by Nicole Snow
Last Time We Kissed
A Second Chance Romance
Nicole Snow
Ice Lips Press
Content copyright © Nicole Snow. All rights reserved.
Published in the United States of America.
First published in April, 2018.
Disclaimer: The following ebook is a work of fiction. Any resemblance characters in this story may have to real people is only coincidental.
Please respect this author's hard work! No section of this book may be reproduced or copied without permission. Exception for brief quotations used in reviews or promotions. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thanks!
Cover Design – CoverLuv. Photo by Wander Aguiar Photography.
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Note: This special edition includes two more full length second chance romances, Baby Fever Promise and Marry Me Again. Last Time We Kissed is a full length novel and ends at about 30%. Enjoy!
Contents
Description
1. Times Left Behind (Amy Kay)
2. Memory Lane (Trent)
3. The Twenty-First Floor (Amy Kay)
4. Bait and Hook (Trent)
5. Remembering Eden (Amy Kay)
6. Into the Fire (Trent)
7. So Bare (Amy Kay)
8. False Promises (Trent)
9. Homecoming (Amy Kay)
10. Out With It (Trent)
11. Love Unblinded (Amy Kay)
12. Pesky Conscience (Trent)
13. The Other Side (Amy Kay)
14. Rain, Rain (Trent)
15. Orders (Amy Kay)
16. The Zen of Gasoline (Trent)
17. Before Night Closes In (Amy Kay)
Baby Fever Promise
Description
1. Hello, Again (Robin)
2. Lies, Damned Lies, and Secrets (Luke)
3. One Last Night (Robin)
4. Remember Goodbye (Luke)
5. Accidentally Again (Robin)
6. Unleashed (Luke)
7. Bruises (Robin)
8. Drawing Lines (Luke)
9. Here It Comes (Robin)
10. Spent (Luke)
11. Over, Done, Forgotten (Robin)
12. Rewind (Luke)
13. Tumbling Down (Robin)
14. Shut Up and Kiss Me (Luke)
15. This Time, Forever (Robin)
Marry Me Again
Description
1. Love at First Tease (Kara)
2. Happily Never After (Ryan)
3. Red on White (Kara)
4. Celebration (Ryan)
5. Vicious Cycle (Kara)
6. Peephole (Ryan)
7. Shaken (Kara)
8. Shocked (Ryan)
9. Reset (Kara)
10. Morning, Noon, and Night (Ryan)
11. Rekindled (Kara)
12. Just Breathe (Ryan)
13. Hard Won (Kara)
Fiancé on Paper Extended Preview
Thanks!
Description
I just ran into the girl who got away.
Holding a hate letter addressed to me.
And now we're stranded.
Last time we kissed, I broke her.
My best friend's little sister worshiped me.
She teased. She provoked. She goaded.
Rubbed forbidden in my face till I went off the chain.
Making her beg was inevitable.
So was my sacrifice.
Last time we kissed, she demolished me.
Her rich family thought I was perfect.
I took Amy Kay under their noses.
And then I kept taking.
I promised too much. Loved her too hard. Left too soon.
Last time we kissed, he betrayed me.
Her backstabbing brother. My ex-best friend.
I never saw it coming.
He'll pay for his sins ten times over.
Last time we kissed, it was final.
I wasn't supposed to see her again.
Not in this city. On this elevator.
The moment it craps out, stranding us overnight with animal cravings and fencing lies.
Last time we kissed, how could we know our next might truly, madly, beautifully restore us?
1
Times Left Behind (Amy Kay)
Words from a letter I never sent, and still want to every damn day:
I hope you go to hell, Trent Usher.
Buy yourself a nice long ticket and enjoy your stay.
I won't be waiting when you get back.
The worst thing you did wasn't leaving my father on his knees, screaming in tears. Or the fact that you left me flattened against the wall with my heart pounding, watching the color drain from Jace's face.
It wasn't even the things you whispered to me the morning after our night. Our first and last and only.
The last night I'll ever be this young, this stupid and this trusting. I believed in you too much.
It wasn't the promises you made, or how you strung me along with the magic and mystery I'd always wanted to hold, if just for an instant, in your bottomless blue eyes.
The worst thing you did was leaving without a word. Without an explanation. Without an apology.
I waited, Trent.
I waited so fucking long.
I thought you'd drop me a goodbye. Even if you had to in secret, just to say I want you, or I'm sorry, or there's some deep screwed up part of me that never meant for any of this to happen.
Now, I wonder if you meant it all along. Maybe a sick, deranged part of you enjoyed what you did to us, what you're STILL doing to me.
We opened our home and gave you the world. My parents treated you like another son. Jace loved you like a brother. But nothing like I did, drunk on your toxic promises and sadistically enchanting smirks.
