Showing results by publisher "Marley Valentine" in All Categories

I couldn’t tell you when I fell in love with Gael Herrera, but I wish I knew how to make it stop. Falling in love with a straight man is a rookie mistake. But falling in love with my soon-to-be-married-to-a-woman best friend is nothing but heartache. Through all the years, and all the men I’ve fooled around with, he’s always been at the back of my mind. An unrequited crush I wish I could shake. A dream that was never going to come true. When I whisk him off to a surprise bachelor party weekend in Vegas, I surrender to the idea that this is an opportunity for me to finally let go.

When I met Leonardo Ricci, he was determined I would only be a fling, while I was certain he was my forever. Seven years later, we’re the perfect couple. Happy, married, and in love–in sickness and health, till death do us part.

Deacon was the elusive boy next door, the older brother who had no time for his family, the man who moved away. I never imagined a world where he would also be the love of my life. The man who breathed air into my struggling lungs. But against all odds, here we are, five and a half years later, loving and living. Now it’s our wedding day, and I’m building a life filled with everything I only ever dreamed of.

I thought I had my life all figured out. But after a college football accident leaves me deaf, I was learning how to live all over again. I expected the anger, the frustration, and the struggle to readjust, but what I didn't expect to happen amongst the chaos, was to fall in love. Especially not with two men.

Two halves of a whole, Arlo Bishop and I were both unwanted kids brought together by the foster system. Dealing with the aftermath of neglect and abandonment, we grew up side-by-side and found solace in one another. But somewhere along the way, Arlo wanted and needed and loved drugs more. So I broke my own heart to save his. Now, four years later, I’m back in L.A. and face-to-face with my past. I didn’t plan on a second chance, fear of history repeating making it hard to forgive and even harder to forget. But with only one touch, one kiss, I was taken back to where it all started.

At twenty-four, I'd already lived a thousand lives. I was a daughter. An orphan. A foster kid. A sister. Someone to everyone, and yet I was unrecognizable to myself. I spent my time keeping everybody else afloat, while I was slowly drowning. Until I met her. The first time she walked into my life, I was mesmerized by the mysterious stranger. When I came face-to-face with her a second time, I was being introduced to my best friend's mother.

Raising my sister's autistic son was an unexpected plot twist in my own life. But I loved every minute of it. Even if those minutes meant everything ran on a rigid schedule with little time for anything else. I lived my life for him: software developer by day, bartender by night. He’d want for nothing. And I had no time to want anything. But lately it’s getting harder to do it all on my own.