Title: Love You Now
Series: Love You, Maine #4
Author: Julia Kent
Genre: Contemporary Romantic Comedy
Tropes: Small Town/One Night Stand/Secret Baby
Release Date: February 28, 2023
BLURB
Ana DaSilva is looking for a palate cleanser. A one night stand. A reboot.
Instead, she got fireworks, sparks, chemistry, and the perfect guy. No one wants to meet Mr. Right when he should just be Mr. Rebound, but Mr. Right is so, so right.
But then he went from Mr. Right to Mr. Never, because when she learns she’s pregnant three days after that wonderful night with Dennis, she realizes her sleazy drug dealing ex not only left her with the legal mess she knew about, he gave her a life-long present.
One that means ignoring Dennis’ texts and phone calls, no matter how much she wants to answer.
Dennis Luview wants to escape his pain. Coming back to his hometown of Luview, Maine - the cheesy tourist trap where every day was Valentine’s Day - means facing a past he left behind twenty-four years ago. Yes, his family is loving, and sure, he has roots that go bone-deep in the small town community where people step up for each other.
But the naive eighteen-year-old who left to serve his country is now a retired Special Ops vet with a heavy entourage of ghosts and PTSD. No woman deserves all the baggage he’s lugging around.
Including Ana, who clearly wants nothing to do with him, no matter how intense their one haunting encounter really was.
Which is why six months after that hot night, he’s stunned to find her in his hometown, at a bridal shower, her ripe, pregnant belly swelling under a gorgeous yellow sundress.
A public confrontation turns into a very private reunion, and as Dennis pursues Ana she opens up, but is he crazy to want her — and what turns out to be another man’s baby — to settle down and find stability and love?
Or is he deluding himself that he’s remotely worth the happiness an instant family could offer, after his terrible past?
EXCERPT
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, my goodness.
“Brie,” she said, her knees going weak, her body starting to tremble like that teen boy’s hands. “It’s–help.”
“Help? What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
Sharp as a tack, Lucinda left the boy hanging and turned to her.
“Ana? What’s wrong? Do you need to sit? Is something wrong with the baby?”
Time changed.
Each second skipped like a stone on water, like a hummingbird’s wings, like there was all the time in the world yet every bit of it was gone.
She took a step backward. Then another, her belly going heavy, her heart completely confused in her chest, trying to decide whether to jump for joy…
…or flee screaming.
The group of people was moving closer, step by step, each one more final than the last.
Each one clearer than the last.
The big man in the navy t-shirt, wearing sunglasses he was now slowly removing as he looked at her like an assassin peering through a rifle sight was, indeed, Dennis.
Her Dennis.
Dennis from their one night stand.
“ANA!” Brie said loudly. “What’s going on?”
At Brie’s words, Dennis’s sunglasses dropped to the ground, his legs faster than she ever imagined something so thick could be. He ran around his group, startling the lumberjack dude, making the fashionable woman wobble on her high heels.
“Hey!” the guy called out, but Dennis ran, coming to an abrupt halt, his eyes on her belly.
Her big, ripe belly, as round as the sun.
Then he looked at her eyes.
Her belly.
Her eyes.
“Ana?” His face reflected her own yearning, her desperate wish, her desire, her–
“Dennis, I can explain–”
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AUTHOR BIO
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Julia Kent writes romantic comedy with an edge. Since 2013, she has sold more than 2 million books, with 4 New York Times bestsellers and more than 21 appearances on the USA Today bestseller list. Her books have been translated into French, German, and Italian, with more titles releasing in the future.
From billionaires to BBWs to new adult rock stars, Julia finds a sensual, goofy joy in every contemporary romance she writes. Unlike Shannon from Shopping for a Billionaire, she did not meet her husband after dropping her phone in a men's room toilet (and he isn't a billionaire she met in a romantic comedy).
She lives in New England with her husband and three children where she is the only person in the household with the gene required to change empty toilet paper rolls.
She loves to hear from her readers by email at julia@jkentauthor.com, on Twitter @jkentauthor, on Facebook at @jkentauthor, and on Instagram @jkentauthor. Visit her at http://jkentauthor.com
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