Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
The French Riviera is nowhere near it. In fact, I might need to start a list of un-regrets and this stunning view of the sea will be at the top of it.
We’re in Parc de la Colline du château in Nice the next afternoon, after having trekked up a steep hill to this park. It overlooks the Baie des Anges in the sapphire-blue Mediterranean Sea. This is why people work their asses off all year for a vacation—I feel like I am living inside a travel brochure.
As I stare out at the water, I try to focus on this moment, rather than on last night.
That kiss has been playing on a goddamn loop in my mind, and I need to stop it.
I try to commit to memory the blazing emerald colors of the park and the rusty red of the roofs below, along with the salty scent of the sea floating on the summer breeze. Maybe, just maybe, they can fill the space in my head that she’s taking up. Possibly, I can use them to block out the new item on my list of regrets.
Kissing Hazel Valentine last night.
But it’ll be like scaling a mountain to erase that kiss since she’s currently standing at the edge of the park, talking to the tour group about, what else, kissing.
Fucking kissing.
“Once I discovered this park on a European trip, I knew I had to include it in a book someday,” she tells them.
I seethe.
Bet she took that trip here with a guy. Was it Max? Or maybe it was Jacob, the musician she dated before him, another guy in a history of bad-news boys.
Jacob was a jerk too, married to his guitar and his gigs rather than to her. The dude left her hanging far too many times, canceling, forgetting, then asking for forgiveness.
What is wrong with men?
Present company included.
But what is wrong with Hazel for picking these awful men? Though, I’m the pot calling the kettle black. My track record in picking women is as bad as Hazel’s in choosing men.
Still, I’m sure whatever guy got to take her to Nice, to kiss her, to have her, then to travel home with her, was a dude bro too.
Jealousy claws through me, dragging its jagged nails over my skin.
As she talks about her trip here, I look away, trying to tune her out. I should never have kissed her last night. I know better, yet when I was next to her on that awful couch, the hum of the train seducing us, that wildflower scent of her skin seducing me, I didn’t think.
I felt.
I felt an infuriating resurgence of all that pulsing, aching want I tried to vanquish when I went to Europe more than a year ago. To get away from her.
So I gave in.
Dumb fucking move, since now I can’t get her kiss out of my head.
“And it’s the perfect spot for a kiss, isn’t it?” she asks the group in that charming, vibrant voice that makes her readers adore her.
She’s so perfect for this genre, it kills me.
She has an every-girl charm about her. She’s accessible and chatty. She’s the woman they want to be their bestie. She’s not afraid to show them her real self. When we climbed up the steps earlier, Hazel stumbled on the second to last step, but one of the Book Besties grabbed her elbow, stopping her from falling.
“Guess I’m a clumsy heroine today,” Hazel had said to Maria, with a self-deprecating smile.
“I’ll save you anytime, girl,” Maria had said.
Now, they’re enrapt as Hazel brings them behind the scenes to the Nice chapters in one of her most popular books—Sweet Spot. But I can’t stomach hearing how she crafted that romance. Because I know—I just know—some other man inspired her. He kissed her here in this park, overlooking the Mediterranean, and I hate him.
“And I thought, someday,” Hazel continues, all wistful, and hearts-a-fluttering, “I will write a first kiss scene here, and it’ll be epic.”
“And the Sweet Spot kiss was so epic,” Jackie chimes in, bouncing on her pink Converse-clad toes. “It’s one of my favorite kisses of yours. But I also love the kiss in the alley in Old Nice, just past the market. When Bennett yanks her into a doorway—”
“—and he growls at her, saying, You are maddeningly beautiful,” Alecia puts in, hand on her chest, ready to swoon. “And all I can think about is what your lips taste like.”
“And she says, all sultry and needy, So find out,” Maria says, batting next with their performance of memorized lines from Hazel’s book.
Damn. They’re something else.
Hazel whistles in appreciation. “Wow. Impressive,” she says.
The Book Besties high-five each other.
“It’s one of our favorite kisses. It’s a top five Calgon Take Me Aways kiss,” Jackie says.
“What’s your all-time favorite? Across the whole romance genre. Not just my books,” Hazel asks the whole group. As different people answer, mentioning Kennedy, and TJ, and plenty of others, Hazel listens attentively and once, or maybe twice, I swear she steals a glance my way.