Title: Breaking the Fall
Author: Ember Leigh
Genre: Contemporary Romance
About Breaking the Fall:
In the live music industry, Eddie Valenzuela’s seen enough
bands to know what good really sounds like. During one wild night out, he
collides headfirst with an up-and-coming singer who puts ‘good’ to shame. She’s
got the voice, the look, and holy hell, the body too. But after a sizzling week
together, the singer who seemed like Mrs. Right turns out to be Mrs. Not Quite
Right when she disappears without so much as an Instagram handle.
Fiona Frank’s only goal in life was to make it big doing
what she loved: playing music. And her hard work paid off, in the form a
big-time record deal that has her doing TV shows, radio spots, and even her
first international tour. Her career is built on spurning love and staying
single, though she’s never been opposed to the occasional lover. As long as
they don’t last. And she’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that the world
falls in love with The Sin Girl.
But she wasn’t ready for the positive pregnancy test on her
first international tour. There’s only one man that could be the father: Eddie.
While Fiona grapples with the next steps, Eddie is determined to make a family
out of the three of them. But if the label finds out that she’s not only
pregnant but seeing someone, then its goodbye stardom.
Which means she has to figure out how to break her fall.
Catch up on the Series:
Exclusive Excerpt:
Fiona shrank when
she spotted him, offering a small smile that said a thousand different things
at once. He went up to her, pausing a few feet away.
She was gorgeous,
of course. Because she was gorgeous always, even if she’d lied to him, left him
in the dust, and hadn’t spared him a thought until recently for some unknown,
urgent reason. And with the nervousness dancing in her gaze, he wasn’t sure
this was purely an apology mission. Probably she was here to deliver some bad
news. Sorry, I forgot to tell you my Russian mafia boyfriend found out about
you, and now you need a new identity. Or maybe, Sorry, turns out I had
something highly contagious and foreign when we hooked up, and now we’re both
going to die.
Nobody said
anything for a moment. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“Come on.” He
jerked his head toward the bar, and she followed, tugging at the bangles around
her wrist. When they got to the wooden bar top, he pressed his palms to the
surface, searching out a bartender. “I’m in a business meeting. What do you
want?”
His clipped tone
surprised even him. Fiona sighed. Even in distress or exasperation or
confusion, or whatever this was, she still sounded throaty and sexy as hell.
“I…wanted to talk
to you.” She fiddled with her bracelets a moment longer before white-knuckling
the edge of the bar.
“After all this
time?” He couldn’t keep the snide tone out of his voice. “It’s been three
months. What could we possibly have to talk about?”
“I went on tour,”
she said, her voice low but firm. “It’s not like I was around.”
“I guess that’s
why they make phones.” He sniffed, tapping his knuckles against the bar.
“Things
happened,” she said, picking at a cuticle.
“Like what?”
“Like…my first
international tour, ever!” She huffed, dropping her arms. “That’s not exactly
the time to start anything.”
She had a point.
Didn’t mean she was right to just disappear like that.
“Nobody said
anything about starting anything.” But lord, had he wanted to. “More about
common courtesy, you know.”
To her credit,
she looked regretful. There was that, at least. But he was tired of talking
about it. Even though he’d wished for this, he was already sick of the
opportunity to hear her out.
A tense silence
settled between them, and Fiona was licking her lips now. He caught the
bartender’s attention, turning to her once he arrived.
“You getting a
drink?”
She shook her
head. “I can’t stay long.”
More silence. He
ran a thumb up and down his jawline.
“I—”
He glanced at her
sharply. The frustration had officially boiled over. “Cut the childish shit and
just say it. What do you need from me?”
Something dull
slid over her, like a mask maybe, or perhaps a shield. “I’m pregnant.”
The words
hammered through him, knitting his brows together with their dissonance and
urgency. Fiona shifted on her seat, and he caught a gut-punching waft of her
scent. Amber and patchouli.
Why would she be
telling him this?
“It’s yours,” she
suddenly added, as though in response to his thought. He drew a low breath, the
words still not quite sinking in.
“Okay.”
“I just…” A
breathy sigh. “I wanted you to know.”
He nodded, unable
to look away from the glacial tip of the ice cube in his drink. The way it
caught the light when he twisted the glass. The calm it promised, if only he
drank it.
But suddenly, he
wasn’t feeling the old-fashioned.
He turned to
Fiona. Her brows were drawn together, her face tense. As if waiting for some
sort of inevitable backlash.
“You serious?”
“Yes.” She
deflated suddenly, her head dropping to her palms. “Trust me, I wouldn’t
disrupt your life if I wasn’t serious.”
Silence thudded
between them again, so vast and engulfing that for a moment he got lost in the
abyss. So many questions—he had a list of at least
ten right now—questions that he didn’t have to think about before asking. What
would they name the baby? Did she want a girl or a boy? What about when
schooltime arrived—was she hellbent on public or something else?
He swirled his
drink around, the ice cubes clinking bringing him back to the present. Finally
he dared to meet Fiona’s gaze. There was something real and raw there, the same
intensity that had prompted their three-day bender.
The same
intensity that could reel him in again like a fish.
And now that she
was carrying his baby?
Hook, line and
sinker, for the second time.
About the Author:
Ember
Leigh has been writing erotic romance novels since she was far too young. A
native of northern Ohio, she currently resides near Lake Erie with her
Argentinean husband, where they run an Argentinian-American food truck. In
addition to romance novels, Ember also writes travel memoirs and occasionally
updates a couple of blogs. In her free time, she practices Ashtanga yoga, hops
around the world, and eats lots of vegetables.
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