by Bella Andre
“I don’t know why I’m surprised to find out how sneaky you are,” she said with an upward quirk of her lips. “Although now that we’re coming completely clean, I should confess that the real reason sweetheart bothered me was because I didn’t think I deserved a future full of love and promise when my mom couldn’t have either of those things.” At last, he put his arms around her as she said, “It took me until now to realize that there’s no point in covering myself with heavy amour to protect myself from feeling pain that severe ever again. Not when you’re so stubborn that you will just keep yanking down my walls until there are none left.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, glad that he could make her smile with his faux-cocky response. “Seriously, though, I don’t want to keep making the same mistake—not having the guts to get you to talk to me. Really talk to me about everything you’re feeling, no matter how difficult. I shouldn’t have secretly hoped that I could heal you with my love and that you’d find solace with my family—only for the opposite to happen when being around my parents, and especially my mother, triggered a fresh onslaught of grief.”
“Your family is amazing, Rory. It’s not your fault that when I met them, it all spun back around on me. Being loved by an amazing guy like you, who also happens to have a fantastic family…I felt like I had won the love lottery. But I didn’t believe that I deserved it.”
“What do you believe now?”
“I believe that when I’m with you, I feel safe. I believe that knowing you love me—and loving you right back—makes me able to get down off the thirty-stories-high tightrope I’ve been teetering on since I was fourteen. I believe that I’m finally ready to do what my mother would have wanted for me all along and let myself laugh again, and have fun, and dream, and hope for the future. I believe that you’re the only person who could have been sure enough of himself to prove to me that I am lovable. And…I also believe that the two of us are magic.”
“Go ahead,” he teased. “I know you’ve been dying to say it from the moment you climbed up here.”
Grinning, she stepped out of his arms to wave the wand. “Abracadabra!”
“Only the best damned magician in the world would have been able to steal my heart every single day since we first met.”
She stepped back into his arms and wound her own around his neck. “I also believe that I need to be realistic this time. Like you, I wanted so badly for our love, and the joy I feel with you, to make everything better. To heal every broken part of me. But I’ve finally realized that it’s not going to be that easy. I’ve been stuck with these storm clouds for long enough that I’m not going to be able to shake them off overnight. And maybe it isn’t fair of me to ask you to stick with me through the inevitable ups and downs, but—”
“There’s no one I’d rather be stuck with.”
And as she leaned in to kiss him—and sunlight finally made the clouds outside vanish—she whispered, “Tá mo chroí istigh ionat.”
EPILOGUE
Ruby was the cutest birthday girl ever. Though she had been showered with gifts for her first birthday, the little girl was far more enamored of the boxes the presents had come in than any of the fancy dolls or shiny toys.
“It’s great to see Cassie so happy,” Hudson commented as he watched his sister play with Ruby inside an enormous cardboard box. Yet again, Hudson’s wife, Larissa, hadn’t been able to make the trip to Bar Harbor for the weekend. “She deserves it.”
“We all do,” Lola said. She, Hudson, Turner, and Ashley relaxed in the shade of their parents’ backyard. Rory and Zara were playing horseshoes against the back fence. At least, they would be playing if they could stop kissing for longer than five seconds. “If Rory can land a woman like Zara, there’s hope for all of us.”
Ashley laughed. “I said almost exactly the same thing to him. Good to know we’re on the same wavelength.”
Only Turner remained silent, looking lost in his thoughts. Lola nudged him. “What’s going on in that animated brain of yours?”
“Nothing much,” he said with a shrug.
But Lola didn’t buy it. “You’re a dark horse, Turner. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that you’ve been moonlighting as a secret agent, or something equally mysterious.”
In an obvious bid to shift his sister’s focus, Turner looked at his watch. “Brandon should have been here by now. His flight from Singapore landed an hour ago.”
“Hopefully, he’ll get here before Ruby goes down for her nap.” Hudson couldn’t quite hide the wistful note in his voice as he watched the little girl.
“I know Brandon loves to travel,” Ashley put in, “but it seems like he’s always on the road lately.”
Then Lola said what they were all thinking: “It’s almost like he’s running from something…or someone.”
Turner grabbed four beers from the cooler beside his seat and handed one to each sibling. “Here’s to always knowing where we stand with each other, even if the rest of the world can be a total mystery.” They clinked their bottles together and drank. “Now let’s go show Rory and Zara how horseshoes should be played.”
And as the four siblings walked across the lawn, they each let the question of true love—and whether it would ever be theirs—go.
For now…
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I hope you loved Rory and Zara’s story! Please be sure to sign up for my newsletter (bellaandre.com/newsletter) so that I can let you know the release dates for all upcoming books.
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Please also enjoy the following excerpt from the first San Francisco Sullivan book, THE LOOK OF LOVE
Chloe Peterson is having a bad night. A really bad night. The large bruise on her cheek can attest to that. And when her car skids off the side of a wet country road straight into a ditch, she’s convinced even the gorgeous guy who rescues her in the middle of the rain storm must be too good to be true. Or is he?
