Love, In English by Karina Halle
Contemporary Romance
Release Date: April 20, 2014
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Synopsis
He’s thirty-eight. I’m twenty-three.
He speaks Spanish. I speak English.
He lives in Spain. I live in Canada.
He dresses in thousand-dollar suits. I’m
covered in tattoos.
He’s married and has a five-year old
daughter.
I’m single and can’t commit to anyone or
anything.
Until now. Because when they say you can’t
choose who you fall in love with, boy ain’t that the f*#king truth.
***
To a restless dreamer like Vera Miles, it
sounded like the experience of a lifetime. Instead of spending her summer
interning for her astronomy major, she would fly to Spain where she’d spend a
few weeks teaching conversational English to businessmen and women, all while
enjoying free room and board at an isolated resort. But while Vera expected to
get a tan, meet new people and stuff herself with wine and paella, she never
expected to fall in love.
Mateo Casalles is unlike anyone Vera has
ever known, let alone anyone she’s usually attracted to. While Vera is a
pierced and tatted free spirit with a love for music and freedom, Mateo is a
successful businessman from Madrid, all sharp suits and cocky Latino charm.
Yet, as the weeks go on, the two grow increasingly close and their relationship
changes from purely platonic to something…more.
Something that makes Vera feel alive for
the first time.
Something that can never, ever be.
Or so she thinks.
Excerpt
Claudia shrugged and pulled down at her
yellow tee. “Not my problem. Eduardo is nice but Ricardo is really nice.”
“How did it happen?” I asked, kinda wanting
the sordid details.
She was coy. “The way it usually happens.”
“Did you make the first move?”
Another shrug. “Why not?”
I swear, a shrug and a “why not?” were the
Spaniards’ go-to answer for everything.
“Well, then I guess it seems safe—and a
little boring now—to tell you that I have a crush on someone.”
Her brows quirked up. “Other than Mateo?”
“What?”
“You are sleeping with Mateo, no?”
“WHAT?!”
“No?”
“No!” I exclaimed, appalled. “Why does everyone
keep thinking that?”
“Because you are always together,” she said
simply. She took a sip of wine. “The attraction is very obvious. So, I figured
you must be sleeping together.”
“He’s married!”
“Yes, but you are not.”
I shook my head adamantly. “It’s wrong. I
don’t want to be the other woman. I’ve seen my dad go for the other woman, and
I can’t put Mateo’s daughter through that,” I said. “Or his wife,” I quickly
added.
“That doesn’t mean that you can’t have
feelings for anyone else.”
“Yes, it does mean that.”
“Maybe you are meant to be together.”
“We’re not! There isn’t even a together.
We’re just friends. I haven’t done anything about it, and so far my feelings
are totally one-sided.”
Claudia got up off the couch and brought a
pack of cigarettes out of her front jean pocket. “If you think it is on the one
side, you have not seen the way he looks at you.”
She walked over to her small patio table
and pulled out a chair. I got up and stormed after her, my nerves dancing
excitedly.
“What do you mean, the way he looks at me?”
I asked, lowering my voice in case there were people around listening. I felt
like bouncing off the walls.
She slid the ashtray toward her as I sat
down. “You do not see it. But I do. I think everyone does. He looks at you
like…like you’re his favorite food.”
“Favorite food?”
She lit her cigarette. “Yes. You’re like
his favorite food in the whole world. He wants to have you, eat you, devour
you. He thinks about you all the time, craves you. But he cannot have you for
one reason or another. Perhaps you upset his stomach. Maybe he is on a diet,
yes? All he wants is a taste, but he cannot even have that. That is how he
looks at you.”
I sat there, stunned, as some of her smoke
blew in my face. That’s how Mateo looked at me? Like he wanted to eat me? I was
pretty sure that’s how I looked at him. Just last night I was contemplating
nibbling on his earlobes.
