Series: Fallen Brook #6
Publication date: January 17th, 2023
Synopsis:
One night he can't remember. One night she can't forget.
I can't believe I slept with Jordan Hammond. My crush since junior high. The only man I have ever loved. The guy I compare every other guy to--who also happens to be my sister's ex-fiance. Funny story. Jordan doesn't remember that night we shared. But I do. Every last detail.
They say some people have it all. At first glance, Jordan Hammond would be considered one of those people. Handsome. Wealthy. Comes from a respected family. Good friends. Adoring young sister. Carefree. Quick with a dimpled smile or a laugh. But first impressions can be deceiving, masking the pain and loneliness inside. Like heartbreak and a called-off wedding after catching his fiancée in bed with his best friend. The blackouts caused by too many bottles of tequila and vodka he would consume to drown his sorrows over his failed engagement. The empty family estate he still lives in by himself because he can't find the strength to sell it after his mother and grandfather pass away. The helpless feeling that drowns him every day because he feels like he's wasted his life and has nothing to show for it.
It takes the sudden reappearance of one woman, Douglass Donnelly, to light a consuming fire within him. To make him want to live again. Risk love again. But there's a problem. Two, actually. The first is that the beautiful auburn-haired Douglass is his ex-fiancée's younger sister. But the biggest problem of all--Douglass absolutely hates his guts for reasons he can't figure out. However, those reasons will not stop him from crashing through the almost impenetrable wall barricading her heart to claim the woman he realizes he can't live without. The sister he should have chosen the first time. Jordan won't stop until Douglass is his: heart, body, and soul--no matter how much she pretends to despise him.
Douglass Donnelly has always felt like an outcast. Shy, awkward, picked on by her peers because of her weight. Continuously living in the shadow of her perfect, vivacious, gorgeous older sister, Amelia. Overlooked. Invisible. And absolutely head-over-heels in love with Jordan Hammond since she was fourteen years old. A man she continued to pine over even when he chose her sister and not her. Even when he was about to become her brother-in-law. Even after his engagement blew up because he caught her sister in bed with his best friend one week before the wedding.
And then that night happens. The night that changes everything. The night Jordan Hammond finally sees her and not the little sister of his cheating ex. For a few brief hours, Jordan gives Douglass everything she has ever wanted and dreamed about... right before he rips it all away and shreds her fragile heart to pieces.
It's been five years since Douglass packed her bags and ran away from her hometown of Woodspire, Texas. Five years of painstakingly putting her broken pieces back together and remolding herself into a strong, resilient woman. One thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-five long days for her love of Jordan Hammond to turn into hatred. Years of hardening her heart, so no other man can break it ever again.
What's that overused adage? Time heals all wounds. Douglass knows better than anyone that even time itself won't cure a broken heart or lessen the humiliation of what happened that night with Jordan. Unfortunately for Douglass, Jordan is determined to prove her wrong. But can he make amends for a night he can't remember; a night, it turns out, Douglass can't forget?
Reader's Note: About That Night is a slow burn, steamy, enemies to lovers, small town romance and contains themes that may be triggering to sensitive individuals. Please check TW/CWs in the front matter of the book. About That Night is an interconnected stand-alone in the Fallen Brook: The Montgomerys Series and is Jordan's story. Recommended for mature readers.
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Excerpt
"We?" Douglass asks with a tiny bite of sarcasm.
"Yes, we." My heated gaze lands back on her beautiful, haunted face. "We, as in you and me." I cut the inches-wide distance between us. She cranes her neck to look up at me, her breaths faltering and becoming choppy the longer we stare at one another. "Because make no mistake, sweetheart, you and I are happening."
She presses backward into the railing, the pulse point in her neck fluttering wildly. Her bangles clang the metal handrail and make a tinny sound, almost like a grandfather clock chiming out the hour.
"We can't."
She can try and deny it all she wants. But it won't matter.
My hand touches her cheek and ever so lightly, I feather my thumb across her mouth. Her choppy breaths turn into full-blown pants and have my cock hardening uncomfortably behind my zipper. I splay my other hand across her breastbone where her heart pounds a beat hat matches mine.
"Hell, yes, we can. Stop fighting it. You want me as much as I want you."
"I don't even like you most of the time," she whispers in a last-ditch effort to push me away.
"Liar." I smile and reach around her nape to gently press my fingers into her skin. Her lips part, and a soft moan escapes. The sensual sound spurs me into action. I nuzzle her silky cheek and feel her body tremble. The breeze blows a cooling breath over my skin, and with it, the sweet scent of her gardenia shampoo. I drown in the alluring fragrance by pressing my nose into her hair and inhaling deeply.
"Jordan." The lilting sound of my name from her lips stokes the embers of desire between us.
"Invite me inside, Douglass."
Her hands reach for me, fingertips tracing the column of my neck before they fist the front of my shirt. Tonight is the first time she has initiated any form of physical contact between us, and it gives me faith that I'm finally breaching those tall walls she surrounds herself with. That hope dies when she shakes her head in denial.
"I can't."
Frustrated, I back away from her. Not by much because I'm not allowing her to run away from me again. But I need the extra space between us in order to think clearly and not do something stupid, like push her against the side of the house and fuck the stubbornness right out of her.
"Why do you keep fighting this? Is it because of Amelia? Because I was with her first?"
Douglass looks at me like I'm stupid. "Me not inviting you inside has nothing to do with her."
"Then why? I'm going to need you to spell it out for me. Is it because I can't remember we had sex? Will you just tell me? I'm trying hard here to set things right between us, but you're making it impossible to do that."
Douglass pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales loudly. "Why does it matter so much for you to know?"
Losing my temper because she keeps saying that, I bark, "Because it fucking does."
"Jordan, just let it go."
I take her hand in mine, so small and soft and fragile. "Can't do that, sweetheart."
"You may not like what you hear."
"That's a chance I'm willing to take." I push back into her space. "Invite me inside."
JENNILYNN WYER is a Rudy Award-winning author of Romantic Suspense and a three-time Contemporary Romance Writers Stiletto Finalist. She writes steamy, New Adult romances as well as dark reverse harem romances. She also pens YA romances under J.L. Wyer. Jennilynn is a sassy Southern belle who lives a real-life friends-to-lovers trope with her blue-eyed British husband. When not writing, she's nestled in her favorite reading spot, e-reader in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, enjoying the latest romance novel.
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