Camilla Isley's Blog - Posts Tagged "clean-romance"

Hi,

I know you've probably just finished carving your pumpkins and want to enjoy the Halloween vibe a little longer, me too. I constantly shuffle channels to find that Hocus Pocus re-run, you? But Christmas is just around the corner and I'm so excited because this year I'm publishing my very first Christmas story: A Christmas Date.

The book comes out today and can be read as a standalone, however, it follows Nikki's search for love... If you've read I Have Never, you might remember her as Blair's roommate. Both Chevron, a cute puppy, and Blair will make appearances.

Here are the blurb, an excerpt, and all the buying links... Enjoy!

Love,
Camilla

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No one wants to be single at the holidays.

Even Little Miss Grinch, Nikki, a successful and independent woman, must face her bachelorette status at the most horrible time of the year.

December is her personal version of holly-jolly hell: a merry torture made of couples kissing at every corner, forced vacation days, and an inescapable family reunion.

And when her baby sister announces she’s engaged—to Paul, the man Nikki is secretly in love with—and that he’s spending the holidays with them, Christmas starts looking bluer than ever.

Nikki can’t possibly survive an entire week trapped home as the family’s spinster. But she has no time to meet men or to try the newest dating app, she’s too busy working as a video producer for an advertising agency.

So what’s a girl to do?

Nikki has the perfect solution: to hire a fake boyfriend.

Luckily, her job gives her access to an endless catalog of gorgeous actors to choose from.

But Nikki will soon discover that keeping business and pleasure from mixing isn’t so easy, and that she might not be immune to a little mistletoe magic. Especially not when she picked out the perfect man as her Christmas date...

A fun, festive romantic comedy with lots of bad behavior and Christmas spirit. Like a creamy hot chocolate with marshmallows, you won’t want to put this deliciously hilarious novel down.

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One
Christmas Is Coming

“Your mother called again,” my assistant, Melanie, informs me as soon as I step foot into my office. “Third time this week.”

I sit behind my desk and peek at the calendar placed next to my unopened laptop.

Tuesday, December 11

Only Tuesday and we’re already on the third call of the week.

Bodes well.

“I’ll call her back when I have a minute,” I tell Melanie. “Anything else?”

Still standing on the threshold, she shifts on her feet, uncomfortable.

“Come on, I won’t shoot the messenger,” I promise her.

“Right, because she’s asked me to read you this, word for word.”

From the way Melanie is cowering, it can’t be good. I lean back in my white leather chair, cross my hands in my lap, and sigh. “Go ahead.”

“Nikki,” she intones, “I spent thirty-five hours in excruciating pain to bring you into this world, and the least I deserve after nurturing you in a loving home for years is for my daughter to return my calls, especially at Christmas. I’ve already set my expectations very low, as I wouldn’t presume you could pick up the phone and call your mother of your own free will…”

I grip the armrests of my chair until my knuckles turn white. “Can you skip the guilt tripping part and get to the core of the message?”

Melanie looks up at me. “Yeah, sure.” Her eyes shift back to the note, and she scrolls through the words for what feels like ages. “Ah, yes,” she finally sighs. “She demands to know when you’ll be heading home for Christmas, how long you’re staying, and if you’re bringing someone.”

I hate the holidays. And I hate when Mom uses the absent-daughter trope to shame me into doing what she wants. But what I hate the most is the two combined. And Christmas is the most inescapable holiday of all.

My stupid boss, along with millions of other idiots scattered around the planet, loves Christmas. So what does the prick do every year? He closes shop, forcing everyone to go on vacation. Which means that every December, without fail, I’m trapped visiting my family in Connecticut for too many days.

Even worse, this year Christmas falls on a Tuesday, meaning the agency will stay closed from the twenty-second to the twenty-ninth. Nine sanity-challenging days of hell in total.

And my mother knows, and she’s been on my case for a month now to make sure she’ll get me for as many of those nine days as she can.

This must be punishment for something terrible I did in a past life, I swear.

I exhale. “I’ll call her back when I have a minute.”

