Jilted: A Love Letters Novel

by Kristen Blakely

  Marisa laughed. “So, when do you fly over to India for that wedding ceremony?”

  “Later this week, as an extension of our honeymoon,” Jon said. “Apparently, it’s a huge affair, including family that Anjali has never met before. It’s a big multiracial shindig.”

  “This looks like a pretty big multiracial shindig to me.” Marisa glanced around at the guests who displayed a full range of traditional Indian outfits, somber black Hasidic clothes, and bright contemporary fashions. She heard English, Yiddish, and something that probably was Hindi. “You two are amazing. Just look at what you managed to bring together.”

  Jon chuckled. “It’ll be a constant challenge juggling our parents and grandparents—all their hopes and expectations, not to mention, children who will be neither Jewish nor Brahmin.”

  “Hey, you can’t have the best of both worlds.”

  Anjali laughed. “Ironically, if he were Indian and I were Jewish, the children would be both Jewish and Brahmin. As it is, they’ll be neither.”

  “And probably the better for it,” Jon added. “Life is simpler without labels.”

  Marisa smiled. “I can certainly appreciate a world without labels. Fortunately, the next generation usually offers a fresh chance to break away from those labels.”

  “How is your daughter doing?” Anjali asked.

  “Not a fan of her babysitter, but otherwise doing well.”

  Jon’s brow furrowed with a faint frown. “Are you going to be all right minding the business while I’m away on my honeymoon?”

  “The business will run itself just fine for the two weeks you’re away. Just enjoy yourself, both of you.” Marisa smiled again. “Congratulations, and have a wonderful honeymoon, and a great big Indian wedding.”

  THE END

  Turn the page and continue Love Letters with this excerpt from KINDLED!

  Kindled

  A Love Letters Novel

  Second chances. Impossible odds.

  Nicholas Dragov, a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, is the bad boy of ballet. On stage, his grand jeté defies the laws of physics and gravity. Off stage, he lavishes money on fast cars and fast women. His small-town roots are abandoned in the past, until a career-ending injury traps him back home, in the care of the woman whose heart he broke…

  Me.

  I was Nicholas’s first dance partner, but he alone made it onto the world stage. In the eight years since we’ve seen each other, I married, became pregnant, a widow, and a mother.

  Now, Nicholas is home, his beautiful body broken, and his attitude darker and deeper than a volcanic crater. I know how to work with sports injuries, but no amount of training or professionalism can help me endure the man who abandoned me when I needed him most.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Motorcycle headlights rippled through the night, turning the water droplets silver and the field of gravestones ghostly white. Nicholas Dragov swung his leg over the motorcycle. He was reaching for his helmet when motion flickered at the corner of his eye. He turned and scrutinized the graveyard, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  He scowled. Of course nothing was out of the ordinary. No other sane person would be out here in this weather, at this time of the night, on Thanksgiving. He shouldn’t have been out here either, not when his parents were at home, working their way through the second round of their Thanksgiving feast.

  His glance fell on a particular gravestone framed by fresh flowers. Be seeing you around, buddy.

  The distinctive roar of his Harley Davidson engine coming to life cut through the soft patter of rain. With easy expertise, he turned his motorcycle onto the narrow road leading from Westchester Cemetery. He could make it back to his Manhattan apartment in a little over an hour, in time for a good night’s rest and the 8 a.m. master class tomorrow. He had only stretched for two hours in the morning, and his muscles felt tight from not dancing that day. He would pay for it in class tomorrow. If he did not dance for two days, his partner would notice. Three days, and the audience would. Ballet was the least forgiving of the arts, and a host of talented soloists eagerly waited in the wings to claim his position as principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre.

  He could not slack.

  He never had.

  The familiar roar of the Harley’s engine kept him company through winding roads pockmarked by the light of occasional streetlamps. Westchester was no longer home, but he still knew his way around. Eight years earlier, he had turned his back on family and friends and fled to New York City. The eternal bustle of Manhattan kept the loneliness at bay. The punishing and unrelenting schedule of classes, rehearsals, and performances kept him from dwelling on his loss.

  He had a new life, and it was a great life. Everyone said so. Obviously—his mouth twisted into an ironic grimace—they must be right.

  An image of a whitewashed house tucked in a corner of a small Westchester neighborhood flashed through his mind. The neatly mowed lawn and freshly planted flowerbeds. The brown picket fence and the black Labrador reclined on the front porch, pink tongue lolling in a half-grin. The gabled red-tiled roof and a slim, feminine shadow at the window, looking out at him.

  With effort, he wrenched his thoughts away from the memory. His throat tightened. Hallucination. She’s never stood at the window looking out at me. Anyway, it’s all in the past.

  The headlights of passing cars whizzed by him. Rain pelted down, but traffic filled the narrow streets. Nothing as mundane as a thunderstorm could dampen the enthusiasm of pre-Black Friday sales. His motorcycle, however, allowed him to cut through the blockade of vehicles lined up to turn in at the mall.

