domineering alphas, ones you want to hate but end up loving. Her tales are best told in series form, adding depth to each story, giving the readers more time to get to know the characters and allowing them the opportunity to lose themselves in her dangerous worlds.
Check out her bestselling novels at aleatharomig.com
SAINT
* * *
COLLEEN HOOVER
ONE
ONE MORE STEP would mean certain death.
Maybe not in the sense of Reya’s mortality, but it would absolutely mean the death of her morals, her values...her marriage.
Knowing all of this, Reya still makes the decision to step forward, into Cam’s arms.
Into the arms of certain death.
I stare at the sentences I just typed, knowing I’ll likely delete them as soon as I wake up tomorrow. That’s how this entire book has gone so far. Everything I write one day is deleted the next.
I’m never going to finish this. I’ll be stuck in this cabin for an entire month at this rate. Not that being stuck in this cabin is torture in any way. I like the solitude. Always have. It’s why I rent it several times a year—so I can escape to the private lakeside in the country and shed the skin of Sacramento. It keeps me from succumbing to the guilt of trading the country life I grew up with for the city.
I down the rest of my wine and decide to call it a night, but my computer begins chiming. I glance at the incoming call and am relieved to see it’s Candice, my critique partner. My best friend. We both got into this writing career at the same time about five years ago. And for five years now, we’ve saved each other from walking away from the career no less than a dozen times.
I answer her video chat, and even though I’ve only been holed up in this cabin for three days, it’s a relief to see a familiar face. I’m in California and she’s in New York. It’s almost midnight here, but she looks wide awake on my screen.
“Everything okay?” I ask her. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“All good,” she says, her voice way too chipper for the time. “Just wrote The End. Needed someone to congratulate me.”
“Congratulations!” I say, understanding her excitement now. She’s been working on this book for six months, so I really am happy for her. A little envious, but happy.
“Thanks,” she says. “Do you want to take this conversation live?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “How bad do I look?”
“You couldn’t look bad if you tried,” Candice says. “Okay, I’m merging our screens and going live in ten seconds.”
I run my fingers under my eyes to wipe away any leftover mascara residue. Our readers are used to us going live together in the middle of the night, so they’re used to seeing us at our worst. Candice and I were both terrible at social media when we started out, but once we began having our discussions about our writing process over live videos, it’s really made a big impact on our numbers of followers. Writers like to watch us because the things we say validate the struggles they go through, but readers also like our live discussions because they get tidbits of our books long before they release. I guess in a way, it’s insider access to those who don’t mind a spoiler or two.
“Live in three seconds,” Candice says.
I jump up and flip on the kitchen light so my screen won’t be so dark. Right when I sit back down, we’re live. When we first started doing these, it felt a little awkward. But we go live so often now—sometimes twice a week—that it’s second nature. Most of the time I forget people are watching us. I just feel like I’m talking to Candice one-on-one.
“How’s the writing going?” Candice asks.
I shrug. “I’m getting nowhere. I’ve been at the lake cabin three days so far and have one page.”
“You need to talk through it?”
“I was about to go to bed when you called. Already shut my brain off for the night.”
Candice groans. “I was hoping for a chapter or two. I want to read about the hot cop before I go to bed.”
I smile. “You’re sweet. But you and I both know the book is completely unrealistic so far.”
“You’re way too hard on yourself, Megan.”
“I’m my own worst critic.”
She rolls her eyes. “Did you at least decide on character names yet?”
“I got that far. Cameron is the hot cop. He goes by Cam. The girl will