Melanie is giving me the no-you-won’t stink eye, but I have my mean boss poker face on, so she keeps quiet.

“Is that all?” I ask.

“Err, no. You have lunch with your sister today.”

And my day isn’t getting any better.

“I’ll have to reschedule,” I say, shuffling the notes from the morning’s meetings. “Can you call Julia and tell her?”

“I could have… if you’d asked me this morning. But she’s been waiting for you in the lobby for twenty minutes.”

“What?!” I stare at my watch.

Half-past noon, already. Where did the morning go?

Well, no way out, then.

***

“Jules,” I greet my younger, blessed with all the good Moore genetics, sister.
With natural blonde hair, blue eyes, and an angel face, she’s the opposite of my dark hair, brown eyes, and sharp features. When people want to pay me a compliment, they tell me I’m interesting, unique, strong… never beautiful. Julia has always had the pretty-sister crown firmly glued to her head. Ever since we were babies, and her golden curls made her look like a cherub out of a painting. Even as a toddler, I was unimpressive.

“Nikki,” Julia shrieks, pulling me into a hug in the middle of the lobby. Without leaving me time to react, she grabs my hand and drags me out of the building. “I can’t believe we’re really having lunch! I was sure you’d cancel at the last minute. When Melanie didn’t call this morning, I was kind of surprised.”

Guess the absent-sister guilt technique is another trait she inherited from our mother. And, okay, I’m not the best at keeping engagements… Or calling, or texting… And it’s not that I don’t love Jules… It’s only that being around my baby sister is so hard sometimes…

“About that.” I avoid looking at her by buttoning up the collar of my coat against the freezing air. “Can we go somewhere nearby? I have to get back to the office soon.”

Hidden behind a curtain of flying hair, I watch as Jules struggles not to let her smile falter.

“Sorry,” she says, linking our arms and dragging me to the edge of the curb to hail a cab. “I’ve already picked a place, and Paul is meeting us there.”

A cab screeches to a halt in front of us seconds later, thankfully distracting Julia and buying me enough time to compose my features. Otherwise, my expression would’ve given me away. If being around Jules is hard, the combo Julia and Paul leans dangerously close to unbearable. Worse than family and holidays.

I open the cab’s rear door and settle on the black leather seat. Not because I’ve accepted my fate, but because I really need to sit before I fall down. Julia squeezes in next to me.

Once the cab pulls into traffic, I casually ask, “If you’re having lunch with your boyfriend, why do you need me to tag along? Don’t you guys want to be alone?”

I’m still hoping I can escape. I could hop off the taxi at the next traffic light and grab a hot dog from a street cart on the way back… It’d be so easy. A perfect, quick, sans Jules & Paul lunch.

“Don’t be silly,” Julia says, laughing as she crushes my getting-out-of-lunch fantasy. “Paul loves you as a sister, just as much as I do.”

Ah.

Whoever said words hurt more than actions was so right. I focus on the tall city buildings sweeping by, fighting a losing battle with the lump in my throat. I don’t utter a word for the rest of the fifteen-minute trip, and follow Julia out of the cab as it pulls up in front of… No!

I stare transfixed at the retro diner that used to be my and Paul’s special place, now their special place. Behind the glass walls, Paul is already seated in a red vinyl booth, waiting for us at our usual table, now also theirs.

Nuh-uh, I don’t think I can go in there. My feet are glued to the concrete. I can’t move.

That is, until Jules pulls my hand forward, saying, “Come on, Nik, it’s freezing out here.”

She drags me the few steps to the door and pushes it open, pulling me into the past. Back to almost ten years ago when it was just Paul and me, when Julia was still in high school and living at home. Out of my life, never into his.

Big Mama hasn’t changed since then: the black and white tiled floor, the red booths near the windows, and the row of metal stools with cushions of the same red vinyl along the bar on the other side. Even the air smells the same: of burgers and fries, vanilla, and coffee that never stops coming.

