Title: Bring Me
Home (Shattered Hearts #3)
Author: Cassia
Leo
Expected Release
Date: August 6, 2013
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Synopsis
Claire Nixon is a college student with a past full of
secrets and heartbreak. She was saved once by her first love, and rock star,
Chris Knight. But when she encouraged Chris to leave town to pursue his dreams,
both Claire and Chris didn’t realize it would be the biggest mistake of their
lives.
After a devastating year apart and thousands of miles of distance between them,
Claire met sexy surfer Adam Parker. With his awful jokes and profound patience,
he helped Claire pick up the shattered pieces of her broken heart for the
second time.
But now Chris has returned and he is willing and determined to make Claire’s
dreams come true—the same way she did for him when she let him go.
With Adam’s former girlfriend in the picture, Claire finds herself torn between
the new, passionate love she shares with Adam and the family she shares with
Chris.
Teaser #3
Chapter
Seven
Claire
“Did Eddie
call you again?” She nods and the anger I felt when Senia’s cheating
ex-boyfriend called her last week returns. “You don’t need to be with an
asshole. You are beautiful and smart—”
“And I give
a mean bj.”
“Exactly.
You don’t need a guy who’ll fuck anything with legs. You deserve a guy who’ll
worship you.”
“So you
think Tristan’s just looking for a fuck?”
I don’t even
answer because this question is ridiculous.
“Do you
think Chris gave him my number? How did he get my number?”
“I don’t
know, but if it was Chris, I’m going to have a talk with him about that.”
“No, don’t
get mad at him. I’ll take care of Tristan. I’ll text him a picture of my
bunion. He’ll never text me again.”
I try not to
laugh because, sadly, I know Tristan is too persistent to be deterred by a
bunion pic. I stand from the bed and make my way to the dresser where she has a
picture of the two of us framed in a pink “Best Friends Forever” picture frame.
It’s a picture taken last Thanksgiving when her uncle took us to his house in Carolina
Beach. I was four months pregnant, so I wore a big T-shirt to hide my bulge and
hardly spoke to anyone the whole weekend, afraid they’d hear the betrayal in my
voice.
“I’m going
to see Abigail on Monday,” I say as I pretend to be interested in the other
framed pictures on her dresser.
“What? How
did this happen? Oh, my god, Claire! Are you sure this is what you want?”
She leaps
off the bed and rushes to my side.
I pause a
moment before I look up into her eyes and respond firmly. “I need to see her, even
if it’s just this once. I don’t know if I can even explain to you the ache I
feel inside. It’s excruciating and it consumes me, day and night. I just want
to see her.”
“You don’t
think it might make it worse?”
“I don’t
know, but this is not the kind of thing I want to play it safe with. This is my
daughter. I’ve never seen her and I already feel like I might die without her.
I just need to see her, at least once. I need to know that she’s real. I need
to see this beautiful person that Chris and I created.” I pause to wipe the
tears from my face. “I don’t know if you can understand that, but that’s how I
feel. It’s what I need.”
She stares
at me for a moment and her big brown eyes shine as if she’s hatching a devious
plan inside her twisted mind. “Claire, I’ve known you long enough to know that
you wouldn’t do this unless it was what’s right for you. You have some kind of
weird radar for that shit. I also think that I may have misjudged Chris.”
“Are you
being serious?”
“Yes, I was
pissed about the fact that he never got in touch with you all those months you
were living here, but I think I just realized something and I’m sorry I didn’t
realize it sooner.” She pauses as she takes a breath and steels herself to
speak whatever words she’s about to say. “I think you needed Adam to show you
how much you still love Chris.”
That is not
at all what I expected her to say and I’m actually a little pissed. “I don’t
think so.”
“I’m sorry.
I don’t mean to say that Adam was a stepping-stone.”
“No, I don’t
want to hear that. Can we just go downstairs?”
She nods and
hangs her head apologetically, but I’m still upset with her. I clench my jaw to
keep from uttering an angry retort. Adam was not a stepping-stone.
About the Author
USA
Today bestselling author Cassia Leo loves her coffee, chocolate, and margaritas
with salt. When she's
not writing, she spends way too much time watching old
reruns of Friends and Sex and the City. When she's not watching reruns, she's
usually enjoying the California sunshine or reading--sometimes both.
