Break of Day. Andie J. Christopher

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      LYRICAL PRESS

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

      www.kensingtonbooks.com

      Copyright

      Lyrical Press books are published by

      Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

      Copyright © 2017 by Andie J. Christopher

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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      Kensington Publishing Corp.

      119 West 40th Street

      New York, NY 10018

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      Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

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      Lyrical Press and the L logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

      First Electronic Edition: September 2017

      eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0022-4

      eISBN-10: 1-5161-0022-0

      First Print Edition: September 2017

      ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0024-8

      ISBN-10: 1-5161-0024-7

      Printed in the United States of America

      Dedication

      Thanks, Mom. I love you.

      Acknowledgments

      First, I’d like to thank my editor, Jennifer Herrington, for loving this story and the Hernandez family enough to help me make them shine and bring them to readers. I’d like to thank the Lyrical team for the gorgeous cover and help with marketing this series.

      Cate Hart, thank you for fielding all the frantic, middle-of-the-night emails and for loving my voice. If I could send Dave Grohl to your house to sing you to sleep, I would.

      Thank you, Laurel Simmons, for believing in my writing, for your mad copy-editing skills, and for being my friend for over a decade. This book wouldn’t exist without Agnes Blum Thompson, Julie Coe, Monica Hogan, and Ann McClellan. Robin Covington, thank you for all the advice, all the support, and all the shirtless dudes who keep me writing. This book brought me to the wonderful women I’ve met in RWA, WRW, and MRW, for which I am eternally grateful.

      Kim and Mark, thank you for hosting me in Miami and introducing me to some of the locations I love so much. Ted Arthur, thank you for being an expert resource on SEAL lingo, gun lingo, and commitment-phobia.

      It might seem to be a little strange to be thanking one’s grandmother in the acknowledgments of a very dirty book, but Wilda Rose Manka was not just any grandma. She would have read the book and offered notes on the dirty bits. And she would have made sure that all her friends bought a copy. I still miss you. Molly, thanks for reading an early draft and being the best cousin/sister/cheerleader ever. Marge and Jean, thanks for always reading, always listening, and always knowing that this would happen. Mom, thanks for not demanding to read an early draft, for everything you do and everything you are.

      Chapter 1

      Carla’s skin was melting. Her cotton romper clung to her melty mess of a body in the heat of August in Cuba. Rivers of mascara ran down her face, and she would shank someone for an afternoon in air-conditioning with a stack of fashion magazines.

      I just thought being with a redheaded Cuban girl would be more exciting.

      Her ex-fiancé’s words echoed in her head for the millionth time since he dumped her and asked for the ring back. She hadn’t thought an accountant’s wife needed to be exciting, but what the fuck did she know about anything anymore?

      She smiled at the driver, probably a guy from Tia Lola’s street. He’d picked her up at the airport to bring her to the family home. Lola’s house was a couple of blocks off the stately, crumbling facades along the Malecón. When he’d put her bag in the trunk, she’d tipped him with American money; she’d seen her father do it the last time they’d visited. She clutched her shoulder bag, remembering exactly how much money she had in there. She didn’t usually carry around thousands of dollars in cash.

      When the car had pulled up to her aunt’s house, she tried to give the driver more money. In a few words of rapid Spanish, he refused her and smiled. She СКАЧАТЬ