Paul and I have been friends since freshman year in college; we were both majoring at NYU in marketing, with a minor in design. Before we officially met—thanks to the Typography professor pairing us for the course project—I’d seen him around campus. It was impossible not to notice Paul. Blond, tall, with broad shoulders and a square jaw, he was a poster child for all-American wholesome handsomeness.

But before academic requirements forced us together, the idea of talking to him never crossed my mind, even if we shared almost every class. I didn’t dislike him per se; I’d simply dismissed him as way out of my league, and someone who my parents would approve of too much.

They do, by the way.

I’m not sure how Big Mama became our regular meeting place. It could’ve been because here we could eat breakfast at any hour, or because the coffee was cheap and never ran out, or because the place was open 24/7… It just happened as our
friendship happened: naturally.

One conversation with Paul was enough to make me go back on all my prejudices about him. Paul Collins wasn’t just a pretty face in preppy clothes; he was smart, and fun, but also a creative genius—in short, a boy even more out of my league. Not that it mattered, as he had a girlfriend at the time: Marie, who, I suspect, barely tolerated our collaboration and following friendship.

For a long time, I believed Paul and I would be one of those couples who finally come together after an unfortunate mix of missed connections and bad timing. When he broke up with Marie, I was in another relationship, and when that ended, he’d started dating someone else. Then his first job out of college was in Chicago, where he lived for three years while I stayed in New York. But when he came back to the city single and called me to grab a coffee at our old spot, I thought, This is it, we’re finally going to happen.

Little did I know that day would turn into the worst of my life instead. Whenever I try to pin down exactly how all my dreams of a future with Paul were crushed, I can’t. My brain, probably suffering from a bad case of PTSD, has erased the details to protect me. All I remember is that while I was with Paul, Julia, who had also moved to the city by then, called me with some stupid emergency and joined us at the diner. Well, that was enough to erase me from Paul’s dating map forever. If I’d ever been there at all.

From the moment Jules sat down next to me, it was as if I didn’t exist anymore. Conversation just sparked between them, it was like there were fireworks coming across the table, while I remained invisible. That day, I officially became the old college friend who had introduced Paul to the love of his life. Big Mama ceased to be our special place, and instead became the special spot where they met.

Ten years of shared history wiped out by one of Julia’s smiles.

Never, with any of Paul’s previous girlfriends, had I experienced that sense of terrible loss, of a future that now could never be. Because even if they broke up, he would be my sister’s ex: permanently off-limits. Sadly, that’s also when I realized Paul meant more to me than an old crush or a romantic fantasy about a friend. I was in love with him. Had been for years. But on the same day I understood the depth of my feelings for him, they became forbidden.

As far as I know, Julia had no idea Paul wasn’t just a friend for me. And by the time I figured myself out, they were already dating. Too late for me to call dibs on him. And no matter how much it hurt to sit silently by and watch them fall in love, I couldn’t bring myself to ruin their relationship. I cared too much about both of them.

Now, as I walk back onto the crime scene, I’m all jitters.

Why has Julia dragged me here? Why are we having lunch with Paul? Let’s hope at least it’ll be quick. I mean, they both have jobs to go back to. Don’t they?

The moment we sit, a server comes with menus. Like the diner, the menus haven’t changed; the same big, laminated sheets barely legible through the years of grease that has seeped into the plastic. Not that I need to check the menu. I know what I’m getting, and also what Paul’s ordering.

I leave my menu on the table and stare at Jules as she tries to decipher the writing under the dirty plastic to find something allowed by whatever diet she’s following at the moment—not that she needs one.

When the server comes back, she turns to Paul first. He orders the fluffy pancakes, as I knew he would. Then, looking at me, he adds, “French toast with berries and cream?”

I can’t help but smile and nod. He remembered.

“And you, honey?” Paul asks Julia. “What are you getting?”

All eyes are now on my sister.

“I’ll take… Mmm…” Jules purses her lips. “The chicken salad without the chicken, eggs, bacon, and onions. Leave the dressing on the side, please.”

Our server raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment, just writes Julia’s order on her pad.

