Title: ALMOST A BRIDE
Author: Jo Watson
Series: Destination Love, #2
On Sale: January 31, 2017
Publisher: Forever
**Newly revised and expanded, Wattpad sensation Jo Watson's ALMOST A BRIDE is now available in print for the first time!**
That awkward moment you catch your boyfriend in bed with another woman and then mistakenly get arrested #chargesdropped
Annie knows life isn't always fair. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you get mistaken for a crazed intruder when you come home early and find your boyfriend wearing nipple clamps with a coworker on the night you thought he was going to propose to you.
The important thing is to move on, and for Annie that means treating herself to a tropical vacation. But when she runs into her ex and his new woman staying at the same resort, reason is washed out to sea. Caught off guard, Annie pretends she's with Chris, a cute screenwriter she meets on the beach. With his own writing blocked, Chris is happy to help Annie craft a story to save face. Soon Annie isn't just getting over her ex, she's getting under Chris. As her fictional feelings grow increasingly real, Annie has to decide if she's ready to risk her heart on a new relationship.
BUY THE BOOK HERE
THE DESTINATION LOVE SERIES
BURNING MOON, #1
ALMOST A BRIDE, #2
FINDING YOU, #3
REVIEW
Jo Watson's second novel in the Destination Love series is another hit, and I must say I loved it a lot more than Burning Moon.
There was just something about Annie and Chris that was adorable and I totally loved them together!
This book had me laughing from the first page itself.The first chapter!OMG!What a hoot!
Imagine thinking that your boyfriend is going to propose to you, but only to come home mid-work to find your boyfriend boinking the lady-friend he works "closely" with.With a blindfold.And wearing nipple clamps.Lolol!!
And then you get arrested by the police as they think you were trying to kill him with a knife, and to only end up losing the most coveted job!To say that Annie had a bad day is quite an understatement!
After sufficient time spent pity-partying,shifting and attempting to move on, Annie's friends book a group holiday to Mauritius.But, they come down with food poisoning and are delayed, so Annie has to spend the first few days on her own.
And she comes across Chris, a successful screenwriter, who is trying his best to come up with a new screenplay.And he doesn't believe in love!Somehow they end up spending time together and her story pours out.
But to make matters worse, guess who is also on the island?
Yup!Trey(her ex) and Tess, the terrible T-square! :D
One lie turns into another and Chris ends up pretending to be her new "Australian" boyfriend-Boyden, the one she had made up previously to save face.
Soon their fake relationship merges with reality, and Annie is developing feelings for him.But the question is does he feel the same, especially for a guy who is adamant not to believe in love?
This felt just like a rom-com movie, but it was even better!All the characters were well developed- especially Annie and Chris.I loved how Annie still believed in love despite being heartbroken.She is practical,down-to-earth and with a lot of love to give.Chris had his own set of beliefs stemming from his childhood experiences.The banter and interactions between them were amazing!And the chemistry was off the charts!I loved this couple a lot more than Lily and Damien.
I also think that the author's writing has improved greatly since Burning Moon!
The supporting characters were also well done, and I love the group of girlfriends.
The ending chapters were just perfect!Realistic, but still romantic!
You should definitely try this book, if you're looking for a light, rom-com which will give you a stomachache from laughing and leave you with a big smile on your face!
Can't wait for Jane's book in Finding You!I think her story is going to be very interesting! :D
EXCERPT
I knew something was wrong the second I walked up to my front door.
Call it intuition. Call it a sixth sense. But I just knew.
I blame the shoes. The shoes were undoubtedly the cause of all the problems that day. It was the shoes’ fault that I came home early, and the shoes’ fault I was fired.
I suppose I can’t blame the shoes for making me late, though—that was the alarm clock’s fault for rudely deciding not to do its job.And when I finally realized, through the thick haze of sleepiness,that it hadn’t gone off, it was too late. I was already late for work.And when I say work, I mean my brand-new job—job of my dreams—as a fashion assistant at Glamorous Girl mag. I’d just made a total career change, leaving behind a successful job as a stylist in advertising to pursue a job in the magazine industry. It was early days, so I was still desperately trying to impress by being perfect, polite, and oh so obliging. Whether it was the request for the latte to be served at 97.7 degrees with no sugar, soy milk froth, and a sprinkling of organic cocoa powder flown in directly from the foothills of the Andes. Or whether it was for the jasmine-and-lavender-scented candles to be burned in the office for exactly ten minutes before my boss arrived—that was me.Little Miss Annie Obliging.
