THE DEBT
By Karina Halle
Publisher: Metal Blonde Books
Publication
Date: AUGUST 29, 2016
Her life changed in an instant.
And he's the only one who could have
prevented it.
From
the New York Times bestselling author of The Pact and The Lie comes a new
standalone contemporary romance about those McGregor men.
Jessica Charles shouldn't have even been in
London when the unthinkable happened.
She should have been back at home in
Edinburgh, perhaps hanging with her boyfriend, having drinks with her sister or
doing yoga with her group of friends. She should have been going on in her
normal, dependable life as always.
But on that fateful day in August, when a
mentally-ill ex-soldier opened fire in public, Jessica's world changed forever.
Now single and crippled from the gunshot
wounds, Jessica finds herself scared and alone, losing faith in herself and
humanity with each agonizing moment that passes.
That is until a stranger enters her life. A
stranger who makes her live again.
Keir McGregor has always been the strong,
silent type. Throw in tall, dark, and handsome and you've got pretty much the
perfect Scotsman.
Except Keir is anything but perfect. He's
got a past he's running away from and a guilty conscience he can't seem to
shed. But the more time he spends with Jessica, the more he falls in love with
her.
And the more his secret threatens to tear
them apart.
He may have been a stranger to her.
But she’s never been a stranger to him.
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“
EXCERPT: “You’re not going anywhere,” he says. “Sit. I’ll get you another drink.”
“It’s getting late,” I say feebly but I sit down
anyway, my leg giving a protest of pain.
“You need something for that?” he says, noticing my
wince.
“The scotch will do fine,” I tell him quickly, not
wanting him to make a fuss. “But really, I should go.”
“Why?” he asks from the kitchen. I hear the top pop
off the bottle, the slosh of liquid in the glass. “Where do you have to be?”
I have to think about that for a moment. He comes over
and holds out the glass. “I won’t keep you here if you don’t want to be here.
But if you do want to be here, you don’t need to make any excuses.”
I take the glass from him, holding it delicately in my
fingers. He stands over me, a massive wall, waiting for some kind of response.
“I just…” I begin. “I…” I take a sip for bravery.
Swallow. “I’m not very good at this.”
“Good at what?”
“At…this. Being with a man.”
When he doesn’t say anything to that, I look up at
him. He’s got a peculiar smile on his face, his brows raised. “You call this
being with a man?”
I clear my throat, feeling my cheeks grow hot. “I
mean. I’ve told you before –”
“Yes, how you don’t do relationships, how you don’t do
sex.”
“I never said I don’t do sex,” I remind him quickly.
His eyes never stop searching my face. “Then what is
it? What are you afraid to say?”
I have the sudden urge to flee and I know it must show
because he suddenly points at me and says, “Don’t you dare say you have to go
again. I want you to go back to what you said, that you’re not good at this.
What is this? Us? You and me? There’s nothing mystifying about you and me,
Jessica. You know quite well how I feel.”
I stare at him in shock. I do? “How?”
He looks off with an air of impatience. “I invited you
to dinner, you turned me down.”
“But then you said just as friends.”
“And I meant it. But there are different types of
friends. It’s up to you to decide what kind we are.”
I put my drink down with a clunk. “Holy pressure.” And
now it’s not just my face going hot but my entire body, flushed from head to
toe.
“You’re on fire, little red,” he says, his gaze
skirting over my limbs in such a hungry way I can almost feel them on my skin.
“I have to say, I like this look on you. Hot and bothered.”
“Back with the innuendos again,” I comment but my
voice is weak.
“No, no innuendos this time. You came looking for me
tonight not because you wanted to confess but because you want something from
me. What is it? What do you want from me? What do you think I can give you?”
Jesus. This is so utterly unnerving. His words slice
right through me, his eyes still peeling under the layers, trying to get at
something I’m not even sure of myself.
If I lie, he’ll know. I can only be honest with him.
“I want…” I take in a deep breath, my eyes breaking
away. “I want…company.”
“Company?” He sounds surprised.
I nod. “That’s the truth. I’m lonely. And I’m afraid.
And I’m tired of being both those things. I want to be with someone who makes
me forget who I am. You make me feel fearless in a way I didn’t think
possible.”
There. That’s the truth. Most of it. It hangs in the
air, thickening the tension like flour to stock.
He sits down next to me, has a mouthful of Scotch.
“Wow,” he says, running his hand over the beard on his jaw. “And here I was
thinking you wanted my cock.”
I burst out laughing. So does he, a big wonderful
bellow. The tension in the room eases up a notch.
“Sorry,” I tell him when I catch my breath. “I guess
they can both mean the same thing.”
He sucks in his lip briefly, his eyes taking a lustful
turn. “If you want it to.” We stare at each other for a few heavy beats. Then
his focus trails back to my gaze and he says, “Why don’t you stay over?”
And there I have it. The chance to know what those
full lips would feel like on mine, what his skin would taste like. I swallow
hard.
Karina Halle is a former travel writer and music journalist and The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling author of The Pact, Racing the Sun, Sins & Needles and over 25 other wild and romantic reads. She lives on an island off the coast of British Columbia with her husband and her rescue pup, where she drinks a lot of wine, hikes a lot of trails and devours a lot of books. Halle is represented by the Waxman Leavell Agency and is both self-published and published by Simon & Schuster and Hachette in North America and in the UK. Hit her up on Instagram at @authorHalle, on Twitter at @MetalBlonde and on Facebook.
You can also visit www.authorkarinahalle.com and sign up for the newsletter for news, excerpts, previews, private book signing sales and more.
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