  He was on the outskirts of Westchester when something large and black darted across the street. A curse tore from his lips as he swerved to avoid a crash. His motorcycle wheels spun, but failed to grip the road, and the machine crashed to the ground, sliding across the street. Sparks skittered as steel grated against asphalt. Nicholas tumbled from his bike; momentum sent him skidding over the street. White-hot shards of pain tore through his back, burning through the leather of his black motorcycle jacket.

  Wheels screeched, and cars honked. Headlights exploded into a blinding glare, and sound merged into a cacophony. His thoughts spun and twisted, gnarled into incomprehensibility by screaming pain—pain that stole his breath and blanked his mind.

  Pain that plunged his world into blackness.

  A pinprick of light pierced the darkness before expanding into a vague halo. Above it, a face appeared, its features blurry. “Sir? Sir? Can you feel my hand?”

  Hand? Where? He hurt. Everywhere.

  Movement swirled like a giddy pirouette as huge, blocky shapes gathered around him. The voice that had spoken to him now seemed directed to others. “On my count. Three, two, one.”

  The sudden motion wrenched such sharp pain through him that he would have curled into a fetal ball if he could move. The jolt smoothed into a forward motion, and the darkness of the night overhead gave way to the sleek interior of an ambulance.

  The scream of the siren sounded distant, but unshakable, like a recurring nightmare. The young man who had spoken to Nicholas squatted by him as the vehicle lurched to a start. “Take it easy; we’ve got you now. We’re on the way to the ER. Your driver’s license has a Manhattan address. Do you have family or friends in Westchester? Anybody you want us to notify?”

  Nicholas’s tongue felt like a block of lead, but he rasped out his father’s phone number. The effort sapped the remnants of his strength. Voices and conversations around him melded into a tangle of sounds, and when blackness drew like a veil over his eyes, he let go and let himself fall into a void.

  The first thing that penetrated Nicholas’s unconscious haze was the familiar stink of powerful antiseptic cleaners. The bright, unrelenting lights blazing through his closed eyelids were next. They twisted and turned his splitting headache through a psychedelic hell.

  He dragged his eyes open and waited until his wavering vision
anchored around a young woman in green scrubs. She looked up with a smile. “I’m Dr. Larson. You’re at the Westchester Medical Center ER. How are you feeling?”

  Like hell.

  His eyes—the only part of him that could move—flicked across the room. Slowly, sensations that weren’t shards of pain dribbled in. The stiff coolness of the sheets against the bare skin of his legs. The absence of pain or of any kind of sensation in his back. He stiffened, alarm widening his eyes.

  The doctor must have seen his reaction. “We gave you local anesthesia.”

  “My back?” His voice was rougher than sandpaper.

  “The orthopedic surgeon came by to evaluate you while you were unconscious. Based on the X-rays, he doesn’t think you’ll need surgery. Luckily, you’ve come through without any broken bones, but the severe muscle tears will take almost as long to heal.”

  “In my back?”

  She nodded. “There are abrasions on your arms and legs, but they’re minor, relatively speaking. You had a concussion, but your helmet protected you from the worst of the impact.”

  “When can I…get out?”

  “Not for a while.” Her tone was kind but brisk. “Your parents are filling out the paperwork right now; we’re keeping you overnight. In fact, you’ll likely be here for a few days. Dr. Carter or one of the folks over at orthopedics will come up with a treatment plan for you, which will probably include physical therapy and chiropractor sessions.”

  “But I can walk?”

  “Eventually, yes, but I’d recommend a wheelchair for a few days, and have someone push you around, or you’ll strain your back muscles further by moving yourself around.”

  Can I dance?

  The question stuck in his throat, unvoiced.

  He didn’t dare ask it.

  Continue your journey through Love Letters with KINDLED.

  Love Letters

  ADORED

  I ended up dating an escort, but it didn’t happen the way you’d think…

  I don’t have the time to find Mr. Right…but when a sexy male escort walks into my volunteer clinic for his annual checkup, I’m tempted into accepting his invitation…without realizing all the emotional baggage that comes with it.

  Rowan Forrester might have model-gorgeous looks, but his single-minded attentiveness that boosts my shaky confidence. I know better than to believe his interest is genuine, but his easy sincerity is irresistible.

  Too bad this fantasy can’t last. After all, he’s an escort. And when the truth of his past finally catches up with him…with us…it risks destroying our love, and any hope of a future together. What will it take for us to battle this storm together…and still come out all right on the other side?

  BETRAYED

  I can turn every man’s head…except his.

  I command attention on the haute couture catwalks of Milan, Paris, and New York, but whenever I’m face-to-face with Drew Jackson, I feel like a gawky thirteen-year-old again—in love with a superstar who will never see me as anything more than his younger brother’s ex-girlfriend.

  I tell myself Drew’s no longer a superstar. A long-ago car accident shattered his knee and destroyed his football career. What is he compared to the celebrities who whirl me through one-night stands or Tyler, the brilliant and witty social media maverick who is determined to win my love?