Because let’s face it, the word assistant is just a glammed-up euphemism for slave. But I was ambitious and determined, so when I realized I wouldn’t be able to attend to the scented candles, or fetch the latte, I panicked. So much so, that I left the house without the said troublemaking, life-ruining, world-annihilating shoes.
Let’s take a moment to talk about the shoes. They weren’t ordinary shoes, oh no, they were none other than the just-off-the-Paris-catwalk-and-not-for-sale-to-mere-mortals-yet Christian Louboutins.
They also happened to be the centerpieces for that day’s shoot.The same rushed panic that had caused me to forget the shoes in the first place had also left me with barely enough time to scrape my hair back into a casual bun and slip on a creased T-shirt and pair of jeans from my floor.
The latter is a bigger sin than you think. Because where I work, wearing anything other than the most fashionable apparel is sacrilege. People practically throw holy water at you and start wailing in Latin for fear that you’ve been possessed by the demon of bad fashion. In fact, a real demon possession, complete with a backward-rolling head and the ability to speak in tongues, would be preferable to the demon of last season’s handbag and Crocs sandals.
So when I finally got to work, underdressed, out of breath, without the shoes, and over an hour late, I was in serious trouble. My boss was throwing a hissy fit, due to lack of flowery scents in her office, and her personal assistant Cedric was in the throes of an overly dramatic caffeine withdrawal, due to lack of latte. And it kept getting worse. Two hours later the panicky fashion director summoned the Louboutins. Those shoes had been troublemakers from the start. It had been an absolute trauma getting them in the first place. They’d been flown into South Africa late the previous night, and I’d been tasked with collecting them. Everyone was holding their collective breath for the grand arrival. So when I was forced to confess to their absence…well, you can only imagine.
When lunch finally arrived, I jumped into my car and sped home.
I had exactly one hour to get in and out before the photo shoot, more than enough time.
I pulled into my driveway at breakneck speed, ran for the front door, slipped my house keys into the lock, and turned—
But…
Something made me stop.
Something told me not to go inside.
Something was very wrong.
I looked around nervously. Everything seemed normal. Peter across the road was blasting his TV as usual, the ratbag Chihuahua from number 45 was running up and down the garden perimeter yapping at an unseen force, and Mildred, my neighbor, was outside watering her hydrangeas.
So why was I hesitating?
I took a deep breath and inched the door open.
Nothing looked out of place.
Everything was exactly the way I’d left it.
Yet everything felt wrong.
I slunk down the hallway toward the kitchen, where I knew I’d find the shoes perched next to the coffeepot. But once inside, I was hit by a terribly eerie sensation…someone was in the house. A shiver licked the length of my spine when my suspicions were confirmed.
Creeeeaaakkk…A noise was coming from my bedroom directly above me.
Shit, shit, shit, there was an intruder in the house!
I launched myself at the cutlery drawer, grabbing the largest knife I could find while simultaneously dialing the police and still managing to hold on to the shoes for dear life.
“Police! Help, there’s an intruder in my house. Forty-Seven Mendelssohn Road, Oaklands. Quick.”
Now what? I’d never been in a situation like this before. What was the correct protocol? Should I hide, evacuate the house, attack the intruder, scream loudly? Or perhaps a combination of the above? I thought for a second before deciding to get the fuck out of there!
But just as I had one foot safely installed outside the front door, I heard another noise. This time it was different. It was…
It sounded like…
My blood ran cold. But it couldn’t be. Trevv was at work. Trevv had a very important day in court, he told me. His client’s final hearing was today. Right now, in fact. I’d called him from my office about an hour ago and he’d told me he was in court.
He was in court, dammit!
I started climbing the stairs.
More noises.
Two voices?
