I wanted you to be my girl – #NewRelease #SecondChanceRomance #HolidayRomance #Giveaway

Happy Saturday! I’m celebrating the release of my holiday romance novella, Once upon a Blizzard. Today I’ve got an exclusive excerpt, not shared anywhere else, and a contest: leave me a comment and you could win a free copy of the book!

Blurb

No electricity. No water. Plenty of heat.

Suzanne and Gino have a history going back to high school, but for more than a decade the workaholic CEO has been thousands of miles from her New England home town.

A mistletoe kiss at a Christmas party rekindles the old spark and Suzanne finds some things do indeed get better with age. When Gino rescues her from a blizzard, though, she discovers that she's not the only love in his life. Gino shares his bed and his colonial-era farm house with taciturn painter Harris Steele.

Snowed in with two lusty men who truly seem to care, she wonders why she’s so determined to return to her lonely West Coast life. Is there really a chance for a holiday happy ending?

Note: this book was previously published by Totally Entwined with the title Almost Home. It has been revised and re-edited for this edition.

Exclusive Excerpt

Gino was dressed far more casually than Suzanne, in a holly-green V-necked sweater, jeans that looked painted onto his corded thighs, and scuffed cowboy boots. Suzanne, in contrast, wore red velvet, pearls and heels. She felt her cheeks burn as his eyes roamed over her body. The dress wasn’t particularly tight, but it clung to the sleek, curvy form she managed to maintain through arduous hours at the gym. Rationally, she knew she was attractive, especially for a woman on the far side of forty, but somehow she felt as insecure as she had as a teen.

“You look pretty fantastic yourself,” Gino replied. “But then, I always thought you were a knockout.”

“Oh, come on!” She waved her hand to dismiss the compliment. She didn’t want to think about the past. “Anyway, what have you been up to? Last I heard from Helena, you were in New York at some top firm. You must be a partner by now.”

“Nope. I moved back to the Pioneer Valley three years ago.”

“What?”

“The job was killing me. I was making tons of money, but I was too busy to spend it. I wasn’t enjoying myself. And as you may remember,” he said with a gleam in his eye, “I like to have a good time.”

She had a sudden, vivid recollection of eighth grade science class. He and Jerry sat on either side of her at the long lab table, teasing her about her snug, pink angora sweater, stirring up her hormones and making her miserable. The two of them had driven her crazy. She’d scribbled page after page about them in her diary, fantasies as lurid as her thirteen-year-old mind could concoct.

She dragged herself away from her memories. “So what are you doing now?”

“I work for Franklin County Legal Aid. And I do a bit of farming.”

“Farming?” Suzanne laughed, incredulous. She couldn’t imagine Gino driving a tractor or shovelling manure.

“Yeah. We’ve got twenty acres in New Salem and a dozen milk cows. We sell homemade cheese and organic veggies.”

Suzanne couldn’t help noticing the plural pronouns. “Are you married then?”

Gino took her hand, grinning. He brushed his thumb along the inside of her wrist, sending sweet chills up her spine. “Not at the moment. I’m totally available.”

He hadn’t lost his knack. After two decades, he could still make her flustered and confused.

“And what about you? Helena told me you’re CEO of some high tech company out in Silicon Valley.”

“CompuGenix.” She dug into the little bag hanging on her shoulder and pulled out a card. As Gino studied it, she slipped into professional mode. “We develop computational tools for genetic engineering and analysis. It’s a spin-off from my dissertation research. Our technology automatically generates and evaluates alternative base sequences, compares them to standard databases and identifies promising genes for pharmaceutical or therapeutic development.”

“Wow! I have absolutely no idea what that means. No, don’t try to explain it to me. I could never keep up, intellectually, with you and Jerry.”

The name of their mutual friend froze the conversation. Suzanne’s eyes misted with tears.

“I’m sorry,” murmured her companion. “It was tactless of me to mention him.”

“That’s okay.” Suzanne tried to pull herself together. She didn’t like losing control of her emotions. “He’s part of our history. We should talk about him.”

“Not if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“No, really—we should talk. I need to know what you think about—what he did. When Helena emailed me the news—what was it, three years ago?—I couldn’t believe it. He had everything. A great career, a family, security… Do you have any idea why…?” She couldn’t finish the sentence. It hurt too much. “You were his closest friend.”

“We’d been out of touch for quite a while. It was a shock to me too.”

“I couldn’t go to the funeral. Did you?”

Now, finally, Gino looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, I did. It was rough. Laurie was totally destroyed and the kids simply didn’t understand…”

“Neither did I. He was so smart and confident, so goal-directed and sure of his future.”

“So handsome. So sexy,” Gino added, with just the tiniest twinkle in his eyes. “Everyone wanted him. But he chose you.”

“For a while.” All the feelings came rushing back, the love, the excitement and the terrible disappointment when Jerry had told her they were through—when he dumped her for that cute little secretarial student, because he felt threatened by her intelligence. He’d actually told her that, the bastard—that she made him feel inadequate.

“I couldn’t compete,” her companion added, a touch of sadness in his voice.

“What?” Gino’s voice pulled her back to the present.

“I always admired you, Suzy Q. I wanted you to be my girl. But you were taken.”

Buy Links

Kinky Literature – https://kinkyliterature.com/book/906-once-upon-a-blizzard-a-bisexual-holiday-romance/

Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPMPZ7NG

Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BPMPZ7NG

Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1263368

Barnes and Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/once-upon-a-blizzard-lisabet-sarai/1142821106

Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/once-upon-a-blizzard

Apple Books - https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id6445045725

Add on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65004121-once-upon-a-blizzard

Don’t forget to comment to enter my giveaway!