Paul sighs—half-amused, half-exasperated—and orders a round of Bloody Marys for everyone. Julia asks for hers to be virgin.

When the server’s gone, Jules turns toward Paul with a complicit smile. “Should we tell her now?”

Paul shifts in his booth. “Maybe we should wait for our drinks.”

“Tell me what?” I ask.

My sister smiles at me. “We have some very special news to share, and we wanted to do it here.”

I don’t like how this sounds. I look at Paul for reassurance, but he only shrugs in response. At once, my palms go clammy with sweat.

“This is where we met,” Jules continues, “and if it weren’t for you, it would’ve never happened.”

Don’t I know!

“So it seemed the perfect place to tell you…” My sister pauses for effect. “Are you ready?”

No!

Can I say, no, run out of the diner, and never see them again?

I swallow, grimace, and nod.

Julia takes a deep breath and says, “We’re engaged!”

Something pulls tight in my chest, and I blab the first thing that comes into my head, “T-to each other?”

“Of course to each other, silly.” Having thus handed down my death sentence, Jules launches into a wedding planning rant. “No need to say, you’ll be my maid of honor. The main color scheme for the ceremony and reception will be cream and peach. But I’ll need your visual expertise to make sure everything is perfect.”

“I-I produce commercials,” I manage to stutter. “I don’t plan weddings.”

“Yeah, but you have an eye for setting, wardrobe, photography… You’re the ace up my sleeve. We’re still debating over two different wedding planners, but as soon as we pick one I’ll let you have their contact so we can all coordinate…”

I don’t interrupt her a second time. I let her blab on and on about all her wedding ideas while I nod and mmm-hmm every now and then whenever I feel a pause in the conversation requires it. Conversation… more like a monologue. I should be glad my input isn’t needed. There’s too much of a strong buzz inside my head for me to be able to communicate anyway. Something like the loud ambient interference of a microphone standing too close to the speakers. I’m the microphone, and Jules and Paul’s engagement is the amplifier making my brain explode and taking my heart with it.

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Other books in the series:

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Twenty-nine-year-old Blair Walker is a girl with a plan, or more a girl with a list. A list of dos and don'ts to live the perfect life, land a dream career, and marry Mr. Right.

When Blair loses her job and gets dumped by her boyfriend all in one day, she starts to wonder if she's had it all wrong. And what better way to find out than experience everything the list forbade?

Never Lie
Never Pick a Fight
Never Make a Scene
Never Make the First Move
Never Make Impulse Decisions
Never Mix Business and Pleasure...

With hilarious consequences, Blair will discover some items are trickier to tick off than she'd thought...

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Have you ever wondered what might have been?

Gemma Dawson is at the airport, staring at two plane tickets to two different cities. Two different weddings. Two possible futures. She’s at a crossroads.

Be maid of honor at her best friend’s wedding or crash her ex’s?

Gemma’s decision, unknown to her, hinges on a delayed flight and a chance meeting. Now her life is about to go down two parallel tracks—will Gemma fly toward a life with her first love or a future with a man she’s not even met yet?

ONE
SUMMER

Sterile and cold. The retrieval room is both. It’s a compact space filled with medical equipment: a gynecological bed, an ultrasound machine, various monitors, and a metal IV stand.

As uninviting as the gyn bed looks, I fidget in my hospital gurney waiting for the nurse’s permission to switch accommodations. I’m perfectly able to walk, but it’s the clinic’s policy to have me ferried between rooms this way.

Gosh, I hope this will be over soon. I’ve been second-guessing my decision to be here since the hormone shots began two weeks ago, and can’t wait to be done. They said the procedure would take no more than twenty minutes, but I feel like I’ve been stuck in this room for hours, and we haven’t even started yet.

The nurse must realize I’m fretting because she asks, “Are we waiting for someone to join you today?”

By someone, she means a partner. And the question is well-intentioned, I’m sure. Unfortunately, she’s twisting the knife into the wound of my singlehood.

“No,” I say. “I’m alone.”

