JUST ONE YEAR
(A standalone)
Release date:
2/24/2020
From New York Times bestselling author Penelope
Ward comes a new standalone novel.
Excerpt Reveal:
Copyright © 2019
By Penelope Ward
I stormed
up the stairs and headed straight to my old room—his room. But
when I got
to the top of the stairwell, I swallowed the words I’d been prepared to
unleash.
The unexpected sight of Caleb doing pull-ups met my eyes. He used a bar
affixed to
the top of the door to lift himself up. He wore a T-shirt that rode up each
time he
rose. His hard abs were now staring me in the face, ripples of carved muscle.
He had
black wrist wraps on. He’d turned my old room into a home gym.
He was a
bastard—but there was no denying he was beautiful.
I cleared
my throat. “Did my father give you permission to put that thing in
the
doorway?”
The house
shook as he landed on his feet. “Well, hello, Teagan. Amazing how
easy it is
to walk up the stairs, isn’t it? He grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off
his
forehead. “And yes, in fact, your father did give me permission to put the bar
up.”
I came out
with it. “You think you know it all, don’t you? Who are you?”
He glared
at me. “Who am I? Well, nice of you to ask, Teagan.” He threw his
towel down
on the desk. “You’ve had no interest in getting to know me from the
moment I
walked in the door. But since you finally did inquire… Hi, I’m Caleb Yates.
Happy to
be here. I have no clue what I’m doing with my life and have a somewhat
crappy
family situation back in England. So, I came to a strange country for the first
time to get away for a bit. I miss my mum, but the
good news is, I’ve just moved into a house where everyone is
cordial—except for the cranky girl in the basement.”
Wow.
“That’s a
bit harsh, don’t you think?”
He came
closer, and the smell of his cologne mixed with sweat was…interesting. Couldn’t say it was a
bad thing, that’s for sure.
“You
didn’t have to write me a snooty email, Teagan. You can come talk to me
if I do
something to piss you off. If you write me emails like that when I’m right
upstairs,
that’s the kind of response you’re going to get, each and every time.”
He had a
point. The email was a bit cowardly of me. Yet I’d still managed to
convince
myself it was a good idea. He was right. Anything I needed to say to him, I
should be
able to say to his face. Quite honestly, the benefit of that was also his
face—getting
to look at it, I mean. It turned out, looking at him was a lot more fun
than
avoiding eye contact had been. Thank goodness he can’t read my mind right
now.
Seeing that
he actually seemed angry as opposed to amused caused me to
change my
tune—that and perhaps his scent going straight to my head as it followed
my mind
right into the gutter.
He held
out his hand. “Give it to me.”
I looked
down at my empty hands. “Give you what?”
“The stick
in your arse. Take it out and give it to me.”
I crinkled
my forehead. “What?”
He wiggled
his fingers. “Come on. Hand it over.”
Genuinely
curious as to where he was going with this, I motioned with my
hand,
pretending to remove the imaginary stick from my derriere and throwing it
over to
him.
He
pretended to catch it, then let it weigh him down. “It’s bigger than I
thought.”
Looking around he said, “I’m gonna find a space for it. Hang on.”
I laughed,
against my better judgment. He shoved the imaginary stick under
his bed
and wiped fake dust off his hands.
“Now that
that’s out of the way, why don’t we start fresh?”
COVER CREDITS::
Model: Chase Mattson
Photographer: Derick Smith
Cover designer: Letitia Hasser, RBA Designs
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SYNOPSIS
The beginning of my sophomore year in college was off to a rough start.
On the first day of orientation, I had an altercation with an infuriating British dude in a campus bathroom.
(The ladies’ room was out of order. So, I used the men’s room. Don’t judge.)
I got home later that night and realized that the foreign student we were expecting to rent a room in my parents’ house was allergic to our cat.
So, the spare room went to someone else: Caleb—the British guy from the men’s room.
And so it began…my love-hate story with Caleb Yates. Or was it hate-love in that order?
The guy knew how to push every one of my buttons.
Sometimes I’d email him to express my aggravation and disdain.
He’d actually rewrite my own words and send them back to me.
That was the type of infuriating person Caleb was.
So frustrating.
And…
Sometimes incredibly funny and endearingly sweet.
And hot.
He eventually grew on me, and Caleb soon became one of my best friends that year.
Too bad he was headed back to England soon, so nothing could happen between us—for so many reasons.
I definitely couldn't fall in love with him, especially since all we had was just one year.
BIO:
Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary romance.
She grew up in Boston with five older brothers and spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor. Penelope resides in Rhode Island with her husband, son, and beautiful daughter with autism.
With over two million books sold, she is a 21-time New York Times bestseller and the author of over twenty novels. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and can be found in bookstores around the world.
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