Kristen Ashley’s sixth River Rain novel is out this week, and you can read an excerpt below from this emotional new tale of friendship, family, and taking new chances on life and love. It’s the long awaited story of Nora and Jamie.
Excerpt
I made Jamie laugh. He made me smile.
And through all this, I woke up to what was happening and started panicking because…
I was his damned girlfriend.
No, I was more.
We were more.
We just were that without sex.
I was his (he said so his damned self!).
He was mine.
I loved him.
He loved me (he said that too!).
So what in the hell was going on?
On that thought, I engaged my phone in order to call in assistance.
Mika answered on the third ring with the quip, “I see my forty-eight hours of Nora purgatory is up.”
“I think I’m Jamie’s girlfriend,” I blurted.
“What?” she shrieked in delight.
Yes, Mika Stowe, coolest woman on the planet (and that wasn’t my title for her, it was many others, though I agreed with it) shrieked with delight.
“Don’t get excited,” I cautioned.
“How could I not be excited? I knew it! Hey!” she cried suddenly. I heard what seemed to be skin slapping against skin. And then, “Stop that! Te—”
There were jostling noises and then I had Teddy’s voice. “Nora, darling, we must speak.”
“Give that back!” I heard Mika shout.
“What’s going on?” I asked Teddy.
“Do you know that Paloma is seeing AJ Oakley?”
My stomach took a dive.
“Seeing?” I asked.
“Seeing,” he confirmed.
“I saw them at an event together some time ago, but—”
“Well, he’s—”
Teddy didn’t finish because Mika was back. “Talk to me about this being-Jamie’s-girlfriend business.”
“We already know she’s his girlfriend,” Teddy stated in the background, then demanded, “Hand me the phone.”
“No, this is more important,” Mika refused Teddy.
“You don’t deal with catty bitches enough,” Teddy’s voice retorted. “When they’re making moves, that takes priority over everything.”
I was in the unfortunate position I couldn’t agree or disagree.
Everything seemed to be a priority.
“Mika,” I said commandingly. “Tell Teddy I’ll talk to him in a second.”
“Nora says she’ll talk to you after she talks to me,” Mika said to Teddy. Then to me, she said, “He’s pouting, but I’m back.”
“All right, I should be up top, mixing Jamie a cocktail right now, so I don’t have a lot of time,” I began.
Then I ran it down as quickly as I could.
All of it.
Jamie answering my phone, then seizing it when Roland called. His “You’re mine/I take care of those I love” speech at breakfast the morning before. His confusing comment of “as I’ll allow myself to have you.” His extreme agitation that Roland was pestering me. The whole spiel about Belinda and my Vogue-style society page shot and the rest of it. And last, there was the entirety of that mind mess, yet no kissing, touching or making love, but there was a lot of our usual getting on swimmingly with each other.
So…yes.
I told her all of it.
I finished with, “And now, I’m in that short Badgely Mischka mini-shift-dress I have. You know, the one with the tropical print, three-D sequined flowers and the same print sheer balloon sleeves.”
“I know it,” Mika confirmed.
“It’s too short.”
“You have great legs.”
“It’s too young.”
“You’re as young as you feel, and you look fantastic in that dress. Please tell me you’re wearing the silver sandals with the four-inch stiletto heel.”
“I’m wearing the silver stilettos,” I whispered. “It’s a fuck-me outfit, Mika.”
“It’s a fuck-me outfit, sister,” Mika crowed.
“He’s not ready to go there,” I reminded her.
“That dress is gonna make him ready.”
“He said ‘as I’ll allow myself to have you,’ which means he won’t allow himself to have me,” I stressed.
“I think after he gets a look at you in that dress, he’s going to allow himself to have a lot more of you,” she returned.
“Oh God,” I moaned, then executed a graceful fall to seated at the end of the bed I wished someone (though, not Jamie, he’d tease me relentlessly about it) was there to witness, because it was perfection.
“Just…ride it out,” Mika advised.
“How?” I snapped. “Like I said, my dearest, he’s not going there.”
“Okay, allow me to let you in on something,” she began.
“Do it fast, because I don’t have a lot of time. Jamie is waiting, and I still need to talk to Teddy.”
“Right, then. This whole yacht thing was not about you. We know you’re there. It’s about Jamie getting his shit sharp.”
Oh.
That made sense.
“If I were ever to diet, which I’d never,” she kept on.
“Never,” I agreed on a faint shiver at the very thought.
“But if I were, put me in a room with a brownie, I’m good. For a while. But not for very long. Then that brownie is in my belly.”
Completely made sense.
Chloe was genius.
And…
Oh dear God.
I was a brownie, and Jamie had been on a very long diet.
“Therefore, ride it out,” Mika finished.
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River Rain - Recommended Reading Order
(standalone stories with interconnected characters)
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