Release Tour, Exclusive Excerpt & Giveaway:
When We Meet Again
By Hayden Hall

Rafael owns my heart.

He stole it with the first clumsy bump in a Parisian bookstore, and I never asked him to return it.

He gifted me a night to remember, a night that shaped the person I would become. And then, I lost him. I lost every trace that could have helped me find him. Until fate meddled again and put Rafael and me on the same cross-European train through the Alps.

But if I hoped that some divine hand guided us to one another, I was terribly mistaken.

Our second encounter sparked a decade of failed attempts and missed chances. For years, I yearned to be with him, and for years, something took him away. Our lives are so intertwined that we will never be free of one another. And yet, each time I see him, my dream of a happy ending fades a little more.

Is stealing moments with Rafael enough to live on? Can I survive on glimmers of hope? I don’t think so.

It’s time to take our happy ending away from fate’s hands. It’s time to break this cursed cycle once and for all.

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Exclusive Excerpt:

He took the book back. “It’s a birthday gift.”

“I don’t read comics,” I said in no particular tone.

Rafael grinned. “You’re a bit of a snob, aren’t you?”

The frown that creased my brow made him chuckle.

“God, you’re adorable. I’ll forgive it.” After those words left his curved, red lips, his gaze dropped to the cover of The Sandman graphic novel. He looked at me again, a little more guardedly, and winced. “Was that too forward?”

The heat that soared into my face must have been a telltale sign. And if it hadn’t been, then the choked breath I dragged into my burning lungs was.

“I usually speak without thinking,” Rafael said. “It’s very off-putting, they say.”

“I don’t think it’s off-putting.” The soft tone I used was out of my control. My ears were still ringing with the word he used to describe me. Straight guys didn’t tell other guys they were adorable, right? The fondest words a straight guy had directed at me had been “You’re kinda cool, man.” Not this. Never this.

“It’s my lucky day, then,” he said and hesitated, possibly waiting for me to say something else. I wanted to, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to bridge the gap between my heart and my tongue. “Well…” He rolled his shoulders. “It was nice meeting you.”

I pressed my lips into a tight smile and nodded. I had this distinct feeling of standing on the precipice; either step forward and claim the gift fate had given me or step back and forget this had ever happened. Years later, in a hotel room on Piazza Navona, I would gaze out at the crowds of people who looked for some respite in the cool evening air. Standing on the edge of the abyss, I would remember this moment. Though a decade had passed since he scribbled his name inside a book I had no plans on reading, I felt the same sense of gravity and fate and sheer importance of having run into Rafael. There, in a hidden bookstore in Paris, I was knocked out of my orbital path by a fraction of a degree, and the impact rippled throughout my life.