The automatic doors behind me swoosh open, sparing me the need to elaborate further on my lack of a love life, and two female doctors walk in. One is wearing white scrubs while the other is clad in salmon.

The salmon doctor speaks first. “Good morning. I’m Doctor Philips, and I’ll be the one retrieving your eggs today. And this”—she points at her colleague—“is Doctor Mathison, your anesthesiologist.”

The nurse hands the doctor my medical file.

Dr. Philips does a quick check of my record, and asks, “How are you, Miss Knowles?”

“A bit nervous,” I say.

The doctor smiles. “No reason to be, Summer. Can I call you Summer?”

I nod.

“The procedure is quick, and you won’t feel a thing.” She gestures at the gyn bed. “Ready to jump?”

I nod again and, with the nurse’s help, move onto the bed. The hospital gown I’m wearing flaps open as I stand up, but today’s not the time for modesty. I adjust in a half-reclining position with my back leaning backward at about forty-five degrees while Dr. Philips instructs me to please place my legs in the stirrups. And so here I am, half-naked, legs wide open, and completely exposed.

“Has the procedure already been explained to you?” Dr. Philips asks.

“Yes,” I confirm. “But could we go over it another time, please?”

“Sure.” The doctor smiles again. “First, I’ll perform local anesthesia while Dr. Mathison will use an IV catheter to administer an intravenous sedative. Then, I’ll use an ultrasound probe attached to a thin needle that we’ll use to make a tiny puncture through your vaginal wall and enter the ovary, where we’ll suck out the fluid that encloses the eggs through the needle. And we’ll be done in no time. Ready?”

For a needle to puncture my vagina? I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

I nod.

The doctor smiles another time and pulls on a surgical mask.

“Try to relax now,” she says. “I’ll start with the local anesthesia by administering four small injections. You’ll feel four little pinches similar to what you’d experience at the dentist.”

Ah, I disagree in my head, but the dentist operates on my gums. You, doctor, are jostling around much more sensitive parts.

The first pinch comes, and, okay, it’s not bad. Honestly, the dentist analogy is strikingly correct. Anyway, I’m distracted from the second needle’s prick by Dr. Mathison talking to my right.

She gently grabs my right arm where an IV line has already been inserted and hooks it to a drip, saying, “This is the pain medication. You might feel lightheaded, don’t worry, it’s normal.”

I can only think, Hell yeah, please get me high before the big needle comes. Long live the drugs!

As promised, in a matter of seconds, my eyes cross and I feel insta-happy, not a worry to my name. I barely hear Dr. Philips say she’s going in and, before I know it, I’m back on the gurney ready to be transported to my room.

Once there, the nurse helps me transfer to the hospital bed and instructs me to rest. She needn’t have done so. With the sedative still running high in my bloodstream, the moment my head touches the pillow, I pass out.

***

Best. Nap. Ever.

I haven’t slept so well in months and wake up only when the nurse comes back to get me out of bed. She asks me if I’m okay, and when I nod, she invites me to get dressed and wait for Dr. Philips, who will arrive shortly with my results.

I use the adjoining bathroom to get changed and, when I come out, Dr. Philips is already waiting for me. Her usual friendly smile stamped on her lips.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Good,” I say, sitting on the bed—my legs are still a little like Jell-O. “The needle sounded scary at first, but I honestly didn’t feel a thing.”

“Happy to hear.” The doctor nods, satisfied, and taps the medical folder in her hands. “I have your results here,” she says. “The procedure was a success. We were able to retrieve seventeen eggs, of which fifteen were viable and have been frozen.”

“Fifteen eggs? Is that good?”

“Fantastic. You’re under thirty-five, and with this many eggs, you stand a seventy percent chance of a live birth.”

“Okay.” I nod. Even if the pessimist in me can’t help but concentrate on that thirty percent chance I’ll never have a baby.

The doctor must be used to her patients not being a cheery bunch, because she doesn’t comment on my scarce enthusiasm but continues to give me my prognosis. “Now, the side effect of having produced a great number of eggs is that you’re at risk of OHSS: Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome.”

