Unforgotten (Forgiven)

by Garrett Leigh

  Garrett is also an award-winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com.

  Bonus material is available for all books on Garrett’s Patreon account, including short stories from Misfits, Slide, Strays, What Remains, Dream, and much more. Sign up here: www.patreon.com/garrettleigh.

  Also Available from Carina Press and Garrett Leigh

  Forgiven

  He disappeared from her life, but never from her heart.

  When Mia Amour returns to England to open a florist, all she wants to do is put her lousy ex behind her and never look back. But getting a fresh start is easier said than done when her first love, the boy who once broke her teenage heart, strolls back into her life. He’s every bit as sexy as she remembers, and the urge to melt back into his arms almost makes her forget how devastated she was when he took off without a word. Almost.

  Left with no choice, Luke Daley did what he had to do, leaving town to earn enough money to save his broken family, though it just about broke him too. But now he’s back, running his uncle’s business and trying desperately to forget about Mia, the girl he left behind all those years ago. When he runs into her in town, the shock of seeing her again brings an intense rush of emotions: love, guilt...and an overwhelming urge to find out if things between them are still as amazing as they used to be.

  With each new touch, each moment of forgiveness, old hurts heal and the future they’d once hoped for becomes possible again. But their fragile connection is tested by a threat neither of them saw coming—a threat that could end their second chance before it even gets started.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Forgiven,

  the first book in author Garrett Leigh’s Forgiven series

  Chapter One

  Mia

  Sandgrove Country Park was my entire childhood. Even years after I’d left Rushmere, I still missed the scent of the Christmas tree farm buried in the forest there. How it smelled festive all year round, even in summer, and I recalled with perfect clarity my mum bringing us to choose the cheapest tree to brighten up our budget celebration. Add-in Safeway frozen turkey and a slice of Mr. Kipling cake, and I’d been the happiest girl in the world.

  I missed that girl too.

  With one last breath of earthy pine filling my lungs, I walked back to the dodgy Astra I’d bought on eBay when I’d got off the ferry in Dover last night. I’d driven till dawn to get home—a place so strange and familiar—but the sign for Sandgrove had reeled me in before I’d reached Rushmere, and now I was finding it hard to make myself leave.

  On cue, my phone buzzed.

  Gus: where are you?

  I ignored him. Buried him again, like I had over and over for the last five years, pretending I hadn’t missed him too. I leaned against my car and tilted my face to the bright spring sky. Five more minutes.

  Sandgrove had always had a way of sucking up my time, but eventually even the clean air and birdsong couldn’t block out my phone blowing up in my pocket.

  With a heavy sigh, I got in the car and called my annoying little brother back. “I’m on my way. What are you hassling me for?”

  “I’m not hassling you, sis,” Gus said. “I was worried. You said you’d be here an hour ago.”

  I wondered when he’d turned into my mother.

  And when I finally made it back to the house we would share on the outskirts of town, I wondered too when my gangly younger sibling had turned into a strapping hottie.

  “You’re a man,” I said stupidly.

  He cocked a dark eyebrow and enveloped me in a strong-armed bear hug. “Je ne me souviens pas avoir prétendu être autrement.”

  He’d missed my point, but that was fairly standard when it came to Gus and me. I talked, he shut me down, then we reversed our positions and pressed repeat. At least, that’s how things used to be. I didn’t know what we were anymore.

  Gus pulled back to unlock the green front door of the house he’d bought with his half of our mother’s life insurance. I’d never seen the interior, only Facebook photos of the outside, but as soon as I stepped inside, it became clear that he’d made better use of his inheritance than I had.

  I spun around the tidy living space. “This is nice.”

  Gus appeared behind me with a couple of beers. “You sound surprised.”

  “I’m more surprised that you’re cracking open the booze at nine a.m.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t sleep last night, and I’m guessing you didn’t either, so we can call it a nightcap.”

  Worked for me. I was already missing my French diet of coffee and red wine. Sipping my beer, I took a tour of the cosy house my brother called home. Fresh and clean, it was beautiful; he’d even put flowers in my room.

  “I figured we’d be overrun soon enough, so I’d better get used to them.”

  “Don’t talk shit.” I rolled my eyes. “You think I’m going to bring my work home with me?”

  “Wouldn’t know. I’ve never lived with a florist, so I don’t know whether to expect rose petals in the bath or mouldy daffs in the skip outside.”

  “What’s that for, anyway? The skip, I mean. I thought you’d finished the renovations?”

  “I have.” Gus stepped around me and opened the blinds, letting more spring sunshine flood into my bedroom. “It’s leftover from when we did the roof. It’s being collected next week.”

  Out of habit, I inwardly flinched, picturing the big black van with the name of the local roofing firm plastered across it. I couldn’t remember the last conversation I’d had with old man Jon Daley. His nephew, though? Jesus Christ. Every syllable was etched on my heart, and now that Rushmere was my home again, I’d never been so thankful that my first love—my only love—had abandoned me to join the bloody Navy.

  “Mia?”

  I blinked. Gus was in front of me, brandishing a stack of clean towels. He pressed them into my hands and I smelled the French washing powder our mother had stockpiled for all those years, distrustful of the brightly coloured English brands our friend’s parents had used. The crack in my heart widened, and I blinked again, harder this time.

  Gus slid his arm around me, his skin as olive as mine was fair, his hair as dark as mine was blond. He didn’t say anything, just kissed my forehead, and for the first time since I’d stepped off the boat, England felt like home.

  * * *

  “It’s not that bad,” Gus said.

  I spared him an incredulous glance. “Are you for real? Look at it—it’s a fucking mess.”