I loved you, asshole.
You loved making me a fool.
I found your address in Portland. You wouldn't be reading this if I didn't. Don't worry – I'm not turning you in.
Even after everything that happened, you're safe. Even with every shred of common sense I have left screaming 'do it,' I can't.
Just can't.
So, I'm going to make sure you read this, and then I'm doing the next best thing to driving down there and kicking your crazy ass: forget you ever existed.
Move on. I suggest you do the same. Whatever dirty, evil stuff you've gotten into will play itself out. That's not my problem. Not anymore. I've wasted too many tears.
But if I'm able to make you think twice before doing this to another girl, leaving her heart a battered wreck, I'll have done my job.
If I find a conscience somewhere behind those beautiful blue eyes and hard body, I hope I stab its heart.
This isn't some guilt trip. It's the bleeding truth. Plus a nice big dose of 'fuck you,' written on my hundredth night in tears since you left, after I've spent too many hours alone in dad's wine cellar.
Stay in hell, Trent.
This lifetime and the next.
Don't come calling.
Fuck you very much,
“Precious”
It's three hours since I stepped off the plane, checked into my rental, and I'm right back in la-la land. Downtown Seattle is as dreary and bustling as I remember. It's separated from my aching eyes by a sheet of thick glass. The orange lit lobby of this huge tower is like a second home, as it should be for any daughter who grew up in the shadow of a powerful law firm.
I rub my eyes, s
till trying to forget that stupid letter. I found it just yesterday, digging through my things, taking a break from packing to pick through old trinkets I haven't seen since college.
Six years ago, I penned a Fuck You letter to the man who once meant the world. I never sent it.
For some ungodly reason, I tucked it in my purse. I read it three more times at the airport and once since I landed, like some strange homecoming ritual to this city where life showed me love and promises are fairy tales. Nothing more.
Tucking the long green straw from my iced coffee into the corner of my lip, I suck angrily, draining the last third of watered down coffee.
This isn't a freaking mud run, Ames. Let's pull ourselves together and get this done.
If only it were that easy. I'm feeling my jet lag as the building goes quiet for the day, employees scurrying out the door by the dozen. The guy at the front desk is the last to go, throwing his computer in his case, giving me a weak, unsure grin.
I turn to the man in the leather chair across from me and –
And my heart damn near stops.
My eyes go wide. The anxious electric hum prickling my blood has nothing to do with the caffeine hit.
Deep breath.
Deep freaking breath.
This isn't happening.
It's totally not him. Totally not sitting there in a magnificent suit, navy blue to match his eyes, his strong jaw covered in a delicious bristle of five o'clock shadow. Totally not staring me down, pinning me to my seat, locking my body, mind, and soul to the leather with the same uncanny ease he did when we were kids.
No. Dang. Way.
I blink, look away, and hold my breath. This is silly.
But God help me, I can't bring my eyes back his way. Can't look the man who ruined me and everyone I love dead in his baby blues.
I can't even face his spitting image. A person who looks exactly like him because all the logic in the universe dictates he's not the real Trent Usher.
There's a shuffle of movement to my side. I exhale slowly. When I look back, predictably, he's gone.
If he ever existed and this wasn't some feverish hallucination.
More air hisses out of my lungs. So fast I almost choke.
It has to be the letter, I tell myself. Bad luck. Stress.
I should've burned it the second I pulled it out of that box with the old travel magazines. Should've burned it twice and thrown the ashes to the breeze. Before it ever made it on this trip.
I'm such an idiot. This is my fault, no one else's.
My own dead angry words put Trent Usher's dark stamp on my brain. So does being back here, a universe away from the comfy bed and breakfast chain I've built with my bare hands on the other side of the Cascades.
I miss Spokane. It's smaller, simpler, cleaner than the Emerald City. This place is forever tainted with things I've tried so hard to forget.
Stress does crazy things to a person, too. That's another reason I'm seeing ghosts.
The man who was in front of me a few seconds ago couldn't possibly be him.
Trent Usher is in Oregon. Portland. That's all I know.
All I really care to, really, after the way he baited my heart and then blew it to smithereens.
This is present day Seattle. I have family business.
Whatever this place was to me before, whatever happened here, it won't be the same again. History doesn't repeat itself. Not as tragedy or farce.
It's my burned out brain playing tricks. Nothing more.
Just like Edgar Allan Poe's raven said. Or was it never?
I have to remember I'm safe. There's a better chance of being struck by a meteorite while I've got the winning lotto numbers in my pocket than encountering the man who destroyed me here.
I'm still telling myself how impossible it is, casting glances around the room for the mysterious stranger there's suddenly no trace of, when my phone vibrates in my purse.
