From USA Today Bestselling author, MJ
Fields, comes a gripping story of love and lies.
27 Lies:
Luke’s Story (The Truth About Love)
NOW LIVE!
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2bSl0HX
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2c2IPtD
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Blurb
A long
time ago...
I was
young and naive. I thought I could save the world. I thought that protecting
those around me from hurt and pain was what I was born to do. She made me feel
that way. Ava Links, the little girl who was too fucking stubborn for her own
good. The little girl who absorbed the hurt and pain of everyone around her and
tried to bring sunshine to them all. The little girl who didn’t give a damn if
people picked on her about wearing a crown and tutu every day. A little girl
who somehow looked at me, expecting—no, damn near demanding—I protect her.
I saw the
pain she hid, and as I grew older, I understood that pain. The pain of being so
much to so many that there is really never a “you”.
I took
control of my life...
I had to
get away from everyone who pulled at me in order to claim myself. When I became
the man I was destined to be, I began to live. Then, one drunken night, Ava
Links, no longer a little girl, said the right damn thing to me, and everything
changed. After seven years of fucking her while home on leave with no
expectations, now my life is out of control…
One bad
dream, one I love you, one night of pushing her the hell out of my life, one
drummer stealing her heart, and one explosion took everything away.
Lies are
told.
Lies are
unraveling.
Lies are
going to destroy.
These are
my truths.
Excerpt
I watch as Dad and Tessa pull away from the curb, the
place where Thomas Hardy, the love of my life, smiled at me before he took his
last breath. I was so sure it wasn’t his last, and I was as sure that him being
on life support would eventually mean he would wake up and tell me he loved me
again.
Standing erect atop the gray sidewalk is the light pole
that he was crushed against, pinned between it and a car, while on his way to
get me a Snickers bar that I didn’t need.
No, I need him.
I stand on the balcony and take in a calming breath. The
babies are sleeping inside, freshly bathed, adorned in the cutest clothes money
can buy, swaddled in their very own Bingos that I have in triplicate because my
father insists I need them that way. Their bellies are full, and they have been
rocked asleep in my arms.
There is no way they can actually be affected by my pain,
my anger, my sadness, but I never want them to. Therefore, if I keep my grief
to their sleeping hours, I know they will be okay. I close my eyes tight and
pray they will be okay.
Praying. Why do I still bother?
I place my elbows on the brick overhang, peering down at
that spot where black meets gray, where the love of a man and a woman got taken
away in the blink of an eye.
But it’s not gone. My love. T and my love will never go
away. We have a forever love.
I stand back and wrap my arms tight around myself, letting
out a low groan and releasing the pain, the anger, the hate, and all the ugly
in a place where I know I can, where it will not affect a soul.
The clouds use this time to part, and the sun peers through
and shines down on me. Emotions come to a roiling boil in that moment, and I
shut my eyes, seeing Thomas smiling back at me.
The sun … The sun is T, my T, my love and my pain.
Really, there isn’t anything I look at that doesn’t remind
me of him and the insurmountable love I have for a man who loved me so much. He
lied during the pregnancy so my pain wasn’t as severe, making me believe he was
the father of both our children.
There are lies in love, just as much as there are truths.
A man will tell a woman he loves that she doesn’t look fat
in that dress, or that she is the best he’s ever had, or that she is the most
beautiful women on the planet. It may not be true, but he believes it enough to
tell her those things, to make her happy and feel beautiful, and not fat, and
the best he has ever had.
A man like Thomas Hardy would do that for a girl like me.
The pain of his absence is so copious it makes me sick.
Sick to my stomach to the point I do throw up. My body can’t take the sickness
it feels while it breathes in the air that surrounds me, in a world without T.
I slowly lower myself to my knees and cover my face as the
tears spill out, the way they do when I am on this balcony that should have a
rooftop garden that we grew together. A garden that grows and blooms, and comes
to life, surrounded by our love.
I sit back against the brick wall as I take in the comfort
of the pain’s release. I cry until I can’t anymore, and then I take a deep
breath and stand up. I close my eyes once again, one last time for now, and
picture him and all the beauty that is him.
