Page 318 of Not Over You

I close the door and lean back against it. “I thought you knew.” I curl a suggestive finger that draws him closer. “Everyone is under my spell.”

“I swear to God, Ashleigh Anderson—”

My breath catches on the way in. It was probably a slip of his tongue, but the shock of hearing my name, with his name, sends shivers of joy down my spine as it mixes with the realization that this is real. We’ve been married for four months and it’s evident by the ease in which he said it, he’s thought about it. A lot. Probably more than I have because I’ve been pretending it didn’t happen.

“Ground rules, Mr. Anderson,” I say firmly. “No presumptions. If you hear something you don’t like, you ask me before you do anything else.”

“Fine. But no more secrets,” he replies. “I don’t even want good surprises. One hundred percent honesty and openness.”

“Okay. I have more ground rules but we can discuss those later.” I lift from my toes and silence him with my lips. It’s a long kiss that brings the world to a standstill. His arms wrap around my back and gently pull me closer to him. “Fight with me.”

“Only if you fight for me.”

“Always.” I grin at him. “Forever.”

“Deal.”

Erin Cawood is a commercial women’s fiction author, with a taste for dramatic storylines and a passion for strong lead characters she really gets behind, cheering on right to the very end of their story. Her focus? Taking romance into the darker, edgier side of contemporary fiction. Find out more at cawoodbooks.co.uk

REINA TORRES

HEATING THINGS UP

The first time they met it was the wrong time for both of them… Finding each other again, feels like a second chance at love.

Caroline Franzen fell in love with St. Raphael when she visited the Santini family there almost two years ago. Running restaurants in the City of Angeles were more about hustle and flash than food and she wanted to take a step back from the rush and live in a real community.

She’s still a relatively new resident when she bumps into a ghost from kitchens past at the farmer’s market. Holy hotness.

* * *

Lucas Brierly spent most of his life as a celebrity chef traveling the world, opening more than thirty big name restaurants and earning enough awards to cover every wall in the first floor of his house. He decided it was time to settle down. He still loved being a chef, but he wanted to be a better father. He moved to St. Raphael to give his daughter a real home as she began high school.

Finding Caroline living a stone’s throw away reminds him of what they’d almost had years ago. The two of them in a kitchen and in each other’s arms threw sparks enough to light up the sky.

Their old patterns of bantering in the kitchen are different now that they’re on even footing. Is it enough to take a chance on love, since they just can’t help heating things up?

Copyright © 2022 by Reina Torres

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

PROLOGUE

The kitchen of ‘Bulldog’ was quieting down after a long night of service. The dishwashers and line cooks had just filed out, laughing amongst themselves, each carrying a bag of fudge that she’d made up the night before.

Standing before her were the last two men left in the kitchen, her culinary mentor Stephen Buchard, an elegant man who wore a red kerchief tied around his neck every time he walked into a kitchen, and matched to his bright red chef’s clogs, and her boss for the last month, Scots-English Celebrity Chef Lucas Brierly.

The Chef was pondering the box of fudge that she’d put in his hands, taking the time to draw his nose along the opening of the box to take in the scent of the sweets before lifting the lid.

Caroline felt a smile tickle at the corner of her lips as she watched him try to use his over-developed and world-famous olfactory senses to decipher the list of her ingredients.

So far, he’d guessed every ingredient but one and now it had become a grudge match.

Stephen had only stayed to be the referee. Or so that’s what he’d said, but really, Caroline knew that her mentor longed to see her best his old friend.

“Come now, Luca.” He chided the older man with his tone and expression. “Give in, old friend. Admit that my Carolina has you stumped.”

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