Title: Love, In English
Author: Karina Halle
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: April 20, 2014
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.
***
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.
Buy the Book
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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.
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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