“Yeah, Jace?” It's hot the instant I press it to my ear.
“You up there yet? Listen, I wanted to talk about that old green crap in dad's office, the jade theme? I want it gone. Replaced with something modern. Hell, maybe blow out the other wooden panel on the wall and throw in another window. That's an awesome fucking view up there, Amy Kay, and I'd be an idiot not to make the most of it. I –”
“Whoa. Calm down, bro. I haven't even gotten on the elevator yet,” I snap. “Jesus. I'm barely off my plane, and you're already bombarding me with details about a section of the place that won't do a lick of good for client retention?” I want to reach through the phone and slap my older brother.
“Well, taking clients into the board room for the big talk over coffee was dad's thing. Mine's treating them more like old friends. More whiskey shots at the sushi bar down the street, less sipping scotch. I've got a better shot at sealing the deal when they're at my desk, drinking in the best goddamn view of Rainier they've ever seen.”
“Only thing you're sealing right now is my patience. Putting it in the same ugly box holding all those questions, like why the hell I bothered coming back here. I'm not an interior designer, Jace.”
“Yeah, but sis, you do homey so well. You've got an eye for it. Friendly decor, ambiance, that's what really matters these days – especially with all this online bullshit. Making things look pretty, that's your strong suit. I've seen pictures of your rentals in Spokane. Don't be so modest. Business is booming, isn't it?”
It's up and down, like always, but of course I'm not telling him the truth. I also don't want to have to swallow my pride with a lie.
My inns are also business I desperately need to return to once this ridiculous stint decorating the family firm ends. I've got competent people running the show while I'm away, but nothing lasts on auto-pilot forever. “Jace, I'm here to do you a favor. Don't make me regret it. I can't work miracles.”
"Shit, sis. Not like I'm asking you to walk on water and turn dirt into gold. This is for our parents. Mom's health. Dad's sanity. They've worked their asses off our whole lives. Least we can do is make sure they've got a comfortable retirement."
Yeah. Retirement.
Like this isn't actually about my older brother finally getting his shot at dad's empire. My older, slower, lazier brother who's very prone to screwing up. And letting his greed own him.
"I'm still waiting for the office to clear out so I've got the space to myself. I'll see what I can do." I sigh.
"You'd better. Because if I keep hemorrhaging clients dad held down left and right, we're definitely in deep –"
"Correction: you are. This is your rodeo, Jace. Not mine. I never wanted it. I left this town for a reason."
“You ran, sis. I'm the one who stayed behind and took this crap by the horns. I couldn't stand to let our family name die once dad decided he'd had enough. We're part of Seattle. Chenocott turf forever." Jace takes an arrogant breath. "I get it, I guess. Your situation. You had to start over. It was harder on you than anybody, what happened, after that traitor fucking asshole –”
"No. Not now. I've got work to do and we don't have time to dwell on things we shouldn't. We're making this as brief as possible and then I'm done.” I stand, eyeballing the elevator.
It's a sober, tall, 1980s-looking thing. Glass and stainless steel. Part of Chenocott and Wick's illustrious heritage. "We'll talk in the morning. After I've been up there, I really need to check into my room and crash for a few."
Jace says something, but I don't bother listening. I've had it up to here with my brother's petulant, demanding, and always ungrateful attitude. I just want to get this done and rest. Maybe soak in a few drinks at the high-end sushi place down the road to take the edge off bad memories.
I grab my purse and head over to the elevator. It's getting dark outside. I hear a security guard's footsteps patter down the hall from the deserted lobby.
I tap the button, expecting a long wait for the elevator's silver doors to slide open. But it's late. Empty. Every normal person in this buildi
ng who isn't stuck working overtime is gone. The elevator pings a second later and the doors grate open.
I step inside, punch the button for the floor I need, and slump against the wall. It never moves.
The door slides open again for another passenger.
My heart leaps in my throat for the second time this evening.
Mr. Totally Not Trent steps past me, adjusting his tie.
If the man in the suave navy suit isn't just a figment of my imagination, then he's a drop dead gorgeous mirror for the man I hoped I'd never see again.
A doppelgänger. A double. It has to be.
Has to!
But the longer I look and the harder I stare, the more my desperation sinks in. Slowly winding around my throat like a vicious snake, running its venom into my heart.
Of course, I barely realize how long it's been since I blinked. I'm wide-eyed, bewildered, and lost in my own head.
A perfect opening for the stranger to smirk and speak in a voice stolen from the gods. "What floor?"
More like what universe.
I practically crawl up the opposite corner from him. His crystal blue eyes are unrelenting. They're on me, waiting for an answer. Probably wondering if I'm a crazy person or just mute.