That doesn’t sound good.

“Luckily,” the doctor continues, “the condition incurs only if you were to get pregnant, which”—she checks my file—“I see is not the case with you. We’re not proceeding with fertilization, right?”

And I know she’s only doing her job, just like the nurse earlier, but, once more, it feels as if the doctor is purposely pointing out how single and desperate I am.

“No,” I say. “No sperm donors on the horizon for now.”

“That’s fine. Frozen eggs, if properly conserved, remain viable indefinitely. And our facility is top-notch. We also offer a wide selection of donors in case you decided to proceed with fertilization later in time.”

Again, she’s just giving me my options. But I can’t help feeling like a total failure, a woman whose sole chance to have a baby will be to pick a dad from a catalog because she couldn’t find a man in real life.

The doctor finishes her report by giving me a list of medications I have to take for the next two weeks and mandating that I use protection were I to have sex.

Aha. Fat chance!

I’ve been in a dry spell for months and before that, the last man I had sex with ruined my life. Well, not just him; I had a big part in my own self-destruction. But still, I’ve sworn off men. Hence the need to freeze my eggs if I ever hope to have a family.

On that cheerful note, I thank the doctor one last time and leave the clinic. A few minutes later, on the street, I hail a cab to JFK.

***

At the airport, I clear the security checks super early. Unsure how long the procedure would take, I’ve kept a nice cushion and booked the red-eye flight back to LA.

With a couple of hours to kill, I could stroll the shops, but I’m not in the mood for shopping. Plus, with the anesthesia fresh in my system, I’m still a little groggy. I don’t even have the energy to go look for a proper restaurant and settle for the first bar I find in my path.

I sit at one of the high stools at the deserted counter.

“Hey, you’re back,” the bartender—a friendly-looking guy with sandy hair and blue eyes—greets me as if we were old friends. He does a double-take and adds, “Not from the jungle this time, uh?”

What the hell is he talking about?

I stare, unsure how I should reply.

But the bartender just keeps going. “And how’s the doctor?”

The doctor? How could he know I’m coming from the clinic? Do I have “sad lady who froze her eggs because she can’t find a man” written all over my face?

“Did he find you?” the bartender asks.

He?

I blink, confused.

“Winter?” the guy asks, calling me by my sister’s name. “Are you okay?”

And the mystery is solved: he thinks I’m my twin.

“Sorry,” I say, smiling. “Wrong sister. I’m Summer. We haven’t met.”

The dude’s eyes widen. “Oh my gosh, you look exactly the same.”

“I know, identical twins and all… So, you’ve met Winter? When?”

“A few months ago. She was coming back from Thailand all upset about a professor not loving her. She told me her story over breakfast, and after she left, what do you know, the dude showed up and chased her halfway down the airport—guess he was in love. But I never heard how it ended.”

“Well.” I sigh, contrasting emotions swirling in my head—mushy joy, a bit of jealousy, and a boatload of terror. “They’re getting married in three weeks…”

I hope I’ve kept the dread from my voice. I swear I couldn’t be happier for my sister. But her wedding is going to span over a week in order to accommodate most of the groom’s guests, who will fly in from all over the world. For Logan’s friends, it wouldn’t have made sense to travel to the States only for a weekend.

And, normally, a week-long destination wedding in Napa would sound like a dream. I’d be looking forward to a break made of nothing but relaxation, wine tasting, and family time. While the celebration of love would be the cherry on top of my romance-loving cake.

But this wedding, I won’t enjoy. All my ex-friends are invited. People that will stare, judge, and talk behind my back. The thought makes me want to crawl in a dark corner and never come out.

But I can’t. For my sister, I’ll put on a brave face, a fake smile, and trudge Monday through Sunday like a real soldier. Because Winter doesn’t deserve to have my poor choices ruin the most important day of her life.

“Whoa.” The bartender’s smile is wide and genuine as he reacts to the wedding announcement; he hasn’t picked up on my internal turmoil. Guess the past few months have taught me how to pretend well. “Engaged and getting married in less than a year. That was quick,” he says.

