The bestselling author of The Simple Wild and Keep Her Safe and “master of steamy romance” (Kirkus Reviews) delivers a sizzling novel about an ambitious and high-powered executive who reconnects with her first love: the boy who broke her heart. 

Life is a mixed bag for Piper Calloway.

On the one hand, she’s a twenty-nine-year-old VP at her dad’s multibillion-dollar real estate development firm, and living the high single life with her two best friends in a swanky downtown penthouse. On the other hand, she’s considered a pair of sexy legs in a male-dominated world and constantly has to prove her worth. Plus she’s stuck seeing her narcissistic ex-fiancé—a fellow VP—on the other side of her glass office wall every day.

Things get exponentially more complicated for Piper when she runs into Kyle Miller—the handsome new security guard at Calloway Group, and coincidentally the first love of her life.

The guy she hasn’t seen or heard from since they were summer camp counselors together. The guy from the wrong side of the tracks. The guy who apparently doesn’t even remember her name.

Piper may be a high-powered businesswoman now, but she soon realizes that her schoolgirl crush is still alive and strong, and crippling her concentration. What’s more, despite Kyle’s distant attitude, she’s convinced their reunion isn’t at all coincidental, and that his feelings for her still run deep. And she’s determined to make him admit to them, no matter the consequences.

Book Type:

Contemporary Romance

Review + Excerpt: Say You Still Love Me

A high-powered executive collides with the boy who once broke her heart in K.A. Tucker’s SAY YOU STILL LOVE ME.

Piper Calloway has led a privileged life, albeit under her father’s unrelentingly rigid dominion. And yet, she’s followed in his footsteps, primed to take over his multibillion-dollar real-estate development firm. She’s not had it easy however, as she struggles to earn her title in a male-dominated business, surrounded by some intent on undermining her.

Piper is floored when one day she runs into her first love—the boy who broke her heart one summer. Kyle is now a security guard in her building, who seems to want nothing to do with her.

But soon, Piper uncovers there’s so much more simmering beneath the surface—truths left unsaid, feelings which remained. Piper is determined to figure out what happened with Kyle so long ago, and either close that part of her life and heart, or finally give it the chance she always hoped for.

I can always rely on K.A. Tucker to deliver uniquely compelling story lines, and this second-chance love story certainly took some unexpected, poignant twists. Penned in then and now format, we experience the summer-time romance between two teenagers, and the love that blossomed—and endured—throughout the years.

Piper and Kyle live in two different worlds. Piper grew up wealthy, sheltered, with parents who doted on her, while Kyle grew up in a family who set all the wrong examples, who made bad choices to make ends meet. Despite the odds, something real grew between them and you really felt that.

Admittedly, I’m not a big fan of then and now timelines, as I always yearn for more “present time” moments, but in this case, you needed the former to divulge transgressions not initially known. And yet, the then chapters felt long to me. I wanted to delve more into who they were as adults, what their experiences had been, and further explore the natural tension that arises between two very different people who have spent thirteen years apart.

Unfortunately, this latest didn’t feel as tight, as deeply felt as some of Tucker’s other books. The narrative imbues both romance and suspense, and perhaps the balance between them, plus the mix of then/now timelines, somehow detracted from how deeply we could explore any one path. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading it, and it’s a solid story from an author who consistently delivers.

I hold my free hand in the air to stop the onslaught of questions.

“I’m not even sure it was him. He was ahead of me and then he went out the doors, and when I tried to catch up, he was just gone.” I couldn’t have been more than ten paces behind him, and yet he all but disappeared when I reached the sidewalk, my adrenaline racing through my veins.

I don’t tell Christa and Ashley that I spent the next hour wandering through the Pier Market, looking not at the tempting menus or the colorful wares, but for those familiar dark golden eyes.

“Wow. Kyle Miller,” Christa begins, exchanging a glance with Ashley.

“I know.”

“And you’ve never talked to him since that summer? Not even once?” Christa already knows the answer to that, but she asks it anyway, as if to confirm the gravity of Kyle’s possible reappearance in my life.

“How could I? He literally dropped off the face of the earth.” His phone number went out of service a few days after he left Wawa. My emails to him went unanswered at first, and then they bounced back. He’s nowhere on social media from what I can see, and I’ve looked more than once over the years.

Even now, thirteen years later, I can hear the twinge of frustration in my voice over how things ended between us.

How confusing.

How unfinished.

“What do you think he was doing there?” Ashley asks.

“No idea. He was in a tie, so maybe he’s working for one of the other companies? Or maybe he was just a visitor.” I don’t know what’s behind that door he exited.

“Do you think he knows it’s your family’s building?” Ashley asks.

“Oh, come on,” Christa, ever the cynic, scoffs. “It says ‘Calloway’ across the front in giant, golden letters.”

“That doesn’t mean he’d make the connection,” Ashley argues.

“Did you ever tell him who your father is?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

“See? So how would he know?” Ashley’s big green eyes get that dreamy look in them. “Wouldn’t that be something, though, if he does work there?”

My stomach does a nervous flip. It’s been thirteen years. Does Kyle Miller remember me? Does he still think about me as I do him? And if so, are those thoughts laced with fondness?

Indifference?

Or regret?

“Those were the days, huh?” Ashley finally lets out a longing sigh. “Remember Eric? Man, that guy used to drive me nuts.”

Christa snorts. “That’s because he had a huge crush on you.”

“Couldn’t have been that big. He never returned my emails, either.” Ashley waves it off, but her face pinches. “I wonder how he’s doing.”

Silence lingers through the kitchen as we all drift into our own thoughts.

“What will you say to Kyle if you see him again?” Christa finally asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Hi?” I swallow against the sudden swell of nerves.

And Why would you hurt me like that?