Excerpt + Giveaway: More of You - Vilma Iris | Lifestyle Blogger

My daddy warned me never to fall for a boy like Jace Jacobs…

The second I saw him walk through the door, I knew he was trouble.

A gorgeous rebel with a bad attitude and a huge chip on his shoulder.

My heart warned me. I didn’t listen. I saw something protective and good beneath the fierce, tough exterior.

I fell hard and fast.

He promised we’d be together forever, and then left me with a broken heart.

Now, ten years later, Jace Jacobs is standing at my door.

Sexier than he’s ever been.

Provocative and commanding.

Successful and powerful.

The man I always knew he would become.

But I promised myself I’d never lose my heart to him again.

Even time couldn’t dim our chemistry. One glance of his intense eyes, and I become weak. One brush of his hand, and he brings me to my knees.

Little do I know, Jace holds the key to everything I’ve lost and everything that threatens my future.

Now he will either save me, or he will break me all over again . . .

Series:

Confessions of the Heart

Book 1

Can be read as a standalone

Book Type:

Second-Chance Romance

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More of You
By A.L. Jackson

Excerpt + Giveaway: More of You

A.L. Jackson has written some of my most loved and memorable second-chance romances, all which have come to life with her evocative, poetic style. She’s back with a new series–Confessions of the Heart–and a new standalone love story that will surely own us beginning to end. MORE OF YOU is out today, and so I’m thrilled to share an excerpt from the novel to entice you with Jace and Faith’s story!

To celebrate the release of MORE OF YOU, A.L. Jackson is giving away a signed copy of her book SHOW ME THE WAY, plus a candle and gorgeous makeup pallette. Scroll down below to enter!

I kissed my daughter’s forehead, fighting with all of me against the sorrow I’d felt at seeing Jace with her that way.

Fighting against the way she was lookin’ at him.

As if he might be the sun.

As if he might be there to fill a little of that void that echoed through these walls.

It was all so hard to ignore as she hugged that Beast doll tighter.

Her security blanket.

I tried with all my might to ignore it, to forget the night he’d given it to me and focus on the day when she’d found it buried under a pile of old clothes in the back of my closet.

I lifted the sheets, and she snuggled in. I ran my fingers through her soft, soft hair.

My mind was still spinning with the tale Jace had spun for her. As if he already knew her. The man telling her the type of sweet fantasy she loved so much.

One where everything was good and right and bad never prevailed.

I wanted it to be the truth.

So badly, I wanted it to be the truth.

But the reality was, we lived in an evil world.

One where hearts got broken and our dreams got smashed.

Ones where daddies sometimes didn’t come home after they’d promised they’d be right back.

I stayed there with her, needing the space, the time with her.

The distance from Jace.

I knew him being here was going to be hard. I’d just had no idea how much.

Bailey finally fell asleep while I just knelt there, and I leaned up, kissed her forehead, and then ran my nose along the softness of her cheek.

Heart pressing full.

So full.

So perfect.

“Good night, Bailey Button.”

God knew, she was the hook that kept everything together.

Slowly, I climbed to my feet, quiet as I moved across the floor.

A shiver of awareness skated over me the closer I got to the door.

I should have known.

Jace was standing on the other side of the hall, his back pressed to the wall as if he’d been listening all along.

I froze in the hazy shadows the old house had fallen into, his profile still strong in the suggestion of night.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said, though I could see him flinch, the jerk of his muscles in his arms. “About that room.”

Hurt fisted my heart at the thought of what he’d implied about the room that he’d thought should be his.

I shoved it down, said, “It’s okay.”

I got stuck there, staring out at him, wishing I didn’t find comfort in the fact he was there. Wishing it didn’t feel as if he was supposed to be. These walls forever echoing with his presence.

With the remnants of his ghost.

I’d ignored it for so long. Pretended I couldn’t hear his whispers trapped in the grain of the wood.

“She’s beautiful, Faith.”

Emotion swam.

Old love that tried to claw out of the rubble of demolished dreams.

“She’s the best thing I have ever been given.”

“You named her Bailey,” he murmured, hurt and regret wound with the pained taunt.

“I guess some dreams don’t die, after all, do they?” I whispered.

His lips twisted, and he cast his face toward the floor. “And sometimes those dreams are stolen from us.”

I had the urge to move across the hall, force him to look at me, and demand he tell me what he was really thinking, what he was really feeling. To demand to know how he could have walked away from me the way he had.

But I couldn’t regret our history. My direction ripped out from under me before I was set on another.

My daughter at its end.

I’d never, ever wish for that to turn out differently.

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” I forced myself to say before I did something stupid. “There’s a casserole in the refrigerator you can heat up if you’d like something to eat. Make yourself at home.”

It was only eight, but I wasn’t prepared for this. For the moments when he would actually be here and not just working.

Telling the man to make himself at home was a foolish statement in and of itself.

I knew I needed some space. Time to think and clear out the muddle of thoughts clouding my brain.

“Yeah,” he agreed, pushing off the wall and heading for his room.

He paused at the doorway and peered back out. “I’m going to hire a few guys to help me work on the house, Faith. I might be able to do it myself, but Bailey would probably be grown by then, and I’m thinking that’s not exactly what you had in mind.”

There was a sadness mixed in with the amusement he tried to inject into his tone, and there was a really stupid part of me that wanted to tell him that was fine, he could stay for as long as it took.

There I was again, playing the fool.

“I’ll never be able to fully repay you, Jace, for doin’ this for me. For doin’ it for Bailey. For being here for us.”

There was no question some of this was about the money. After all, it was what made the world go round.

It might not buy happiness, but it sure was the solution to some dire situations.

But it was more than that. He’d returned, put a hold on his own life to come here and make sure ours was safe.

Whatever the reason, I couldn’t find anger in that anymore.

He offered a short nod. “The only repayment I need is that one day I might see a real smile on your face.”

He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe after he said it, not giving me a chance to respond before he disappeared inside the room, quick to snap the door shut behind him.

Leaving me staring there at the vacant space.

Space that had never felt so alive.

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