Title: Disclosure of the Heart (Beside Your Heart #2)

Author: Mary Whitney

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Release Date:  Nov 5th, 2013

Publisher: OmniFic Publishing 

Sixteen years is a long time to wait for your true love to reappear, and, anyway, Nicki Johnson couldn’t wait for the impossible to happen. Hard life lessons have taught her that fairy tales are children’s stories, and fate is cruel. Burying her hopes, she’s spent the last sixteen years focused and driven toward her career, and it’s landed her with a job at the White House with a gem of a boyfriend. But when her high school love, Adam Kincaid, walks into the White House as a BBC reporter, Nicki’s world is thrown into turmoil as she relives their past. Adam has come back for her, but has he arrived too late?

Excerpt

Lydia caught my eye and grinned. “Hi, Nicole. It’s good to see you. Are we being too loud?”

“No. No one has complained.” I smiled at the group. “But you do seem to be having a good time? What’s going on?”

“Just a little impromptu party.” Lydia gestured to Dan Roark, who stood hunched over the back of a seat, holding a glass of beer. “Dan has us playing games that are making us laugh.”

“Drinking games?” I asked Dan.

“Nah. More like truth or dare, but without the dare.”

“Oh dear,” I said in a playful tone.

Lydia sidled up to me and said, “Well, it’s a little silly, but we’re having fun.”

“Dare I ask what ‘truth’ everyone is revealing?”

“We’ve been sharing where we lost our virginity and to whom,” she said. “It’s harmless.”

I froze my smile. Holy shit.

Leaning closer to me, Dan asked, “Wanna play, Nicole?”

“Nah, I don’t think so.” I played it cool, hoping I could end it all sooner that way.

“I’ll tell you mine,” he said. “My high school girlfriend, Charlotte Clark, in my Mustang. How’s that? Now your turn.”

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head.

“C’mon.” Dan took a step toward me and pointed to Adam. “Even Kincaid played. Right, Kincaid?”

I turned to see Adam’s response. I could’ve played the game for him. I knew whom he’d lost his virginity to and where. It wasn’t me but his old girlfriend—the girl he’d cheated on me with. Adam’s eyes met mine for a brief second, but they were blank. He silently waved his hand as if brushing it all aside.

Dan rolled his eyes. “So now he won’t play. Whatever, Kincaid.” He then turned to me. “Kincaid’s girl was named Kate. They did it in his childhood bed. Now you tell us, Nicole.”

I knew Adam and Dan didn’t like each other. If Dan’s reporter sixth sense had picked up on something in Adam’s past to exploit, I was sure the comment had been a dig at Adam, not me. But now I was the collateral damage, and it was worse than a blow to the gut. It was a rapid-fire machine gun, leaving multiple and increasingly severe wounds.

“Kincaid’s girl”—a girl other than me. “Kate”—the name I’d hated for years. “They did it”—yes, they had, many times. And finally, the worst part—“in his childhood bed”—their history and family connection was part of what had driven Adam to her after I’d rejected him.

As nauseated as I was at hearing about Kate and Adam having sex and then my name thrown in, I was sure Adam was even less comfortable at that moment. In the end, he’d been hurt just as much as me, both today and back then. I even felt a little sorry for him.

I heard Lydia say, “Please, Nicole. It’s not like we know the guy. It’s just for fun.”

I bet Adam was truly mortified by that one, and it actually made me crack a smile. I decided to give them a tidbit. “At the beach,” I said curtly.

“How sweet,” said Lydia. Other female reporters chimed in with “sexy” and “romantic.”

But the tidbit wasn’t enough for Dan. It only egged him on. “So how was it? Were you in high school? Was it any good?”

“No more information.”

“Come on, Johnson,” he said. “‘At the beach’ tells us almost nothing. We’re reporters. You know you’ve got to give us something more than that.”

I shook my head, mainly at myself. I shouldn’t have ever opened up the topic; it was my own fault. “Fine,” I said, crossing my arms. “I was seventeen. It was Valentine’s Day. That’s all—”

“Were you in love?” asked Lydia.

I could’ve balked at the question, but I didn’t. Answering it felt as easy as saying the sky was blue. “Yes.”

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About the Author

Even before she graduated from law school, Mary Whitney knew she wasn’t cut out to be a real lawyer. Drawn to politics, she’s spent her career as an organizer, lobbyist, and nonprofit executive. Nothing piques her interest more than a good political scandal or romance, and when she stumbled upon writing, she put the two together. A born Midwesterner, naturalized Texan, and transient resident of Washington, D.C., Mary now lives in Northern California with her two daughters and real lawyer husband.

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More from the Author

Title: Beside Your Heart ( Beside Your Heart #1)

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Published: June 17th, 2013

Publisher: OmniFic Publishing

“It’s an emotional story that will take the reader back to those feelings that made the late teen years such a powerful time.”

Late one night Nicki Johnson plays with emotional fire and Googles her high school love, only to find his name splashed across the British gossip columns. Back in his native England, Adam Kincaid is successful and dating a woman from an aristocratic family like his own. With a career in politics, Nicki’s no slouch, but she knows Adam is living a world away from her life.

Yet there was a time he was no farther than the next locker. Nicki will never forget their year together in high school—the year of her sister’s death, the year her mother checked out. Adam helped Nicki through suffocating grief, and she led him through a coming of age. Was it just high school, or was it something more?

***The sequel, Disclosure of the Heart, is due out on November 5.***

Forever Your Heart (Beside Your Heart #3)

Forever Your Heart is due out in early 2014. The story of Adam Kincaid, it’s the last in the Heart Series.