Harlequin Special Edition June 2018 Box Set--Book 2 of 2 by Christy Jeffries

Author:Christy Jeffries
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488097690
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

So they picked up steaks and potatoes. Alyssa threw together a salad with ingredients she had in her fridge and they dined on his deck.

“You were right,” she said as Jay emptied the last of the wine into her glass.

“Words a man always likes to hear,” he remarked. “But what, specifically, was I right about?”

“I do hide my scars.”

“I know that,” he said, wondering what had caused her to introduce the topic now. Was she feeling relaxed because the weekend had gone so well? Or was it possible that she’d grown to like and trust him? Or maybe her confession was simply an aftereffect of three glasses of wine. “But I don’t know why.”

“Partly it’s because old habits die hard,” she admitted. “My mother always made sure the clothes she bought for me didn’t let the scars show. She never made a big deal about them, and I know it’s not because she thinks they’re unsightly, but because they’re a reminder to her that I almost died.”

“Is there another part?” he asked gently.

“Mean girls and beach day in my senior year of high school.”

“Mean girls are usually mean because they’re jealous.”

She nodded. “And I was dating Craig Gerber. He wasn’t on the football team, but he was class president. Smart, good-looking and extremely popular. Not the type of guy who would ordinarily look twice at me. In fact, we’d been in classes together since junior high, and he didn’t even know my name until tenth grade.”

“What happened then?”

“I got boobs.”

He sighed appreciatively. “Those do tend to catch a teenage boy’s attention—and often a man’s, too.”

She smiled at that. “Well, a result of that hormonal spurt, I was no longer the shy, skinny girl who hid out in the library but the shy girl with the boobs who hid out in the library.

“And one day, Craig Gerber came into the library and asked me to have lunch with him.”

“And suddenly you were dating Craig Gerber,” he guessed.

“There was nothing sudden about it. I was very shy and more than a little oblivious. And there were so many girls who wanted to be with him, it never occurred to me that he could want me—until he asked me to be his date for prom.

“Of course, I said yes.” She smiled, a little wistfully, at the memory. “My mother took me shopping for a new dress and shoes and made appointments for me to have my hair and nails done. That night was everything I had dreamed it could be. We danced and we kissed and we stayed out late.

“Then there was a breakfast for grads back at the high school the next day, and after that, everyone headed to the beach.” Her words were a little more clipped now, as if she was in a hurry to finish the story. “Most of the other girls were sunbathing in their teeny, tiny bikinis, and I was wearing one, too, but with a cover-up. They encouraged me to take off the shirt

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.