Almost Yours (Lily Ridge #1)

Prologue

. . .

Violet

I’ve always heard you experience three types of love in your life.

The first puts your heart in your throat and butterflies in your stomach. It makes everything glitter with newness and teaches you how good it feels to fall.

Your second love wrecks you. It’s a wildfire. A slow unraveling. It drags out your darkest parts and forces you to reckon with them.

Then there’s the third love. It’s the one that finds you when you’re no longer chasing it. The third love is the one that stays.

At least, that’s what they say. Whoever “they” are.

But sometimes I wonder—what if those three loves aren’t three different people? Could the rush of the first and the ruin of the second be stepping stones to the third? What if the person who lit you up and then tore you apart is also the one who eventually learns how to love you?

What if timing really is everything?

Maybe we’re not supposed to circle back, and most people don’t. But what if some do? What if some people just mean too much to fit into only one version of love?