Inside, I walk into the kitchen where I have moved
everything back to where T had it before I moved in. I stand there and try to
make sense of the way he had things put away. It’s stupid. I know it is.
Somewhere deep down, though, I keep hoping he will come back, and I will want
to fix it up for him.
However, he’s not coming back.
Not ever.
I take my multivitamins then force down the damn shake
that Dr. Kennedy brought here after passing her in the hospital when Chance and
Hope had their four-month checkup. She came to the apartment and told me I
better be taking care of myself so I could take care of my children.
She oversteps in ways that are infuriating. I get angry
every time I see her. Though I know I shouldn’t. I know I am directing my anger
at her, but she asks for it, and it’s certainly easier than being angry at T
for leaving me.
That’s another lie that happens when you love someone.
Somehow in the grieving process, you get to a point when you feel betrayed by
the one who left you. Like it was a choice they made.
I opened his closet one day and tore his clothes from the
hangers. I threw them all over the floor. Then I turned to walk out and get a
garbage bag to shove them in. When I returned, though, I saw the mess I made,
and I crumbled into a pile of his things. I sobbed into his shirts that still
smelled like him, like home and happiness and love.
I could never be mad at him for leaving me when it wasn’t
his choice. He was taken away by some fucking drunk who stole a car and will
never be punished for his crime.
Thomas Hardy loved me until his dying breath, just like he
said he would, and I will love him until mine.
That day, in the closet, I cleaned everything up, put it
all back where he had put it—or, at least I let myself believe I did—and I
continued to cry while I did it.
Now I walk toward the laundry room, intent on doing
something that involves taking care of our—yes our—children.
I flip on the light switch, but there isn’t a damn thing
to do. All our clothes are clean, folded, and put away. I am thankful for the
help Mom offered through the nanny, but it gives me too much free time.
Chance and Hope almost sleep through the entire night,
only waking for one feeding each. They take two naps a day, each two hours
long. There is hardly an occasion when one of them are asleep while the other
is awake except the night time feeding.
When they are awake, I feed them, hold them, and simply
love them. God, how I love them. They are my life, my love, the reason I
breath, even though it hurts, and we watch TV.
Movies on TV.
Home movies.
Ones of Thomas Hardy in concert and interviews.
I walk into our room, mine and T’s, not mine and the
babies, and sit on the bed that Thomas and I spent endless hours in. If I close
my eyes, I can picture him here. If I concentrate, I can hear him laugh. If I
let the pain go, I can smile, remembering how he took his time showing me just
how much he loved me.
Until reality sets in, and the pain starts all over again.
I consider taking a shower, but then decide against it. I
can sleep for nearly two hours straight if I go into the baby’s room now.
I look down as I enter, knowing if I look at the mural he
painted first, I will cry. I will cry because it’s unfair that he is gone. It’s
so unfair that I almost hate God. That’s why I look instead at what he left me.
He left me two beautiful children. I will always be
grateful for them. Always. But would He take them, too?
Haven’t read this series yet?
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About the
Author
USA
Today bestselling author MJ Fields love of writing was in full swing by age
eight.
Together
with her cousins, she wrote a newsletter and sold it for ten cents to family
members.
She
self-published her first contemporary, new adult romance in January 2013. Today
she has completed seven self-published series, The Love series, The Wrapped
series, The Burning Souls series, The Men of Steel series, Ties of Steel
series, The Rockers of Steel series and The Norfolk series.
MJ
is a hybrid author and publishes an Indie book almost every month, and is
signed with a traditional publisher, Loveswept, Penguin Random House, for her
co- written series The Caldwell Brothers. Hendrix, Morrison, and Jagger. All
three books in the series are published. The Caldwell brothers don’t grow into
alphas, when their mother passes away they become her legacy, her good in the
world of bad.
MJ
was a former small business owner, who closed shop so she could write full
time. She lives in central New York, surrounded by family and friends. Her
house is full of pets, friends, and noise ninety percent of the time, and she
would have it no other way.
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