As a successful photographer who frequently travels around the world, Chase Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women, and whenever he’s home in San Francisco, one of his seven siblings is usually up for causing a little fun trouble. Chase thinks his life is great just as it is—until the night he finds Chloe and her totaled car on the side of the road in Napa Valley. Not only has Chase never met anyone so lovely, both inside and out, but he quickly realizes Chloe has much bigger problems than her damaged car. Soon, Chase is willing to move mountains to love—and protect—her, but will Chloe let him?
Enjoy the following excerpt from THE LOOK OF LOVE…
Chase almost missed the flickering light off on the right side of the two-lane country road. In the past thirty minutes, he hadn’t passed a single car, because on a night like this, most sane Californians—who didn’t know the first thing about driving safely in inclement weather—stayed home.
Knowing better than to slam on the brakes—he wouldn’t be able to help whomever was stranded on the side of the road if he ended up stuck in the muddy ditch right next to them—Chase slowed down enough to see that there was definitely a vehicle stuck in the ditch.
He turned his brights on to see better in the pouring rain and realized there was a person walking along the edge of the road about a hundred yards up ahead. Obviously hearing his car approach, she turned to face him, and he could see her long wet hair whipping around her shoulders in his headlights.
Wondering why she wasn’t just sitting in her car, dry and warm, calling Triple A and waiting for them to come save her, he pulled over to the edge of his lane and got out to try to help her. She was shivering as she watched him approach.
“Are you hurt?”
She covered her cheek with one hand, but shook her head. “No.”
He had to move closer to hear her over the sound of the water hitting the pavement in what were rapidly becoming hailstones. Even though he’d turned his headlights off, as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, he was able to get a better look at her face.
Something inside of Chase’s c
hest clenched tight.
Despite the long, dark hair plastered to her head and chest, regardless of the fact that looking like a drowned rat wasn’t too far off the descriptive mark, her beauty stunned him.
In an instant, his photographer’s eye cataloged her features. Her mouth was a little too big, her eyes a little too wide-set on her face. She wasn’t even close to model thin, but given the way her T-shirt and jeans stuck to her skin, he could see that she wore her lush curves well. In the dark he couldn’t judge the exact color of her hair, but it looked like silk, perfectly smooth and straight where it lay over her breasts.
It wasn’t until Chase heard her say, “My car is definitely hurt, though,” that he realized he had completely lost the thread of what he’d come out here to do.
Knowing he’d been drinking her in like he was dying of thirst, he worked to recover his balance. He could already see he’d been right about her car. It didn’t take a mechanic like his brother Zach, who owned an auto shop—more like forty, but Chase had stopped counting years ago—to see that her shitty hatchback was borderline totaled. Even if the front bumper wasn’t half-smashed to pieces by the white farm fence she’d slid into, her bald tires weren’t going to get any traction on the mud. Not tonight, anyway.
If her car had been in a less precarious situation, he probably would have sent her to hang out in her car while he took care of getting it unstuck. But one of her back tires was hanging precariously over the edge of the ditch.
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Get in my car. We can wait there for a tow truck.” He was vaguely aware of his words coming out like an order, but the hail was starting to sting, damn it. Both of them needed to get out of the rain before they froze.
But the woman didn’t move. Instead, she gave him a look that said he was a complete and utter nut-job.
“I’m not getting into your car.”
Realizing just how frightening it must be for a lone woman to end up stuck and alone in the middle of a dark road, Chase took a step back from her. He had to speak loudly enough for her to hear him over the hail.
“I’m not going to attack you. I swear I won’t do anything to hurt you.”
She all but flinched at the word attack, and Chase’s radar started buzzing. He’d never been a magnet for troubled women, wasn’t the kind of guy who thrived on fixing wounded birds. But living with two sisters for so many years meant he could always tell when something was up.
And something was definitely up with this woman, beyond the fact that her car was half-stuck in a muddy ditch.
Wanting to make her feel safe, he held his hands up. “I swear on my father’s grave, I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay to get into my car.” When she didn’t immediately say no again, he pressed his advantage with, “I just want to help you.” And he did. More than it made sense to want to help a stranger. “Please,” he said. “Let me help you.”
She stared at him for a long moment, hail hammering between them, around them, onto them. Chase found himself holding his breath, waiting for her decision. It shouldn’t matter to him what she decided.
But, for some strange reason, it did.
…Excerpt from THE LOOK OF LOVE by Bella Andre © 2015
Buy THE LOOK OF LOVE
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Please enjoy the following excerpt from THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT (Rafe Sullivan’s story), the first Seattle Sullivan book…
As a very successful private investigator who has caught most of the cheaters in Seattle with their pants down, Rafe Sullivan believes true, lasting love only happens once in a blue moon. Needing to get away from the city to clear his head, he finds the lake house where he spent the best summers of his life is now a wreck…but the sweet girl next door is all grown up and prettier than anything he’s ever seen.
