From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover, a new novel about risking everything for love—and finding your heart somewhere between the truth and lies. 

Auburn Reed has her entire life mapped out. Her goals are in sight and there’s no room for mistakes. But when she walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job, she doesn’t expect to find a deep attraction to the enigmatic artist who works there, Owen Gentry.

For once, Auburn takes a risk and puts her heart in control, only to discover Owen is keeping major secrets from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.

The last thing Owen wants is to lose Auburn, but he can’t seem to convince her that truth is sometimes as subjective as art. All he would have to do to save their relationship is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin…

Book Type:

Romance

Exclusive Excerpt: Confess

It’s been five weeks now since I came to Dallas, and the two of us have run out of sympathy from both sets of parents. I was told I have to return to Portland immediately are my parents will be slapped with truancy charges. If it weren’t for that, his parents might have let me stay, but the last thing my parents need right now is legal issues.

My flight is today, and we’ve exhausted all other ideas for how I can convince them that I don’t need to be on that flight. I didn’t tell Adam this and I won’t, but last night after more pleas from me, his mother, Lydia, finally voiced her true opinion on the matter.

“You’re fifteen, Auburn. You think what you feel for him is real, but you’ll be over him in a month. Those of us who have loved him since the day he was born will have to suffer with his loss until the day we die. Those are the people he needs to be with right now.”

It’s a strange feeling when you know at fifteen that you just lived through the harshest words you’ll ever hear. I didn’t even know what to say to her. How can a fifteen-year-old girl defend her love when that love is dismissed by everyone? It’s impossible to defend yourself against inexperience and age. And maybe they’re right. Maybe we don’t know love like an adult knows love, but we sure as hell feel it. And right now, it feels imminently heartbreaking.

“How long before your flight?” Adam asks as his fingers delicately trace slow circles down my arm for the last time.

“Two hours. Your mother and Trey are downstairs waiting for me. She says we need to leave in ten minutes in order to make it on time.”

“Ten minutes,” he repeats softly. “That’s not enough time to share with you all the profound wisdom I’ve accrued while on my deathbed. I’ll need at least fifteen. Twenty, tops.”

“I laugh what is probably the most pathetic, sad laugh to ever leave my mouth. We both hear the despair in it and he holds me tighter, but not much tighter. He has very little strength even compared to yesterday. His hand soothes my head and he presses his lips into my hair. “I want to thank you, Auburn,” he says quietly. “For so many things. But first, I want to thank you for being just as pissed off as I am.”

Again, I laugh. He always has jokes, even when he knows they’re his last.

“You have to be more specific, Adam, because I’m pissed off about a whole hell of a lot right now.”