SHADES OF LOVE

SNEAK PREVIEW

*NEW CHAPTERS SOON*

Here is a sneak peek of what's coming. Enjoy!

***

You've always been that way. You made your own decisions, you stood on your own two feet, you pulled yourself up when you fell down, and you had your shit together. You've never been afraid to go solo and to trust yourself. And you were continually looking for ways to be even more self-sufficient, to carve your own life path, to do what you wanted.

But you also loved. And loved terribly, beautifully, fully. You loved with a passion that was sickening. A consuming, knotting, mess of emotion that interweaved you with another person. A love that twisted your feelings, threw you upside-down, and made you put your faith and stubbornness and fiercely-independent self in the hands of this other person. You meshed your life with another person's. Willingly. Happily. The path you had set for yourself became tangled with that person's.

And this both thrilled and terrified you. Suddenly you felt weak, dependent, breakable. You had become the woman that let a man in, who trusted him, who could easily be crushed by the same hands that touched her.

You couldn't seem to find a balance because you craved both things so equally. And so you lived in this place of tension—what you wanted and who you were, what you were becoming and yet so scared to be. You were an independent woman. A woman with a strong heart and passionate soul. You couldn't let go of that part of you, the part that decided for yourself, found strength in your ability to stand alone. Yet you couldn't be afraid to love. You couldn't be afraid to embrace that ridiculously emotional side of you, the side that blended your strength with your passion. The side that made you whole.

You were not complete without both—without the strength you carried, without the tears and words and kisses you freely gave. You were a strong woman. You were an emotional woman. You were a perfect mix of both.

***

You were investing everything in your post graduate certificate, as much as in your work and your precious daughter, so at the end of the day you'd run out of gas. But that's where Ignazio came in. He fueled you in some way. He made you feel alive and made your time worthwhile.

One thing you had learned about being a single mum throughout the years was that you get to weed out the jerks quickly - whether you wanted them to or not, the players would run away screaming while the good guys would stick around. And Ignazio stuck around.

***

It was a pretty fun lunch. Ignazio and them were laughing and jabbering in Italian all the time. It was a bliss to watch them together. When Ignazio laughed, it just filled you with happiness. And his smile... God, his smile could light up a room. When he smiled, your heart melted. And you felt your insides warm.

You just loved how he – and his buddies – was confident enough in his masculinity that he could show a softer side, and be sweet to each other, to friends and family. So damn cute! But you guessed that was just part of being Italian.

"Need any help?"

The best part about that man? Aside from being smoking hot and the mind-blowing sex? He was sincere. He had loads of money, but helping you with menial household tasks was a no-brainer for him and that was very, very attractive to you.

"I've got it handled. I also need to take a trip to the grocery to pick up a couple things?"

"We could all go."