While Brooke Jansen is happy making and selling chocolate truffles in her small Pacific Northwest lake town, she secretly longs to experience something wild. So when her favorite “Wild Sullivan” moves in again next door after more than a decade away, and sparks fly between them, she can’t stop wondering if being bad is really as good as it always seemed…and just how long it will be before she can find out.
But when their summer fling quickly spirals into deeper emotions than either of them were expecting, can they survive the heat between them? Or will Rafe make the biggest mistake of his life and end up losing the best thing that’s ever happened to him?
Enjoy the following excerpt from THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT…
A lone man had just ridden up on his motorcycle, the ends of his dark hair whipping out from beneath his helmet.
Now that, thought Brooke with immediate female appreciation, is what wild and free looks like.
Her parents had taught her it wasn’t polite to stare, but she couldn’t remember why that admonition mattered as she watched the man pull off his helmet and run a large hand through his hair. She couldn’t see his face yet, but she didn’t need to see his features to know just how good-looking he was. His shoulders were incredibly broad, and even from a distance she could see how big—and how capable—his hands were where he gripped the handlebars.
She was so busy reeling from a blast of pure lust for the stranger as he stepped away from his motorcycle that it took her a moment longer than it should have to realize that he wasn’t a stranger after all.
“Rafe?” His name came out as little more than a stunned whisper. “Is that really you?”
Her question was loud enough that he finally turned to face her. Only, instead of responding, he didn’t say a word, didn’t even move.
All he did was stare, but it was okay, because she was busy staring right back.
People often said memories made things sweeter than they actually were. But Brooke now knew that wasn’t true at all. Not only had she not embellished how good-looking Rafe Sullivan was over the years that they’d been apart but, if anything, her recollections had sorely underplayed just how gorgeous he truly was.
His hair was dark and just a little too long, his skin was tanned, his jaw was dark with stubble, and he was so big and tall that she knew she’d have to stand on her tippy-toes and wrap her arms around his neck to kiss him.
The thought of doing something like that had her body instantly going warm all over despite the cool breeze. She’d been little more than a baby the first time she remembered setting eyes on Rafe, but even then, he’d stood out from the rest of his siblings as more fun. More daring. And infinitely more beautiful.
When he still didn’t say anything, she took a step in his direction. “It’s me, Rafe. Brooke Jansen. Remember?”
Finally, the intensity of his dark gaze shifted into one of recognition. “Little Brooke,” he said in a low voice that rippled over her, “how could I forget you?”
She had spent far too many years squashing her wild impulses. But following a wild impulse wasn’t what sent her straight into the arms of her favorite Sullivan without a second thought. It was pure happiness at finally seeing him again.
He caught her against his chest as she hugged him tight. He smelled so good, and the bare patch of skin above his T-shirt was so warm despite the cool evening air that she couldn’t resist burying her face against him. As she held on tight, she felt safer than she had in years. She’d lost too many of her favorite people from childhood, and was infinitely grateful to be given the precious gift of one of them back in her life.
She might have held on to him like that forever if it hadn’t been for her sudden realization of just how good his hard, heated muscles felt against her cold, wet, nearly bare skin.
The little girl inside her had thrown herself into his arms…but it was the woman she’d become who wanted to move even closer.
When she was eight years old, the crush she’d had on Rafe was sweet. Innocent. But what she was feeling now was decidedly not sweet.
Nor was it anywhere close to innocent.
Wild. The thought—no, it was more desire and pure need than it was a cognizan
t thought—came at her in an instant: I want to be wild with Rafe Sullivan.
…Excerpt from THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT by Bella Andre © 2016
Buy THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT
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BELLA ANDRE BOOKLIST
THE SULLIVANS
San Francisco Sullivans
The Look Of Love
From This Moment On
Can’t Help Falling In Love
I Only Have Eyes For You
If You Were Mine
Let Me Be The One
Come A Little Bit Closer
Always On My Mind
Kissing Under The Mistletoe
Seattle Sullivans
One Perfect Night
The Way You Look Tonight
It Must Be Your Love
Just To Be With You
I Love How You Love Me
All I Ever Need Is You
New York Sullivans
Every Beat Of My Heart
Now That I’ve Found You
Since I Fell For You
Sweeter Than Ever
The Best Is Yet To Come
Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You
You Do Something To Me
Every Time We Fall In Love
Maine Sullivans
Falling In Love All Over Again
Your Love Is Mine
THE MAVERICK BILLIONAIRES
Breathless in Love
Reckless in Love
Fearless in Love
Irresistible in Love
Wild in Love
Captivating in Love
THE MORRISONS
Kiss Me Like This
Tempt Me Like This
Love Me Like This
THE BAD BOYS OF FOOTBALL
Game For Anything
Game For Seduction
Game For Love
THE TAKE ME series
Love Me
Take Me
STAND-ALONE NOVELS
Candy Store
Red Hot Reunion
Tempt Me, Taste Me, Touch Me
THE HOTSHOT FIREFIGHTERS