Strikeout (New York Monarchs #1)
PROLOGUE ISABELLA
Prologue
NINETIES MARC ANTHONY VOCALS filter through my flimsy bedroom door, alerting me that at least one of my parents is up and cleaning our modest Upper West Side apartment. And by cleaning, I mean beating the baseboards with a Swiffer.
And by our apartment, I mean their apartment. The one I am currently squatting in… indefinitely. Because nothing screams thriving twenty-five-year-old quite like still living with one’s parents. But what can I say? I have an aversion to New York City rent prices and the idea of adulting in general. Sue me.
Lies.
You know why you’re still here , the voice in my head reminds me. As if I couldn’t google my name and remember all the ways my past still haunts me. How the actions of another keep me tethered to the only people who make me feel safe and unjudged.
I huff out a frustrated breath.
Not this shit again.
I lift my head and scour my bedding to find where my Kindle landed after I dozed off last night. Because, like most nights, I fell asleep way too late feeding myself that “just one more chapter before I go to bed” lie.
Reading seems to be the only thing that can take me out of my head and transport me into another world. One where I’m not Isabella Morales, the girl whose fall from grace was everyone’s water cooler chatter, each headline slowly bleeding me dry of my sanity, and quite frankly, my desire to ever fall in love again.
Which is why romance books are my haven. A place where I can be a spectator, because the romance genre isn’t just about two people falling in love. It’s a safe space to learn about how people of diverse backgrounds go through transformations that happen to align with meeting the loves of their lives. Something I never plan to let happen to me, because while I can’t rewrite the pages of my past, I can absolutely keep the reins to my heart tighter than the heroine in the cowboy romance I binged last night.
Because I, under no circumstances, will ever fall for a man’s false promises again.
Mark my words.