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    Feels Like Home: Feels Like Romance, #1
    Feels Like Home: Feels Like Romance, #1
    Feels Like Home: Feels Like Romance, #1
    Ebook111 pages1 hour

    Feels Like Home: Feels Like Romance, #1

    By Roberta Ann Roque

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    About this ebook

    Cecilia has loved Will since high school.  And that would be fine, except for the fact that he’s been dating her sister for about as long.

    Cecilia is a Red Seal Chef and owner of a successful restaurant.  In spite of all the material achievements that she could ask for, her life feels empty.  She has wanted Will forever but he has always been out of reach.  He's her sister's boyfriend for goodness sake!  That’s all about to change when she goes home for Christmas this year.  Cecilia is given a second chance and she finds the courage to risk her heart.  But with her mother's meddling and her sister's return, Cecilia wonders if there will be a happy ending for her after all.

    As an accomplished indie musician, Will has been garnering accolades left, right, and center.  He has a beautiful girlfriend and a fantastic apartment in New York, but somehow he feels that he just wants something…more.  Something real.  As a child growing up in the foster system, the only thing Will has ever really wanted was a home, but is he willing to let go of the safe relationship he has for a chance at the real thing with Cecilia?

    When they find themselves thrown together by chance, Cecilia and Will face a choice: stay in their secure, comfortable lives or risk it all for love.

     

    Please note: This is a short, contemporary romance, stand-alone novella for adults 18 and over.  In this novella, just like in life, sometimes things get a little hot and steamy, if you don't like that, then you might want to try a different story.  And don’t worry, we hate cliffhangers as much as you do - this novella is guaranteed to come to a satisfying HEA conclusion.

    26 700 words (80+ pages)

     

    An Excerpt from Feels Like Home

    The movie finally came to an end.  I'd enjoyed it, but having him next to me was just too damn distracting.

    "Inconceivable," he said, smiling.  Then he stopped the DVD and clicked off the television.  Instantly the room was pitch dark - he'd forgotten that we'd turned off all the lights.

    "Crap," he said, moving to go turn on the lights at the exact same time as I did.  We collided with full frontal body impact.  I felt my breasts press against his chest and couldn't help the small gasp that escaped me. 

    "Oh, Cecilia," he said.  "I'm so sorry.  I'll get the lights."

    I felt scared, but I had to do it.  The opportunity was too good to miss.

    I reached up and put one hand on each cheek, pulling him to me at the same time as I went up on my tippy toes. 

    'Celia?" he said a moment before I pressed my lips to his.

    There was an explosion inside me.  Fireworks went off behind my eyes.  My nipples hardened with pent-up desire as they brushed his chest.  I felt excitement deep inside and a strange joy that made me feel like crying.  I felt like yelling, "Yes!  This is what I've been waiting for all this time."

    He froze at first, and then I felt him kiss me back.  He was kissing me back!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRoberta Ann Roque
    Release dateMay 26, 2015
    ISBN9781513067674
    Feels Like Home: Feels Like Romance, #1

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      Book preview

      Feels Like Home - Roberta Ann Roque

      Author's Note

      With each of the books in the Feels Like Romance series, I deliberately chose songs to inspire the story.  I picked songs that went with the theme, with what the characters were going through, or that evoked a certain feeling.  When writing certain parts I would sometimes put the song on repeat and listen to it over and over.

      This is an inherent part of these books and is integral to the stories.  You will find as you continue through the series that there are many references to songs and music.  It's supposed to be like that.  That's how the series was designed.

      If you are a musician or enjoy music - the way I am and do - you'll know that songs evoke emotions in a way that words never can.  So, I've listed them here, if you'd like to surround yourself with these songs as you read or when you come to the part where they are mentioned in the story.

      I've linked to the Youtube videos of the songs so that you can listen to them for free.

      Enjoy!

      ––––––––

      Feels Like Home by Randy Newman

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXP4UqgNg70

      Just a Dream by Nelly

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6O2ncUKvlg

      When Your Say Nothing at All by Allison Krauss

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SCOimBo5tg

      Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5_QV97eYqM

      ––––––––

      Happily ever after is alive and well!

      Sincerely,

      Bobbi (writing as Roberta Ann Roque)

      FREE DOWNLOAD

      ––––––––

      Get Feels Like Forever FREE!

      When your heart's been broken, no strings attached sounds like a pretty good deal.

      The romance continues...

      Feels Like Forever: Feels Like Romance Novella #2 (Miranda and Jake's story)

      SIgn up for the Roberta Ann Roque's mailing list and get a free copy of Feels Like Forever the second book in the Feels Like Romance series.  You will also be the first to know when a new book comes out.

      Click here to get your free copy of Feels Like Forever.

