Happy #BookBirthday to Almost a Bride by Jo Watson + #Giveaway

Almost a Bride 
(Destination Love #2)
by Jo Watson 
Paperback, 384 pages
Published January 31st 2017 by Forever
ISBN 1455595500

That awkward moment you catch your boyfriend in bed with another woman and then mistakenly get arrested #chargesdropped

Annie knows life isn't always fair. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you get mistaken for a crazed intruder when you come home early and find your boyfriend wearing nipple clamps with a coworker on the night you thought he was going to propose to you.

The important thing is to move on, and for Annie that means treating herself to a tropical vacation. But when she runs into her ex and his new woman staying at the same resort, reason is washed out to sea. Caught off guard, Annie pretends she's with Chris, a cute screenwriter she meets on the beach. With his own writing blocked, Chris is happy to help Annie craft a story to save face. Soon Annie isn't just getting over her ex, she's getting under Chris. As her fictional feelings grow increasingly real, Annie has to decide if she's ready to risk her heart on a new relationship.

AMAZON | B&N

Excerpt:

I knew something was wrong the second I walked up to my front door.

Call it intuition. Call it a sixth sense. But I just knew.

I blame the shoes. The shoes were undoubtedly the cause of all the

problems that day. It was the shoes’ fault that I came home early, and

the shoes’ fault I was fired.

I suppose I can’t blame the shoes for making me late, though—

that was the alarm clock’s fault for rudely deciding not to do its job.

And when I finally realized, through the thick haze of sleepiness,

that it hadn’t gone off, it was too late. I was already late for work.

And when I say work, I mean my brand-new job—job of my

dreams—as a fashion assistant at Glamorous Girl mag. 

I’d just made a total career change, leaving behind a successful job

as a stylist in advertising to pursue a job in the magazine industry. It

was early days, so I was still desperately trying to impress by being

perfect, polite, and oh so obliging. Whether it was the request for

the latte to be served at 97.7 degrees with no sugar, soy milk froth,

and a sprinkling of organic cocoa powder flown in directly from

the foothills of the Andes. Or whether it was for the jasmine-and-lavender-

scented candles to be burned in the office for exactly ten

minutes before my boss arrived—that was me.

Little Miss Annie Obliging.

Because let’s face it, the word assistant is just a glammed-up euphemism

for slave. But I was ambitious and determined, so when I

realized I wouldn’t be able to attend to the scented candles, or fetch

the latte, I panicked. So much so, that I left the house without the

said troublemaking, life-ruining, world-annihilating shoes.

Let’s take a moment to talk about the shoes. They weren’t

ordinary shoes, oh no, they were none other than the just-off-the-

Paris-catwalk-and-not-for-sale-to-mere-mortals-yet Christian Louboutins.

They also happened to be the centerpieces for that day’s

shoot.

The same rushed panic that had caused me to forget the shoes in

the first place had also left me with barely enough time to scrape my

hair back into a casual bun and slip on a creased T-shirt and pair of

jeans from my floor.

The latter is a bigger sin than you think. Because where I

work, wearing anything other than the most fashionable apparel

is sacrilege. People practically throw holy water at you and start

wailing in Latin for fear that you’ve been possessed by the demon

of bad fashion. In fact, a real demon possession, complete with a

backward-rolling head and the ability to speak in tongues, would

be preferable to the demon of last season’s handbag and Crocs

sandals.

So when I finally got to work, underdressed, out of breath, without

the shoes, and over an hour late, I was in serious trouble.

My boss was throwing a hissy fit, due to lack of flowery scents in

her office, and her personal assistant Cedric was in the throes of an

overly dramatic caffeine withdrawal, due to lack of latte.

And it kept getting worse.

Two hours later the panicky fashion director summoned the

Louboutins. Those shoes had been troublemakers from the start. It

had been an absolute trauma getting them in the first place. They’d

been flown into South Africa late the previous night, and I’d been

tasked with collecting them. Everyone was holding their collective

breath for the grand arrival. So when I was forced to confess to their

absence…well, you can only imagine.

When lunch finally arrived, I jumped into my car and sped home.

I had exactly one hour to get in and out before the photo shoot, more

than enough time.

I pulled into my driveway at breakneck speed, ran for the front

door, slipped my house keys into the lock, and turned—

But…

Something made me stop.

Something told me not to go inside.

Something was very wrong.

I looked around nervously. Everything seemed normal. Peter

across the road was blasting his TV as usual, the ratbag Chihuahua

from number 45 was running up and down the garden perimeter

yapping at an unseen force, and Mildred, my neighbor, was outside

watering her hydrangeas.

So why was I hesitating?

I took a deep breath and inched the door open.

Nothing looked out of place.

Everything was exactly the way I’d left it.

Yet everything felt wrong.

I slunk down the hallway toward the kitchen, where I knew I’d

find the shoes perched next to the coffeepot. But once inside, I was

hit by a terribly eerie sensation…someone was in the house. A shiver

licked the length of my spine when my suspicions were confirmed.

Creeeeaaakkk…A noise was coming from my bedroom directly

above me.

Shit, shit, shit, there was an intruder in the house!

I launched myself at the cutlery drawer, grabbing the largest knife

I could find while simultaneously dialing the police and still managing

to hold on to the shoes for dear life.

