How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

By Asha King

Joshua Lee Merrill has been a playboy for years, never content to settle and convinced there’s no such thing as “the right one”—just“the right now.” For a while, he thought he had the perfect woman—until she summarily dumped him and gave his ego a severe thrashing. His group of friends are there to help with his broken heart...but it’s his old pal Derica who suddenly has him hot with desire.

Derica Washington nursed a crush on her friend Josh for years while he went through a string of girlfriends and never gave her a second look. But now he’s broken-hearted, alone, and his sights are set on her at last. She’s determined not to give in to him, though turning the love ’em and leave ’em attitude on him is tempting. And it can’t hurt to indulge this once...can it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asha King
• Release date: Sep 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301463701

Asha King

Asha King likes good-looking men and hot books, and often strives to combine the two in contemporary, paranormal, and suspenseful romantic stories. She lives in the exotic land of Alberta, Canada, where she doesn’t ride a polar bear to work but does drink vast amounts of locally brewed beer and watches hockey. She loves connecting with readers and you can keep up to date with her online at www.AshaKing.com, where you’ll find a list of her books as well as what she’s working on and potential release dates.

Book preview

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

A Circle of Friends Novella

Asha King

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Wild Horses: Cold, Cold Winter (Stirling Falls #1.5)

Sympathy for the Devil (Stirling Falls #2)

Circle of Friends: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Coming Soon

I Who Have Nothing

Gimme Shelter (Stirling Falls #3)

Circle of Friends: Still in Love with You

Cats in Heat (Cats & Conjure #1)

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Copyright © 2012 by Asha King

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Edited by Adrienne Jones

Cover Art © 2012 by Asha King

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Chapter One

So where is he? Derica Washington slid into the round, red vinyl booth and immediately reached right for a slice of pizza from the platter in the center of the table. Mozzarella cheese stretched in hot, gooey strings, and she gathered them up and deposited them on her pizza before taking a bite.

Her best friend, Jessalyn Jones, grinned around the soda straw between her berry-painted lips, finished taking a sip, and then set the glass down. "On his way. Kashayla called and said he had to be dragged out of bed."

The great and powerful Joshua Lee Merrill, done in by a woman at last, Cole said with a shake of his head. When Jessalyn nudged her boyfriend in the ribs playfully, he grinned. It’s true. Never thought I’d see the day.

Derica could barely believe it either. J.L. never had a girlfriend for more than a couple of months, but he’d been with Lilly for nearly a year. Kashayla called an hour earlier, said Lilly apparently left him a few days ago, and insisted everyone needed to meet at the Pizza Palace for an impromptu Thursday night dinner to hopefully cheer him up. A grin fought at Derica’s lips as she took another bite of her pizza and chewed. She’d never liked that bottle blonde anyway and now the thought of seeing J.L. all heartbroken had her almost giddy. He was cocky as hell, the family was richer than anybody in town, and everything had always gone his way. Perhaps it made her a bad person, but she rather liked the idea of seeing Mr. Golden Boy knocked down a few pegs.

The fact that she’d crushed on him for the first four years of the seven she’d known him, of course, had nothing at all to do with it.

She grabbed an extra glass from the center of the table and the pitcher of Diet Coke, and poured herself a drink. So what’s the plan? Just dinner?

Jessalyn shrugged. Dinner to start.

Club, Cole said. He leaned back in the booth and slid his arm over Jessalyn’s shoulders, smiling at her. Dancing?

My weakness, she replied, sinking back against him.

Derica sipped her drink and averted her gaze while her friends cuddled. They’d been a couple since college, when the group of them first met freshman year, and had been attached at the hip ever since. The perfect couple, they complimented one another in every way; Montgomery Cole’s looks were classically handsome with thick dark hair and an ever-present smile, while Jessalyn was equally pretty and always looking somehow finished and put together. Maybe that was why, after so many years, the P.D.A. never faded; the