  Drew’s just…Drew. All logic and rationality aside, I want him.

  When betrayal knocks me off my supermodel pedestal, it’s a long way to the bottom. Will my tenuous friendship with Drew survive my career, my fame, and the rocky transition to love?

  CRUSHED

  I need a hero…but not him.

  Losing my job wouldn’t have fazed me.

  Losing my brother and then my job almost broke me. I’m down to my last hundred dollars and ready to accept help in any shape or form when Cody turns up on my doorstep with a job offer. And not just any job offer.

  My dream job.

  I can’t accept. I’m not that desperate.

  Because I know Cody.

  He’s the daredevil black sheep of the esteemed Hart clan, and should never have made it to his twenty-fifth birthday. What he probably hadn’t counted on, though, was his best friend dying instead of him.

  His best friend. My brother.

  I’m out of options, but nothing on Earth could possibly entice me into the arms of the man who killed my brother.

  DESIRED

  I want a divorce. And I don’t know why.

  “The Plan” we made twenty years ago as naive seventeen-year-olds is on track. Married. House with a white picket fence. Two matching BMWs. Two kids. And Gabriel is on track to becoming a partner in his law firm.

  How can one have everything and still need something more…something different? How do I tell the man I married that he’s practically a stranger to me now?

  “The Plan” is about to go completely off track. Far worse, I’m not sure if it’s his fault…or mine.

  ENSNARED

  They were named for the archangels. They should have come with warning labels.

  The two Falconer boys, Raphael and Michael, were named for the archangels. I know they are anything but. At twenty-two, I married Raphael, the first Falconer boy. By twenty-five, I was divorced. I traded my wedding ring for two near-fatal bullet wounds—and it was the best damned trade of my life.

  Now it’s time to go back to the place where it began, where Michael, the second Falconer boy, waits; his life on pause ever since I married his brother.

  He’s convinced I’m there to destroy his life.

  He’s not wrong….

  FLAWED

  I’m out of dreams. He’s full of them.

  I wanted to be an actress. I got as far as waiting on tables while waiting for the call backs that never came. Disillusioned and burned-out, I head out on a lavish, all-expense-paid vacation before facing up to the fact that life has dealt me a big flat zero.

  And then I meet him, and our mutual attraction is immediate and scorching. Jake Hunter is a professional beach volleyball player with gold in his sights. Olympic gold.

  And perhaps another kind of gold. He thinks I’m something I’m not.

  Rich.

  No amount of attraction is going to survive those false impressions and clashing expectations. I’m not going to make it out of this summer fling with my heart intact.

  And neither will he.

  GRACED

  I've outgrown him, but I haven’t forgotten him...

  My ambitions have always been bigger than the town of Havre de Grace, but when my father has a heart attack, I return home to find the town little changed—

  —except that Connor Bradley, the high school nerd, is now the town’s doctor, a Grade-A hunk, and a widower with two young children.

  He doesn’t have time for distractions, not while juggling single parenthood and his clinic on five hours of sleep a night. I’m the girl he remembers as the high school flirt who left Havre de Grace for the bright lights of the city. I’m a dangerous distraction he doesn’t want and can’t afford.

  When Connor’s plans for his first Christmas without his wife are derailed, I know I can step in and save the day for his adorable children.

  But do I want to?

  I’ve come so far, and I don’t know if I can go back…not even for him.

  HAUNTED

  Not all gifts are treasured. Only one can be kept...

  I’ve given up on love, but Christmas unexpectedly ignites my bleak and solitary life with three men who represent my past, my present, and my future.

  Peter Warren, my high school and college sweetheart, who shattered my heart but rules my dreams…

  James Kerrigan, the principal of Havre de Grace Elementary School and my boss…

  Brandon Smith, the dashing New York City lawyer, who promises an escape from the confines of my small town life…

  Which man offers the gift of true love and happily ever after?

  INFLAMED
>
  There are no happy endings; not for “The Other Woman.”

  In a small town, there’s just no way to start over.

  Eight years after the worst mistake of my life, my life as a single parent is a grind of exhaustion in between spikes of fatigue—an endless struggle to make ends meet.

  But then Sean Orr, Havre de Grace’s newest firefighter, comes to town and shows my son and I a new and beautiful kind of “normal.”

  The happiness can’t last—not for Sean who is on the run from his past. When it catches up with him, will it bring my fragile normality crashing down around me, or will I find the strength to finally define my own happy ending?

  JILTED

  Can love ever measure up to perfection?

  Jon Seifer is almost everything to me. He’s the security that anchors me and the love that raises me up.

  However, I was, at birth, promised in marriage to an even more amazing man who holds a medical degree from Harvard Medical School, works as a cardiac surgeon at Mayo Clinic, and hails from the lofty Brahmin caste.

  Like me.

  And he is a good man. A man I could love given half a chance. Everyone agrees he’s perfect for me.

  And everyone knows that I—an overachiever from birth—would never settle for anything less than perfection.