Sweeter by the Second

“I like seeing you in my bed.”

I frowned at the man who stood by the foot of the bed, a smug look on his face. “You like seeing me bedridden?”

Tony laughed and sat down. “Oh, Rin. I’ve forgotten how literal you are.” Shaking his head, he traced the bedcover’s crochet patterns with a finger. “No, I mean I like seeing you here . . . in my house, in my room. Not bad after what—ten years?”

I smirked. “Talk about delayed wish fulfillment.”

“Well, you’re here now.” Tony looked me straight in the eyes and smiled.

At that moment, I swear I felt weak at the knees.

Er . . . not entirely true. I’ve been feeling rather weak for the past three days—the effect of a bad case of food poisoning (damned roadside shawarma craving).

Ignoring the way my heart hitched in my chest, I rolled my eyes at him. “I knew it. This was all a plot to get me here.”

Tony chuckled. “Nu-uh, this is all on you, Miss Piggy . . . wandering off by yourself . . .”

“I wasn't alone. Mimi was with me.” I was defensive. I’d just wanted a few hours by myself—to cope with Tony’s sudden reappearance in my life.

“Refusing my offer to drive you . . .”

“You had work!” I protested.

“And eating street food when a perfectly good dinner was waiting for you here.”

“I’m paying for my sins now. Happy?” Believe me, visiting the toilet every few minutes was torture.

“Tonying, stop pestering Rina.” Manang Dalma, Tony’s housekeeper came in the room and put a tray of steaming lugaw on the bedside table. “Here hija, see if you can keep this down.” She helped me sit up and handed me the bowl and a spoon. Frowning, she shooed Tony off, “Go and eat or your breakfast will get cold.”

“Opo.” Tony saluted her before he turned to leave. “Take good care of my girl, Manang.”

Laughing, he ducked to escape the balled-up napkin I threw at him.

    Exorcising my Ex

I glanced at my watch just to make sure—my efficient, punctual daughter was officially ten minutes late. Smirking, I thought of all the mileage I’d get from teasing her about it. Pam got riled almost as easily as her mother did.

Just as if I had conjured her from thin air, a tall brunette appeared in the doorway. Her long hair was perfectly styled, and her sleeveless shift fit lovingly over her trim curves. Large eyes, framed by the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen, slowly scanned the room. The moment they met mine, they flared in surprise before narrowing.

I rose to greet her. “Viv. This is a surprise.” I bussed her cheek, lingering a moment longer than necessary.

She drew back, but not before I heard her sharp intake of breath. Glancing around, she asked, “Where’s Pam?”

“On her way, I suppose.” I helped her into a seat. “Didn't know you’d be here today, Viv.”

“I didn't know you’d be here either.”

“Hmm. I wonder if—” I broke off as both our phones vibrated.

Sure enough, it was a lengthy message from Pam:

sPam: Hi, Mom and Dad!

Yes, I’m with Tita Joy and I’ll be sleeping over at their place with her and Kesha tonight.

Yes, this is a setup. Happy anniversary! :-) Yeah, I know you never married, but when you were together, this was your anniversary (it was in mom’s scrapbook). This was also probably the day I was conceived fourteen years ago, so Happy Conception Day to me, too *\(ˆoˆ)⁄*

Anyway, I just thought that now Mom is back in town again it would be nice if you could catch up with each other.

I already paid for dinner. This took quite a chunk out of my med school nest egg, so you guys better sit and enjoy it.

I love you both!

P.S. I really, really don’t want to be grounded forever. I love you!

I shook my head. My girl was devious. Just like her Dad.

Today is the cover reveal for Prom Queen Perfect by Clarisse David. This cover reveal is organized by Lola's Blog Tours. 

Age category: Young Adult

You can find Prom Queen Perfect on Goodreads

Clarisse David is a Young Adult and New Adult author from the land of epic heat waves a.k.a. the Philippines. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and cannot survive without Taylor Swift songs, red lipstick, and books. When not hanging out on Twitter, she can be found working on her latest writing project.

You can find and contact Clarisse here:

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Forever Night Stand

Released on December 20, 2015
by Ysa Arcangel
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Links:
Goodreads

Amazon

 

SYNOPSIS:

Brandy Curtis is a strong and independent career woman who does not care for commitment. She prefers no-strings-attached, one night stands because that's all she can give with what little free time she has. This is the life she has chosen and the life she is used to.

However, everything changed when she met Ivo, a gorgeous doctor with irresistible charm. He was just supposed to be another hookup, but he quickly became so much more.  It started as a one night stand which was followed by another, and another. The more nights they spent together, the more Brandy felt that life had given her something to live for.

Things seemed perfect... until a visit to the doctor sends her world crashing. The timing couldn't be worse. As her heart gets closer to Ivo, her memories begin to fade.

With her family history of Alzheimer's and at great risk of acquiring the disease, Brandy will take the chance to live her life with Ivo and fight the condition that threatens to claim her forever.

EXCERPT:

GIVEAWAY:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

The rooftop garden was an oasis--boxes and boxes of earth nurturing a variety of flowers and vegetables forming a labyrinthine space for contemplation. Butterflies and birds occasionally flew about, as if acknowledging the peace-within-peace of the place. Rosie comes up here because other people don’t; to them, the ground floor with the smoker-friendly lobby, gym, and swimming pools were much more interesting.

To Rosie, it’s the only place outside of the condominium unit that made her feel comfortably small.

She practically ran into it, taking huge gulps of air and heading for the nearest rooftop edge. The elevator must have broken down. That’s why the girls were taking the stairwell. She kept her eyes on the purple-gray horizon and willed herself to calm down. The eyes were gone, she told herself. The whispers were all in her head.