      Or copy and paste the following link into your browser:

      http://bobbiroquehornik.com/gravity-landing/freebookfeelslikeforever/

      CHAPTER ONE

      Cecilia's

      Cecilia

      I stood at the door of the restaurant for a moment and looked up at the clear sky full of stars.  I sighed.  So beautiful.  Then I stepped back in and turned the deadbolt.  I turned away from the entrance and weaved my way through the wooden tables, now devoid of their red-and-white checked tablecloths.  Every once in a while I trailed my fingers lovingly along one of them.  This place was my baby.  I'd bought the empty shell of the restaurant from owners who'd gone out of business.  Within six months, I'd had it renovated and redecorated, and had opened the doors. 

      It was called Cecilia's, after me.  I know, I know.  I named my restaurant after myself?  Well, it's a time-honored tradition.  And anyway, it was my one vanity.  Okay, probably not my only vanity, but I just wanted this thing to be mine.  Look, it seemed like a good idea at the time, all right?

      Anyway.

      We served Italian food - recipes that my mother had passed on to me that had been in our family for generations.  And pizza.  Really great pizza.  We'd got some amazing reviews and I'd built the business by working incredibly long hours, using innovative marketing, and setting up some cool online stuff.  We would do things like sending emails with coupons in them to our subscribers every week and text messages to people in the area telling them that there was a special on for a limited time.  I was proud of what I'd done.

      It was everything I wanted.

      Wasn't it?

      I kicked off my shoes and pulled my long brown hair out of its ponytail as I walked into the office.  Shutting the door, I tossed my sensible flats into the corner.  I flopped into the swivel chair at the desk and felt my eyelids starting to close.  I was tired.  I was so tired.  Not just from tonight, though it had been crazy busy until we'd kicked the last customer out at eleven o'clock.  But tired in a way that didn't feel better after a full night's sleep.  I was starting to feel burned out.  These last years had been a wild ride and I had enjoyed pretty much every minute of it, but now I felt sort of empty and bone tired and like somehow it wasn't enough.

      I popped my phone onto the dock and tapped on my End of the Night playlist.  Nelly's Just a Dream began to play, and I sighed because it always reminded me of Will and how it felt, as though knowing him had only been a dream.  Cheesy, right?  I know.  I rolled my chair up to the desk and began cashing out.  It took me over an hour tonight because I made an error and I had to go back painstakingly through all of the receipts until I found it and finally balanced the register around twelve thirty in the morning.

      As I put on my coat, wrapped my scarf around my neck, and pulled on my hat, I wondered why, if he was only a dream, I still couldn't get him out of my head.  Why hadn't the memory of him vanished with the morning light? I let myself out the front door and turned the key in the lock.  I smiled up at the sign, feeling a sense of accomplishment about what I'd created.  People loved coming to my restaurant.  It made them feel like they were coming to a familiar place.  That's what I'd been going for.  A restaurant that made you feel like you were eating in your mom’s or your grandma's kitchen.

      Like home.  I wanted it to feel like home.

      Maybe that was because ever since I left my parent's house at eighteen to go into a chef's program and get my red seal, I'd never really felt at home.  My dorm room hadn't felt at all homey.  Gross, yes.  Homey, no.  And my apartment... I climbed the stairs to my second-floor walk-up.  It was where I'd lived for the past few years.  I wasn't sure it was home.

      When I entered the apartment I felt... nothing.  It was just a place to sleep.  I owned almost no furniture.  There was a couch in the living room and a desk and chair.  I slept on a futon on the floor of my bedroom.  Conversely, there was a bookshelf in every room, and each one was stuffed full of books.  I made a mental note to buy another bookshelf - these three were overflowing.

      Once I was ready for bed, I lay on my futon with the small lamp on the floor turned on.  It gave the room a cheery glow.  I turned on my back and with my hands under my head I stared up at the ceiling.

      And gave in to it...

      In my imagination, I travelled back in time to when Will and I had first met - in physics class.  I had offered to help him with his homework and studying.  I relived every scene, every minute we'd spent together.  We'd been friends.  And I had hoped that maybe it might someday be something more.  But then he'd met Miranda, my older sister.  She was a more interesting, feistier, sexier, more fun version of me.  She asked me if we were just friends, and like a fool I'd said yes.  And when she'd asked him out, he'd never looked back.  Soon, I was only Miranda's sister.

      If Miranda had looked in my eyes when I'd answered, she'd have seen that the answer was not really yes but actually, Yes, but please don't touch him.  She hadn't looked.  She never did.  I love my sister and she would never do anything deliberately to hurt me, but she was oblivious to subtle cues and was always more concerned with her own interests than anyone else's. 

      She and Will had started sleeping together two weeks after they began going out.  My sister always said he had been crap the first time but she'd trained him right.  I felt my heart squeeze at the old painful memories.  She had told me way more details than I had wanted to hear.  But it was like that thing where you

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