“Yeah, Logan is still working in Thailand most of the time, and a late-spring wedding was the only opening in both their schedules.”

“I’m Mark, by the way.” The bartender extends an arm forward. “Nice to meet you.”

“Summer,” I repeat, shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“And sorry,” Mark apologizes. “I’ve been monopolizing the conversation. What can I get you?”

I stare at the juicer machine behind him. “You make fresh orange juice?”

“Yes.”

“An OJ, then, and a sandwich if you have any.”

“We do,” Mark says. “Is cheese and ham fine?”

I nod.

He prepares the food and puts the sandwich on the grill to heat. With the push of a few buttons, he sets the timer and moves on to the OJ, selecting two oranges from a metal basket above the machine and feeding them into the juicer.

Two minutes later, he puts a coaster on the counter and serves me my juice. “So,” he says. “What brought you to The Big Apple? Business or pleasure?”

I wince involuntarily. “Neither.”

Mark must notice my expression, because he says, “Sorry, I’m being nosy. It’s a bad habit of mine. Guess it comes with the territory.” He gestures at the bar surrounding us while he gets my sandwich out of the grill.

“No, don’t worry.” I take a sip of OJ. “It’s just that I came to New York for a medical procedure. Something personal.”

Mark frowns. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.” The frown deepens. “Are you okay?”

Gosh, I’m such a moron. I mentally swat myself on the forehead. Now he’s going to think I have cancer or something.

“Yes,” I say, taking a bite out of the sandwich. “Totally okay.” I swallow. “It was a voluntary procedure.”

Mark studies my face, probably trying to decide if I had plastic surgery, but obviously bites his tongue and doesn’t ask.

I blush and blurt out, “I had my eggs frozen, all right?”

Mark’s eyes widen. “Oh, what clinic?”

Uh? Not the response I expected. “Why do you want to know? Are you an expert on fertility clinics?”

Mark smirks. “Sort of. My sister is a nurse at FIVET HC.”

“That’s my clinic! I chose it because it was the most recommended on my insurance plan.”

“And I can certify it’s one of the best clinics in the country.”

“What’s your sister’s name?”

“Gwen, Gwen Cooper. Did you meet her?”

The name doesn’t ring a bell. “No, sorry, she wasn’t my nurse.” I twirl a lock of hair around my finger. “You think it’s pathetic?” I ask. “Freezing my eggs?”

“No, it’s smart. If you want a family but are…” He falters in his speech, most likely struggling to find a nicer way to say a spinster. “Not at a moment in your life when that’s… err… possible. Cryopreservation is a wise move to protect your fertility and chances to have a baby for when you’ll be ready.” He flashes me a goofy smile. “You can tell I’m a victim of my sister’s propaganda, uh?”

Despite myself, I smile. I’ve told this guy, this total stranger, my innermost secret, and he’s managed to put me at ease. Not just with him, but with my life’s choices as well.

“You’re right,” I say. “And I’m not at a time in my life where a relationship is something I want to pursue.”

“Busy with your career?”

“Yes, but it’s not that.” I chew off another bite before telling him the next part. “I’ve sort of sworn off men. I’m not ready to meet someone.”

“Oh, honey, but that’s the worst thing you can say if you don’t want a man.”

“Why?”

“Because the moment you stop looking, that’s when Prince Charming will come knocking on your door.”

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PS. This opening scene might feel weird for a rom com. To make the book start in a hospital room is a choice I debated for a long time. But, if you’ve been following me for a while, you might already know my son was born through IVF. Before starting the process, I had no idea how it worked, and half-way through, I’m not going to lie, the needle sounded scary. In the end, for me it was a very positive, non-painful experience that I wanted to share in a fun way in my writing. If you’re struggling with infertility or just want to give yourself more time to make a decision about motherhood like Summer, feel free to write back to me if you have any questions. I can’t give any medical advice, but I can share my personal infertility journey with you like a friend would.

x,
Camilla