She felt Christian’s looming presence to her left; it was curiously similar to the feeling of standing under the shade of a tree. He had a strange smell to him, like wood after a storm. Her hands and legs stopped shaking. Her breathing slowed. She felt part of herself uncoil.

As if sensing her recovery, he moved to a more polite distance and quietly sat on his heels, digging his dull, dark fingers into the soil in one of the boxes; this one had the vibrant ixora growing in it, Rosie noted. “Didn’t realize that you can have such great stuff so high up,” he said, sounding less agitated than he did earlier. “Who’d have thought, huh?”

She felt herself smile. “It takes a lot of work, but it’s worth it.” She cupped one of the ixora blooms in her hands, it made her feel like she held fireworks in her palms. “This rooftop used to be practically empty, you know. Someone started this garden and just gave up. It took a while, but we managed to get this place up to scratch.”

“We?” he asked.

“Mom was a landscape designer,” she explained wistfully. “She used to design gardens for some really important people, but she didn’t always have the budget to sustain her own. Thankfully, the owner of this complex loved her work and asked her to design a green space that he can add to the brochures. This was her garden.” She stepped away from the flowers, stretching her arms high above her head. “And now it’s mine. I’m practically the only one maintaining this, and I get paid for it. Not that the management needs to do that; this is just a hobby. It's not like I want to turn this into a business. I'd need to interact with people in person. Guh.” She shuddered at that last thought.

Christian rested his forearm on the planter and studied her. “You like plants more than people,” he noted bluntly.

“I like everything more than people,” she corrected him, sighing and leaning against a planter. “People are...they make things up about you. If they see how different you look. If they decide that you don’t fit in. If they think they can walk all over you. Plants don’t do that. They feed you, or heal you, or make the world beautiful.” A bird landed next to her, and she petted it absently with a pointer finger. “Animals are like that too. They know where they and other things in the world fit. But people? We never know where we belong and what we’re meant to do. We just keep hurting each other.”

The tall man raised his eyebrows at her. “That bad, huh?”

Rosie found herself smiling wryly. “Well, maybe some people are okay. Like dad and mom. And the owner of this building. Maybe my employers too--I work as a virtual assistant, though, so I don't know how they'd react to..." she motioned towards her sizeable body. "I’m finding you likable enough, though. You’re polite. Aunt Chloe, on the other hand...” she wrinkled her nose. “I don’t trust her. She just barged in. No courtesy whatsoever. I really don’t think we can be related to someone that rude.”

He shrugged. “Few living people take to her, to be honest. It’s because she barges in whether you like it or not.” He flicked his eyes toward the sky. “As for not being related...I’d like to think that everything is related to everything else. Like the mountains to the sky and the sky to the sun.”

She caught him hiding a grin, and she placed her fists on her hips. “You’re not really my cousin, are you?”

Careful to keep his fingers in the soil, he sat on the floor in earnest and inclined his head, letting out a puff of laughter. “I told her this wouldn’t fly. Your sort are always clever, if not wise.”

“My sort?”

He cursed, realizing what he’d just revealed. “Uh...please forget what I said.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh, no. You don’t get to weasel out of this. Explain.”

He hesitated. She glared.

“You probably won’t like it, Miss,” he said in defeat.

“I don’t care, and why are you talking like that?” she muttered, deflating a bit. “What in the world is going on? Who are you people? And what the hell am I supposed to be?”

He stood up, pulling his fingers out of the soil regretfully and wiping them off on his pants. “It’s better if Mistress Huk-I mean Chloe explains what you are, who she is, and what’s going on,” he murmured nervously. “The best case is your father telling you himself. As for what I am…”

He cleared his throat. “I’m kapre, Miss. A tree giant. And all I’m allowed to tell you at the moment is that you outrank me.”

~*~

Well THAT was unexpected, Rosie thought. She expected him to lie, but didn’t realize he could be so bad at it. Everyone knew that the kapre had died out a long time ago. Every 5-year-old was taught to give respect to old trees, where those guardians once resided. Their loss, teachers of old stressed, had been as terrible as the loss of Sinukuan, the last Maria.

Clearly, that man was joking. Or possibly insane.

All in all, though, she felt she took it rather well. She’d stared at him in incredulity for what seemed to be an appropriate amount of time before turning on her heel and starting on the path back to the stairwell. She didn’t dignify his ridiculous claims, and she could take pride in that.

“Wait!” Christian called out. “I’m telling the truth!”

She turned around to look at him, and suddenly felt lost. She heard herself stutter. “K-kapre are extinct,” she said, not quite feeling as sure as she originally did. “They have been since the Fairy Queens died about two thousand years ago. Everyone knows that!”

“More Fairy Queens are born sooner or later, miss,” the giant said, suddenly looking taller than he had before. “And we kapre never died. We just slept until we found a new Queen to serve.”

Rosie tried to ignore the electric shivers going up and down her spine. “Are you saying that a Fairy Queen is walking around right now? That she’s wandering around waking all you guys up? And what does THAT have to do with you being here?”

“Her Graceful Regent doesn’t have to wander around, Miss,” he responded, placing his hands at the small of his back and standing like a soldier. “She just has to be. The rest of us just respond to her existence. You have to understand, Miss. The Fairy Queen is a force of life, and the world hasn’t been alive since the Sinukuan Queen. As for why I'm here...I guess I was hoping that traveling with Mistress Chloe will let me have a glimpse of what the new Queen might be like.”

She began to back away. “You’re nuts.” She tried to reorient herself, but couldn’t, for the life of her, remember how to get back to the stairwell.

“I’m sorry for doing this, Miss,” Christian said. “I can’t let you leave until Mistress Chloe’s finished talking to your father about...important matters.”

Rosie stopped moving, watched his face, studied his posture. She closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. “You’re making me feel lost,” she told him.

“Yes miss.”