Swept Away

By Trisha Fuentes

Cassie Monerrez just turned forty-five. She was a single mother, divorced and working an unexciting job as a high school office assistant. After registering for an online dating app, Cassie officially enters the Friends With Benefits world among a string of bad dates, midnight romps with her ex and lonely weekends. Cassie almost gives up on men all together when she meets her match in the afternoon janitor, Wyatt Zander.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ardent Artist Books
• Release date: Feb 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463980873

Trisha Fuentes

Hey, it's Trish...I've always loved romance, I am a romantic at heart and writing Happily Ever After makes me smile. I wrote a few books back in 2008, then stopped completely because of writer's block (yep, it does happen!) I've tried my hand at Contemporary Modern romance and published a few Novellas in that genre, however, Historical Romance, especially Regency, is my passion and what I am most comfortable with writing. Expect to see dozens--no hundreds!--of more Regency Novellas published by Ardent Artist Books (my parent company).

Book preview

Chapter One

Yesterday was her birthday.  She turned forty-five. Halfway to fifty.  There could be worse things.

Cassie Monerrez sat on her couch in the living room, and tried to concentrate on a mass market paperback she picked up at Target. Shutting it quickly, she laid it on her lap and swung her feet up on the couch and crossed her feet at her ankles. Laying her head down she recollected the night before.  

What a night.

Her best friends since high school, Rayna Russo and Liz Tobin met her at her favorite Mexican restaurant, Juanito’s for a night of chips and salsa, sriracha coconut shrimp appetizers and margaritas. She recalled drinking the first three, after that, she couldn’t remember how many the threesome had ordered.  Her night did include a round ordered by a few cute guys, but then she doesn’t remember much after that.

Her birthday was kind of a blur.  With good intentions, she met her best friends to have some laughs, and talk about their ex-husbands. What she ended up doing was going home with some stranger who was now occupying her bathroom about to leave.   

How did she get here?   

Sleeping with random guys was not her style, but she was drunk enough to think so, and brought home sex with no name.

Cassie leaned over to see if Mr. No Name was out of her bathroom yet, he wasn’t.  Good thing her kids were staying with their father this week, otherwise this visit would have been—awkward.

Tristan and Kendra, ages seventeen and fifteen were both out of school on Spring Break, and Cassie had her house to herself.  Her eldest son, Noah was attending Oregon State and he had been out of the house for quite some time. Thank goodness for that too, for Noah was always judgmental, especially now since she was single.

Cassie swung her legs over to the floor, and was startled by Mr. No Name who suddenly filled her hallway.  Walking into the living room, he kept a safe distance several feet away. Cassie was surprised to see Mr. No Name so young! He couldn’t have been more than two or three years older than Noah, and the realization made her cringe.

Cassie painstakingly smiled.

Mr. No Name smirked.  Well, I’ve gotta go now.

Cassie nodded her head.  There’s a water bottle in the fridge, she spat out, closing her eyes.  What, was she sending him away to a soccer game?

He didn’t want nourishment, he wanted to be home-free, and began to walk towards the door.

Cassie stood up.   

Mr. No Name halted, I had a good time.

Me too, she lied, having not remembered any of last night.

Well, see ya, he let go, stepping towards the door and reaching for the doorknob.

Cassie stood her ground and didn’t move an inch.  She wasn’t going to chase him or beg him to stay. She didn’t even want to know him. 

He was a mistake.  

One of many.

After her divorce, Cassie liberated all her inhibitions and threw caution to that wind. Introducing herself to men just for the sake of it; at work, fundraisers, soccer practice, getting gas, you name it, she did it.  She was so determined to show him.  Him, was of course, her ex-husband Damon Monerrez.  

She married Damon a year out of high school, so in love she couldn’t see straight, she was determined to make him hers.  Funny now when you look back at it, how naive she really was in that making him hers came coupled with the stress of bills, pregnancy, unemployment and a cheating spouse.

Never in her life would she want to change things.  She was glad she was forty-five having gone through all that heartache only to survive at the end with her sanity and their four-bedroom house.

Damon plus girlfriend number three, now live in a rented house just a few blocks away. And yes, he does pop in every now and then just to see how she was holding up or "I’m hungry, what’s for dinner?"  

Maturing as young adults, getting over those growing pains was beneficial to her and Damon, they were friendly now...some would say they were, best friends...and she rather liked it that way.

Damon was her first in everything.  First kiss, first love, first sexual experience.  He would always have a place in heart, always...she just didn’t want to live with him anymore.  She did try to keep their marriage together for the sake of the kids, by going to marriage counseling, but their trust was broken, and she could no longer heal.

So, Damon moved out, moved in with his then twenty-something girlfriend and Cassie filed for divorce.

Luckily, she still had her job.

Cassie never did finish college, so after Kendra was about five, Cassie went back to work as an assistant at Noah’s high school, Regal High. She loved working there with all its spontaneity and drama. One day was always different from the next. Lost and found, cuts and bruised knees, a line for the principal’s office and the occasional stow-away pet.

On one such occasion, Pete Moskowitz couldn’t part ways with his beloved pet snake, and Cassie had to wrangle the slimy reptile away from Pete’s backpack where he held it hostage.  The darn thing (not poisonous by the way) wrapped its clammy body around Cassie’s arms, and up her shoulders only to stay there until the Animal Control Center could arrive.

Good times.

Chapter Two

Eventually, Cassie was promoted to a teacher’s aide.  Not quite what she wanted to be when she grew up, but it paid the bills.

She had every major American holiday off, Easter vacation, and summer breaks—all with pay and benefits.  There could be worse things.

So, being single.

Was it nice to be single?  Yes and No.

Yes, because she was released from the stress of no longer having to act like Damon’s mother and the perpetual detective.  Yes, she did put tabs on him. Checked his cell phone daily, the monthly bill, even followed him to work one day.  Funny, how everyone always says nothing beats a woman’s intuition.

So, telling YOU now, TRUST YOUR INTUITION!

If you think he’s doing something bad—he is.

And did her husband deny it?  Of course.

Was it painful to find out he was sleeping with a twenty-something on his route?  You bet.

But ten years later, she no longer cares.  Time does heal all wounds—oh the memories still linger, especially when she sees him, but the act disappears, and seems to fade with the seasons.

And then there’s dating.

Hard to get back on that horse, so to say, when the horse has thrown you off and hoofed you in your derriere.  After being in a relationship