But that was impossible…wasn’t it? The noises grew louder and louder the farther up the stairs I went. I’m not really sure at what point I knew what the noises were or knew what I was going to see when I opened the door. But I just knew.
It’s one thing walking in on your boyfriend having sex with another woman, but it’s another thing entirely walking in on him the second the other woman is coming. She was facing the door but was bouncing up and down so vigorously that her face was a blur. And then suddenly her body stiffened, she threw her head back, opened her mouth, and let out a high-pitched wail. As if that wasn’t self explanatory enough, she decided to toss in a few words for good measure.
“Yes, Trevvy, yes. Oh my God, oh my God, oh Trevvy. Harder!
Ah, ah, ah.” *Pant, pant, pant* “I’m coming!” *Long high-pitched scream*
Now…there were several things wrong with this picture, aside from the obvious. Firstly, who the hell screams like that in bed? No one does! Sex is not so good that you have to break the sound barrier with your squealing dolphin sounds. Secondly, what the hell was she wearing? She was clad in some kind of leathery studded number that looked like it had been worn by one of the Village People. And to make matters worse, Trevv was blindfolded with the tie that I had bought him two Christmases ago and…OH MY GOD…were those, were those…nipple clamps?I felt sick to my stomach.
And thirdly, who was this mystery woman without an ounce of cellulite, without the slightest smidge of fat, and with boobs that seemed to defy all known natural laws of gravity and motion? Which woman can be that damn perfect…
…and then her features came into focus and the answer dawned on me.
Tess.
Tess Blackman.
My boyfriend’s “coworker.” The woman I’d invited into my home on several occasions for dinner. The woman that I always phoned when I couldn’t get hold of Trevv, because I knew they were probably together working on a case, tired and exhausted and burning the midnight oil when they’d rather be at home with their significant others. She had a fiancé after all. Poor overworked Trevv and Tess. God, I was naive. But the show didn’t end there. Tess’s eyes were still closed when Trevv started making some delightful grunting-moaning-squeaking sounds. He’d never made sounds like that with me before. His sweaty hands reached up and grabbed at her hungrily.
Faster.
Harder.
Loud, long moan.
I was frozen. It’s hard to know what to do when you watch your partner of two years with his penis somewhere you wouldn’t even like to imagine, let alone witness in full blinding daylight. Once all their postcoital panting had tapered off, Tess opened her eyes and saw me standing in the doorway. The look on her face was indescribable. Shock and horror and fear all at the same time. And then she opened her mouth and screamed. Trevv then turned his head toward the door and whipped off his blindfold. Our eyes locked and then he did something truly bizarre. Unexpected. He grabbed Tess by the hand and dragged her to the other side of the bed.
“Anne, please…you don’t want to do this.” Trevv threw his hands in the air defensively. He looked terrified. She was bleating hysterically by this stage.
What was going on? Wasn’t I the jilted one? Wasn’t I the one that was supposed to be upset? I started walking toward them, which seemed to only make matters worse.
“Anne, please. Please.” He seemed to be begging now. “Think about what you’re doing. I know this is bad, but this isn’t the way to handle it. Please don’t do this.”
Things happened pretty quickly after that. Suddenly, the room was filled with armed police officers. I was about to tell them they could all go home, when Trevv cut me off.
“She has a knife. She’s going to kill us!” he shouted, pointing at me.
What knife? I glanced at my hands, and that’s when I realized I was still holding the large knife, and it was pointed in their direction.
I quickly turned to explain. “I wasn’t going to—”
“Ma’am…” One of the police officers cut me off and started creeping toward me as if I was a feral pit bull that hadn’t eaten in a week.
“Put down your weapon.”
“I swear, this isn’t what you think, I was just trying to—”
BAM! Face on floor, handcuffs around wrists. Three really painful things happened at that point: One, the knife slipped and cut the entire length of my palm. Two, some of my newly acquired, gorgeous nails snapped off. And three, the crystal-encrusted, six-inch heel of the priceless Louboutin snapped off, rolled across the floor lifelessly, and disappeared under the bed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Watson is an award-winning writer of romantic comedies. Burning Moonwon a Watty Award in 2014. Jo is an Adidas addict and a Depeche Mode devotee.
RAFFLECOPTER
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