  Understatement of the year. I glowered around the shithole that was supposed to be Wild Amour, my new shop, with increasing horror. The photos the lettings agent had sent me hadn’t touched the surface.

  Goddammit. I righted a broken chair and ran my finger along the cracked tiles on the wall. I had orders booked for two weeks’ time, and a website advertising national deliveries a day after that. I’d have to work around the clock to get the shop even functional by then, let alone presentable to the general public.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” Gus tried again. “Lick of paint and some cleaning, it’ll be fine.”

  I didn’t bother spearing him with another “idiot” glare. Leaving him to start stripping away the remnants of the beauty salon that had rented the premises before me, I trudged into the back room I’d intended to use for storing my stock. Another disaster greeted me—this one wet and filthy, and born of a suspicious hole in the ceiling that would need fixing before my industrial refrigerator arrived to fill the space. By chance, a mop and bucket was tucked away in the corner. I trudged over to it, the lunacy of coming back to Rushmere already overwhelming.

  Fuck my life.

  Gus left me mid-morning to rock up late to his own job. I tried to ca
re that he’d inconvenienced Daley’s Roofing on my behalf, but age-old bitterness was a strange thing, and all I got for my trouble was acid in my chest. Brilliant. Just what I needed, indigestion on top of everything else.

  Still, I didn’t have time to worry about it. I’d spent the last of my savings on some hardcore local advertising, and had bookings for two weddings and a christening to plan for, on top of turning the shop into something halfway resembling the once thriving business I’d left behind in Paris.

  More bitterness lanced my scratchy throat, but I ignored it and retrieved my sketchbook from my bag. Men fucking me over was a thing of the past. I would make this work—I had to. There was nothing else.

  The dogged determination I’d inherited from my mother propelled me for most of the day. I sketched, planned, scrubbed, and cleaned, and by the time five p.m. rolled around, my morning heartburn was a distant memory. Hunger clawed at my insides, and my eyes stung. Beer for breakfast after a sleepless night, and a full day’s work on top had left me a trembling mess, and I needed food fast.

  I’d spent years trying to forget everything about Rushmere, but as I locked up the shop and stepped outside, the scent of the nearby chippie called to me like an old friend. I turned my face upwind and a legitimate craving for Mr. Wong’s famous curry sauce hit me like a truck.

  I checked my purse for English money and jogged across the road, my feet carrying me of their own volition. The single-minded quest for a cheap dinner was all-consuming, and I was in the fish and chip shop before I could blink, tripping over the step in my haste and stumbling into a broad back.

  Dazed, I jerked my head up, and caught sight of Gus at the counter, handing something to the body I’d barrelled into. “Sorry—”

  The word died on my lips, along with the last surviving piece of my fractured heart. Familiar brown eyes stared back at me, hard-won forgotten, but never forgiven. Full lips began to mouth my name, but I reared away, evading the work-hardened hands—beautiful hands—that reached for me.

  No. I’d endured enough. And he wasn’t supposed to be here. Luke Daley was supposed to be on the other side of the world on a fucking warship, so why the fuck was he standing in Rushmere’s only chip shop with my goddamn little brother?

  Don’t miss

  Forgiven by Garrett Leigh,

  available now wherever

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  Copyright © 2021 by Garrett Leigh

  Also Available from Garrett Leigh

  Redemption (Darkest Skies)

  Reformed gangster Luis falls hard for his boss. When friendship turns to love, it’s up to Paolo to convince him second chances are worth the pain.

  Luis Pope is back on the street after a six year stretch in prison, but life on the outside seems just out of reach, especially when the whole neighbourhood knows his face for all the wrong reasons.

  Paolo’s temper makes it hard to keep staff, and he knows Luis’s rep all too well. But his nonno believes in redemption, and Luis isn’t the tough guy Paolo remembers. Prison has left its mark, inside and out, and all the kindness in the world can’t fix the three inch scar on Luis’s skull.

  And it can’t keep ghosts locked up. Luis’s the best worker Paolo’s ever had, and Luis’s happier than he’s ever been. But his old life doesn’t want to stay in the past. Trouble comes to call, and when it makes him an offer he can’t refuse, keeping Paolo safe hurts the most.

  Redemption is an angsty, standalone MM romance novel, with second chances, found family, friends-to-lovers, and buckets of hurt/comfort themed loveliness.

  To purchase and read this and other books by

  Garrett Leigh, please visit her website at

  www.garrettleigh.com.

  Copyright © 2020 by Garrett Leigh

  Looking for more stories featuring LGBTQ+ characters?

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  Carina Adores is home to highly romantic contemporary love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.

  A new Carina Adores title is available each month:

  THE HIDEAWAY INN by Philip William Stover

  THE GIRL NEXT DOOR by Chelsea M. Cameron

  JUST LIKE THAT by Cole McCade

  HAIRPIN CURVES by Elia Winters

  BETTER THAN PEOPLE by Roan Parrish

  THE LOVE STUDY by Kris Ripper

  THE SECRET INGREDIENT by KD Fisher

  JUST LIKE THIS by Cole McCade

  TEDDY SPENSER ISN’T LOOKING FOR LOVE by Kim Fielding

  THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS SHOPPE by Philip William Stover

  OUR LEVEL BEST by Roan Parrish

  KNIT, PURL, A BABY AND A GIRL by Hettie Bell

  THE HATE PROJECT by Kris Ripper

  HARD SELL by Hudson Lin

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  ISBN-13: 9780369700117

  Unforgotten

  Copyright © 2021 by Garrett Leigh

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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