyn won the opportunity to name a character in one of my books. As you all meet Augustyn Moore in the pages of
I was propped up on my bed with my sketch pad balanced on my bent knees. Megan was doing her best not to laugh from where she sat cross-legged at the end of my bed, bouncing.
“Hold still,” I commanded, biting my bottom lip as I attempted to get her mouth just right. The shading was difficult, and I wanted it perfect. Megan had the most genuine smile of any person I’d ever met. I refused to mess it up.
“But I have to pee,” she whined. She bounced a little harder. She couldn’t hold it in any longer, and she released this hysterical laugh as she rolled off the edge of my bed. “I’ll be right back.”
With a groan, I tossed my sketch pad to the bed. “You’re such a pain in my ass, Megan,” I called after her as she ran out my door and across the hall to the bathroom. She’d gotten up to pee at least three times in the last hour. The girl could not sit still to save her life.
“That’s why you love me so much,” she yelled back.
The bathroom door slammed behind her, and I picked the pad back up to study it.
Megan’s striking face stared back at me, smiling, her normally long blond hair traced in shades of charcoal, her normally blue eyes wide and black.
She’d been my best friend since she’d moved here from Rhode Island during our sophomore year of high school almost five years ago. I loved drawing her because she was so different than the typical model who offered herself up. She was short, just shy of the five-two mark, wore her curves well, and had a unique face. It was somehow both sweet and curious, this constant expression that made me think of innocence trying to work itself out.
