The Stranger Beside Me 2

By Simone Holloway

Note: This is part two of a three part series. It is approximately 9500 words long.

As her memory slowly returns, Jo feels more torn than ever between the woman she was and the woman she is, but a reckoning is at hand...

Part two finds Jo alone and on the run. Desperate to rescue John, she embarks on a risky plan. Unable to shake her attraction to Nick, she feels caught between the two men. But a clear enemy emerges when Jo's frightening past catches up with her.

Series Description:

A new romantic suspense series from the bestselling author of Billion Dollar Baby.

We may be through with the past, but the past's not through with us...

After being left for dead by the side of a lake, Jo wakes with amnesia.

She soon stumbles upon a handsome stranger willing to help. Plagued by suspicion and out of options, she agrees to go along with him. When a mysterious group of men begin to pursue them, she soon finds herself under his protection.

But who are these men? Why do they want her? And why can't Jo shake the feeling her handsome stranger isn't a stranger at all?

As Jo's life begins to unravel, she discovers she's at the heart of a deadly game of lust, love, money and obsession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simone Holloway
• Release date: Sep 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301499717

Simone Holloway

A Simone é uma autora best-seller de erotismo e romances eróticos. Se você gosta de romances picantes com machos alfa e heroínas aventurosas, ou histórias de meninas e meninos maus ... há um pouco de tudo para todos. Divirta-se! Cadastre-se na minha newsletter para ficar informado sobre os novos lançamentos! CADASTRE-SE HOJE E RECEBE UMA HISTÓRIA GRÁTIS disponível exclusivamente para os meus assinantes. Recorte e cole este link: http://eepurl.com/MVZJ9

Book preview

The Stranger Beside Me 2

Simone Holloway

Copyright ©2013 Simone Holloway

First published by Simone Holloway 2013

Distributed by Smashwords

A fluorescent light flickered, flashed brightly once then blinked out completely. Jo closed her eyes and cursed under her breath. She stood in a small gas station bathroom emerged in darkness. The light flared again then settled into a steady, dim glow.

Jo sighed and cracked her neck. She pulled her shirt off and began to feel along her shoulders and back.

Since fleeing the house after Nick’s raid, Jo had been plagued by questions. The most pressing of which was who to trust?

As her fingers moved over her left arm and up her shoulder she realized she couldn’t even trust herself. Her memory was a hazy shade of half-formed images and puzzling figures. The more she tried to decipher the meaning of what little she could recall the less sense it made.

One question she couldn’t shake, was how did Nick find her so easily after she’d left the underground prison? At the time she was convinced that they had simply followed her, but it didn’t quite add up. They’d spent hours driving down side streets, taking detours and turnarounds. Jo was sure they weren’t being followed and yet…

Jo jumped as her hand passed over a bump on her neck. The skin was tender and painful when she pressed on the spot. Something hard was embedded under her flesh.

Jo spun around, turning her back to the mirror. She looked over shoulder and began to feel nauseous. Her mouth dropped open. It wasn’t the object planted in her neck that took her breath away, but the sight of a tattoo on her upper left shoulder.

Jo pushed her hair out of the way and strained to look. It was the tattoo from her memory: a rectangle with an elongated coiling spiral in the middle. So, the tattoo didn’t belong to Nick or John, it was hers, she thought.

She couldn’t shake the feeling it was important, but what could it possibly mean? She closed her eyes and told herself that it was just her amnesia giving added significance to trivial details.

Probably got it on Spring Break, she murmured out loud.

Jo tried to force a smile on her face, but it wouldn’t come. Deep down she knew the tattoo was relevant to her current predicament.

Jo focused on the object under her skin. She wasn’t sure what had prompted her to pull over and search herself, but her instincts had been correct. She took a breath and pulled a small, knife out of her pocket. She’d found it in the car she’d stolen after fleeing the house. It looked