Because I Love You

by Victoria Black

Eight weeks after sixteen-year-old Andie Hamilton gives her virginity to her best friend, “the stick” says she’s pregnant. With the life-shattering result goes her dreams of attending NYU and adding M.D. to her name—and the best friend who’d said he loved her.

Andie wants nothing more than for life to return to normal. Friends abandon her. Classmates torture her with lewd pictures and vulgar names. Her baby’s father refuses to acknowledge the child’s his. But when Andie hears her son’s heartbeat for the first time, she knows she’ll never be able to let go.

Afraid to experience the next seven months alone, Andie turns to the one person not tossing judgmental stares—her ex-boyfriend Neil Donaghue, a dark-haired, blue-eyed player and the older brother of her worst enemy. He rescues her when a nasty video circulates around school, holds her together as her life spirals out of control, and fights to reunite her with her birth mother.

Then a tragic accident forces Andie to question whether adoption might be the right choice for her own baby, and Neil’s there to offer her security. But when she discovers he’s keeping a secret that could dramatically alter their lives, Andie has to make a choice: selfishly keep her son, depriving him—and the guy she’s come to love—of a happier life, or break her own heart.

Kindle Edition

Published March 7, 2022

About the author

Victoria grew up in a small suburb of Akron, Ohio, where she considered being sent to her room for punishment as an opportunity to dive into another book. She previously wrote books as Vicki Leigh and Tori Rigby, interned at a literary agency, and acquired books for a small publishing house.

If she couldn’t be a writer, Victoria would be a Jedi. Her favorite place on earth is Hogwarts (she refuses to believe it doesn’t exist), and her favorite dreams include solving cases alongside Sherlock Holmes. She now lives in Charlotte, NC, with her 10-pound yorkipoo named after the famous sleuth.