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Release Date: July 30, 2020
Excerpt: If the Sun Never Sets
If Love Duet Book #2
The chatter in the dining room faded as blood roared in his ears. His stomach plunged into free fall… and all Blake could do was stare, stupefied, at the brunette seated across the table from his best friend.
I’m hallucinating.
His brain must have associated “interior designer” with the only interior designer he knew and conjured up the illusion to torture him.
The deep chocolate eyes, soft red lips, and faint scent of orange blossoms mixed with vanilla…she seemed so real it was cruel.
How many times had Blake dreamt of her, only to wake up next to an empty bed, plagued with regrets over what could’ve been?
A deadly python of emotion constricted his chest and dripped poison into his veins, gluing his feet to the floor. The deafening thump-thump-thump of his heart drowned out every other sound in the restaurant.
I’m going crazy.
"Blake, this is Farrah. Farrah, this is my friend, Blake." Landon’s introduction sailed through Blake's haze of consciousness. His friend’s voice sounded far off, like the people you heard in dreams. The ones that try to shake you awake when all you want to do is sink deeper into your delusion.
Landon gave Blake a frown that said, Why the fuck are you acting so weird?.
Meanwhile, Farrah sat, eyes wide, fingers strangling the black leather portfolio in her lap. Her face matched the color of the white linen tablecloth.
Blake’s breath hissed out in shock. This was real.
He’d fantasized about their reunion a million times, but now that it was happening he had no clue what to do.
He just stood there, gawking at her like an idiot.
Say something. Anything.
"You haven't aged a day.
”
Anything but that.
Landon choked on his water while pink rose on Blake’s cheekbones. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this flustered. He felt like a damn schoolboy with a crush, one who’d waited five years to see the girl of his dreams again, only for his first words to her be…you haven’t aged a day.
He wanted to die.
Landon’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter, but Farrah’s expression remained smooth and hard as stone.
“Thanks,” she said. Zero emotion, not even sarcasm.
The Farrah Blake knew would’ve called him out on his lame-ass greeting faster than a teenager could text in class, but the Farrah he knew also used to look at him like he hung the stars in the sky—until he fucked it all up.
"Do you know each other?" Landon asked, controlling his mirth long enough to ask the world’s most obvious question.
Blake forced his legs to move. He sank into the chair next to Landon and tried not to shake too much as he lifted a glass of water to his lips. "We studied abroad together in Shanghai."
He felt Landon's sharp inhale beside him. He'd told Landon about Farrah one drunk night after he and Cleo split for good. Blake had been spiraling, drowning in guilt and regret and booze, and his usual filter had been down for the count. In its absence, confessions about Farrah and what happened in Shanghai tumbled out. Blake hadn’t divulged Farrah’s name, but Landon was a smart guy. Blake could tell by the look in his friend’s eyes that Landon had already pieced the puzzle together.
The waiter showed up and took their orders. Blake didn’t remember what he ordered. He didn’t care; he was too busy staring at Farrah.