(Starting
Out #3)
Published
by: Harper Impulse
Publication
date: October 23rd 2014
Genres: Contemporary, New
Adult, Romance
Synopsis:
Guilt can eat
away at you, but love can cut like a knife…
Wanting after
his best friend’s girlfriend is a cliché Billy knows well – it’s the tightrope
he’s walked for years.
But now Jason and Lindy have broken up and Billy can’t
help but be there for the girl he’s loved from afar for so long. She’s hurting.
Fighting to
find a road to the future, Lindy’s heart hurts. She’s trying to escape the
truth, but Billy keeps making her face it – and it’s ugly. How can she keep
living when everything is made of glass and it keeps shattering?
Her one
constant is Billy. Only, rebound isn’t his style and when Lindy starts to see
him in a different light, he just can’t trust her. He’s no one’s second best.
Goodreads: Goodreads
Purchase:
AUTHOR
BIO:
Jane is
a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional Historical and New Adult
romance and author of a No.1 bestselling Historical Novel,'The Illicit
Love of a Courtesan, as well as a Kindle overall Top 25, bestselling
author.
She
began her first historical novel at sixteen, but a life full of adversity
derailed her as she lives with the restrictions of Ankylosing Spondylitis.
When
she finally completed a novel it was because she was determined not to reach
forty still saying, I want to write.
Now Jane
is writing a Regency series as well as contemporary, new adult, stories and
she is thrilled to be giving her characters life in others' imaginations
at last.
You
might think that Jane was inspired to write by Jane Austen, especially as
she lives near Bath in the United Kingdom, but you would be wrong. Jane's
favourite author is Anya Seton, and the book which drew her into the
bliss of falling into historical imagination was 'Katherine' a story
crafted from reality.
Jane
has drawn on this inspiration to discover other real-life love
stories, reading memoirs and letters to capture elements of the past, and
she uses these to create more realistic plots.
'Basically
I love history and I am sucker for a love story. I love the feeling of
falling in love; it's wonderful being able to do it time and time again
in fiction.'
Jane
is also a Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development
in the United Kingdom, and uses this specialist understanding of people to
bring her characters to life.
Author
links:
Jane Lark – I
Need You – Excerpt
“I
can’t believe you still wear that thing.” She leaned over and flicked the
leather bracelet as my hand gripped the wheel.
How
the hell did she not know?
I
glanced at her, giving her a twisted, guilty smile, as something hard grabbed
my heart. “Yeah.”
“I
made you that years ago.”
“I’m
just lazy, I can’t be bothered to cut it off.” I let a fake sound of amusement
slip from my throat, acting as if it was nothing––like I had every other time
she’d mentioned it.
She’d
made it at high school. It had been the thing all the girls were doing at the
time, braiding these silly leather bracelets and threading beads into them. It
was before she’d been seeing Jason. We’d been fifteen.
Yeah,
I had been wearing it that long. Pining over a girl that wasn’t mine.
But
shit I can still remember the feel of her gentle fingers touching me as she’d
tied it off, and it had done stuff to my cock. I’d liked her before, but that was
the day she’d got me. It was like her fingers had touched my heart too. I’d had
this burning need for her ever since.
I
should cut the thing off.
I
glanced over at her. Her hands were in her lap and she stared ahead. I didn’t
know what to say to her. I was too anxious to hold a meaningless conversation
and I didn’t want to quiz her, ‘cause I was taking her away to forget all the
stuff that made her feel bad.
I
said a few things and she answered, but then I couldn’t think of anything to
add. She said some things and I nodded, not knowing what to say back.
In
the end we were quiet most of the drive.
I
was relieved when I finally pulled up in the apartments’ parking lot on the
coast.
“Wow,
this is nice.”
The
ocean rolled up onto the miles of beach before the parking lot. This place just
calmed me. I’d come here the summer we’d left high school and it had been the
best therapy. This beach and the ocean was my psychiatrist. I’d come back every
summer since.
I
hoped it was gonna work for her too.
I
freed the door and as it opened the sound of the ocean swept into the SUV.
I
looked at Lindy.
She
was wide-eyed, watching the beach.
“Let’s
go get our keys. I’ll get our stuff later.”
She
looked at me, uncertainty creeping into her eyes, but she nodded.
I
wanted to grip her hand as we walked across the parking lot. There was a whole
minefield of protective energy bubbling around inside me. But it had blown up
in my face before. I was steering clear of too much touching.
The
thing with Lindy was she was so tiny it made me want to just put my arms around
her and wrap her up. She was like a precious, breakable doll, five-two, to my
six-one.
I
glanced over at her. The ocean breeze flicked her wavy blonde hair against the
curve of her cheek.
Her
fingers tucked her hair behind her ear.
I’d
wanted to do that for her. There was a hard need to touch her in my belly. But
I’d spent years ignoring that instinct. That was nothing new.
She
didn’t look at me. She looked ahead at the apartment block.
She’d
won beauty pageants as a kid. Her Mom had been into all that shit, driving her
to loads of contests and Lindy did have the look for that sort of thing,
perfect symmetry.
At
high school she’d been full of confidence. At college that had died for some reason.
She
glanced at me, her blue eyes seeming bluer under the clear sky.
“I’ve
ordered adjacent places, is that okay? I can ask them to change them if you
want?”
“No,
that’s okay.” She nodded.
The
apartments were stacked and set out in rows spread along the edge of the beach.
The guy at the desk said ours were on the top floor. The place was something
between a hotel, a motel and cabins, and the rooms ‘slash’ apartments were
accessed via a long hallway, with stairs at either end of the block.
When
we got up there, I slid the card key through the lock, then stepped back and
shoved the door open for her to go in. “You can have this one.”
It
had a small kitchen and a sofa that turned into a bed. But most importantly, at
the end of the room was a big window that looked out on the ocean. It had a
balcony too.
“I’ll
go get your stuff.” I left her in her room. But before I went back down to the
SUV, I went into mine.
Shit.
I combed a hand through my hair, then realized I’d fucked it up, and rubbed it
so it spiked again.
It
was going to be a hell of a couple of weeks.
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