“Police! Help, there’s an intruder in my house. Forty-Seven Mendelssohn

Road, Oaklands. Quick.”

Now what? I’d never been in a situation like this before. What

was the correct protocol? Should I hide, evacuate the house, attack

the intruder, scream loudly? Or perhaps a combination of the above?

I thought for a second before deciding to get the fuck out of there!

But just as I had one foot safely installed outside the front door, I

heard another noise. This time it was different. It was…

It sounded like…

My blood ran cold.

But it couldn’t be. Trevv was at work. Trevv had a very important

day in court, he told me. His client’s final hearing was today. Right

now, in fact. I’d called him from my office about an hour ago and

he’d told me he was in court.

He was in court, dammit!

I started climbing the stairs.

More noises.

Two voices?

But that was impossible…wasn’t it?

The noises grew louder and louder the farther up the stairs I

went. I’m not really sure at what point I knew what the noises were

or knew what I was going to see when I opened the door. But I just

knew.

It’s one thing walking in on your boyfriend having sex with another

woman, but it’s another thing entirely walking in on him the

second the other woman is coming. She was facing the door but was

bouncing up and down so vigorously that her face was a blur. And

then suddenly her body stiffened, she threw her head back, opened

her mouth, and let out a high-pitched wail. As if that wasn’t self explanatory

enough, she decided to toss in a few words for good

measure.

“Yes, Trevvy, yes. Oh my God, oh my God, oh Trevvy. Harder!

Ah, ah, ah.” *Pant, pant, pant* “I’m coming!” *Long high-pitched

scream*

Now…there were several things wrong with this picture, aside

from the obvious. Firstly, who the hell screams like that in bed? No

one does! Sex is not so good that you have to break the sound barrier

with your squealing dolphin sounds. Secondly, what the hell was

she wearing? She was clad in some kind of leathery studded number

that looked like it had been worn by one of the Village People. And

to make matters worse, Trevv was blindfolded with the tie that I had

bought him two Christmases ago and…OH MY GOD…were those,

were those…nipple clamps?

I felt sick to my stomach.

And thirdly, who was this mystery woman without an ounce of cellulite,

without the slightest smidge of fat, and with boobs that seemed

to defy all known natural laws of gravity and motion? Which

woman can be that damn perfect…

…and then her features came into focus and the answer dawned

on me.

Tess.

Tess Blackman.

My boyfriend’s “coworker.” The woman I’d invited into

my home on several occasions for dinner. The woman that I always

phoned when I couldn’t get hold of Trevv, because I knew they

were probably together working on a case, tired and exhausted and

burning the midnight oil when they’d rather be at home with their

significant others. She had a fiancé after all.

Poor overworked Trevv and Tess.

God, I was naive.

But the show didn’t end there. Tess’s eyes were still closed when

Trevv started making some delightful grunting-moaning-squeaking

sounds. He’d never made sounds like that with me before. His sweaty

hands reached up and grabbed at her hungrily.

Faster.

Harder.

Loud, long moan.

I was frozen. It’s hard to know what to do when you watch your

partner of two years with his penis somewhere you wouldn’t even

like to imagine, let alone witness in full blinding daylight.

Once all their postcoital panting had tapered off, Tess opened her

eyes and saw me standing in the doorway. The look on her face was

indescribable. Shock and horror and fear all at the same time. And

then she opened her mouth and screamed.

Trevv then turned his head toward the door and whipped off his

blindfold. Our eyes locked and then he did something truly bizarre.

Unexpected. He grabbed Tess by the hand and dragged her to the

other side of the bed.

“Anne, please…you don’t want to do this.” Trevv threw his hands

in the air defensively. He looked terrified. She was bleating hysterically

by this stage.

What was going on? Wasn’t I the jilted one? Wasn’t I the one

that was supposed to be upset? I started walking toward them, which

seemed to only make matters worse.

“Anne, please. Please.” He seemed to be begging now. “Think

about what you’re doing. I know this is bad, but this isn’t the way to

handle it. Please don’t do this.”

Things happened pretty quickly after that. Suddenly, the room

was filled with armed police officers. I was about to tell them they

could all go home, when Trevv cut me off.

“She has a knife. She’s going to kill us!” he shouted, pointing at me.

What knife? I glanced at my hands, and that’s when I realized I

was still holding the large knife, and it was pointed in their direction.

I quickly turned to explain. “I wasn’t going to—”

“Ma’am…” One of the police officers cut me off and started creeping

toward me as if I was a feral pit bull that hadn’t eaten in a week.

“Put down your weapon.”

“I swear, this isn’t what you think, I was just trying to—”

BAM! Face on floor, handcuffs around wrists.

Three really painful things happened at that point: One, the knife

slipped and cut the entire length of my palm. Two, some of my

newly acquired, gorgeous nails snapped off. And three, the crystal-encrusted,

six-inch heel of the priceless Louboutin snapped off,

rolled across the floor lifelessly, and disappeared under the bed. 

Destination Love series

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jo Watson is an award-winning writer of romantic comedies. Burning Moon won a Watty Award in 2014. Jo is an Adidas addict and a Depeche Mode devotee.

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