“And yes,” she said, leaning closer to me,
a small smile on her lips, “that is also how you look at him.” Great, a mind
reader. “But you are more subtle about it. You try not to let everyone know.
But, we know.”
“There is nothing to know,” I reminded her,
poking the table with my finger for emphasis. “We are not sleeping together. He
is married. I have a crush. That is it. The end of the story.”
“A crush?” she questioned. “Vera, I think
you’re in love with him.”
No fucking way. Not love. That did not
happen with me, not ever and not now.
“You can’t fall in love in a week,” I told
her heatedly.
“You can fall in love in a second,” she
said with a snap of her fingers. “The heart has no regard for time.”
With that sobering thought, Claudia told me
about her ex-boyfriend and how they fell in love at first sight then took the
conversation back to Ricardo and their exploits. I envied her so badly right
then and there. She could fawn over Ricardo, kiss him, fuck him, and no one
would ever bat an eye. It was okay for them to be together. It wasn’t
forbidden.
I gulped the rest of the wine and left her
apartment, heading back to reception to meet Cristina for my next one-on-one,
my mind and heart and hormones all over the place. Lo and behold, Mateo was
walking up the path toward me.
He was on the phone, smiling.
His shirt was off and slung over his
shoulder, exposing his bare chest, abs, and arms.
Holy fuck.
For a moment, I was sure that time had
stopped. Or maybe ever single nerve, cell, vein, bone, muscle in my body just
slowed as I took him all in.
From his thick-veined forearms to his
sculpted shoulders and broad chest peppered with neatly-trimmed chest hair, to
his six-pack abs, he had, by far, the best body I’d ever seen on a man. He kept
himself in fine-ass shape, looking more like a young athlete than anything
else. He and David Beckham had more in common than I thought, although David’s
skin tone wasn’t as mesmerizing. Mateo’s color was amazing, just beautiful,
this dark, golden bronze that covered him everywhere. I wanted so badly to just
touch him, to lick the sheen of sweat off his skin. I bet he tasted like
victory.
And to think this was the man that Claudia
said wanted to taste me.
I really, really wanted to believe her.
Meanwhile, I was just standing there like I
was melting into a puddle of myself. I clamped my mouth shut as he walked past
and I heard him say into the phone, “No, mi tesorito, it was easy, I didn’t
injure myself.” He was beaming, talking about the game, to his wife. To his
tesorito. And he called their relationship complicated? This was complicated.
He winked at me in acknowledgement, his
smile becoming broader. I tried to smile back but it wouldn’t come. I just
stared at him, feeling stupid, foolish, and strangely rejected. In a perfect
world I may have been his favorite food, but it still wasn’t what he got served
every day. I turned around and walked down the hill, my heart feeling like a
pincushion.
“Vera!” I heard him call out from behind. I
stopped and nervously glanced over my shoulder. He was holding the phone’s
receiver to his chest, grinning at me. “I need to ask you your question.”
“What?” I asked, hoping it was quick.
“Who is your favorite Spaniard here?”
Seriously?
And yet I couldn’t lie to him.
“You,” I said, more to myself than to him.
Then I turned around and walked away as quickly as I could.
About the Author
With her USA Today Bestselling The Artists
Trilogy published by Grand Central Publishing, numerous foreign publication
deals, and self-publishing success with her Experiment in Terror series,
Vancouver-born Karina Halle is a true example of the term "Hybrid Author."
Though her books showcase her love of all things dark, sexy and edgy, she's a
closet romantic at heart and strives to give her characters a HEA...whenever
possible.
Karina holds a screenwriting degree from
Vancouver Film School and a Bachelor of Journalism from TRU. Her travel
writing, music reviews/interviews and photography have appeared in publications
such as Consequence of Sound, Mxdwn and GoNomad Travel Guides. She currently
lives on an island on the coast of British Columbia where she’s preparing for
the zombie apocalypse with her fiance and rescue pup.
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