Love Is Messy

By Renee Lee Fisher

From USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR Renee Lee Fisher, comes a love story that’s anything but staged.

Competing interior designers, Kora Messy and Kegan Murray, can’t seem to stay out of each other’s way. Time and again they end up bidding the same jobs, or forced to work together on them.

They tolerated each other through design school. Now, they find themselves bristling in each other’s presence... and not because of their professional rivalry. There is a crackle of attraction brewing between them neither can ignore, and it's getting stronger by the day.

Can they keep things professional and get their latest collaboration complete? Or will Kegan admit to himself and his heart that Love is Messy... Kora Messy?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Renee Lee Fisher
• Release date: Jan 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215287545

Renee Lee Fisher

USA TODAY Bestselling Author Renee Lee Fisher has the passion to put the pen to the paper and WRITE/CREATE. She is truly a romance junkie who loves to tell stories. She has written a variety of romantic works from novellas to novels. Her belief is that everyone should Indulge in LOVE.The first four of The Heartbeat Series of six planned Romance Novels. ROCK NOTES, LOVE NOTES, MUSIC NOTES, FIRST BEAT are completed and available. FIRST BASS and FIRST TASTE are yet to come.The Crossing Series (The Knot Hole, The Passage and The Muse) will take you on an endearing time travel romance from present day to centuries past.If you love a Suspense Romance - read Derailed. It is a sweet suspense that stands alone.Looking ahead, there will be many more romantic scenarios to come.Renee resides in Eagleville, PA with her loving husband Michael of many years and her cats Leo and Lincoln. She love to travel often and engage in meeting new people who provide her with future inspiration for stories.

Book preview

Define Messy.

Perhaps untidy or dirty from one’s occupation. Or it could mean a messy situation of the heart, a confusion, or something difficult to deal with…

‡

Love is Messy

Nothing that can be swept away with a touch of a broom.

In fact, you cannot just toss it in the trash can either.

Where the heart is concerned,

It must be cleaned up

To allow the love left to shine.

Messy is one’s hair, a bed, a life and words, but in this case, it’s more the heart.

Deep inside the chest, it hides the hurt and fear of relationships gone wrong, and yet continues to beat steadily.

Though one can love a restless soul, it can be messy and indecisive.

It can be rewarding to inhale one another’s flaws and accept their disarray as normal.

True love sees past all the murky complexity to what speeds up the heartbeat.

When people fall for one another, they let walls down and expose their true selves, where Love overshadows any imperfections, allowing each partner to be perfectly messy in a great way.

PROLOGUE

Hand

This is a foreshadowing of what happens when this pair works together on a future project.

It looked like a crime scene, red splattered everywhere…however, no police or EMT were called to their location. No one even dialed 911. The only emergency happening was the sexual attraction that ignited between them. The passion from their bodies was smoldering.

That memorable renovation was halted—paint was all over. Bright red paint spotted the floors where it missed the drop cloth. The walls showed a light spray of the red coloring, and, of course, it was on their skin and bodies. What would come of this disastrous design?

Love can be messy, especially when two people with off-the-charts sexual chemistry were forced to work together. Two people like Kora Messy and Kegan Murray. Her nipples hardened, and his dick rose to attention every time they found themselves on a job that required both their design expertise.

CHAPTER ONE

Hand

Months before that red and white, very wet, sexy, splattered paint scene, Kora was gazing from the restaurant’s window at the large building just across the street where she had a new remodeling project. In her mental and physical state, her life was a perfect situation. The new job distracted her from what happened in her recent relationship that soured. Once a couple reached that place, often it was the point of no return, no sweetness to recoup.

This evening, Kora was thrilled to have a female sounding board, her assistant Dori, to meet with her to have a drink and a bite to eat. Kora knew, in no time, she would be freely discussing her thoughts on her not-so-wonderful love life. For a simple lady’s night out, Kora dressed in jeans and low tan suede boots. She threw on a cream and brown crocheted sweater. Underneath, she wore a nude-colored tank top, so it looked like she had nothing on underneath through the sweater pattern openings.

Dori, now seated across from her, sipped her rum and coke slowly as she listened to Kora. She too showed up wearing jeans and a short black and white midriff sweater, with white Keds. Her long dark hair was loosely braided off to the right side of her shoulder.

Your hair looks cute swept to the one side. I cannot get my short hair to do anything like that. Kora brushed her fingers through her dark bangs as Dori smiled at her compliment.

After they were seated a short time, Kora opened herself up quite freely in her conversation.

Dori, not all my romances were short-lived and soured swiftly. There was one, though it was long ago, possibly my first love—that one was lengthy. It was the kind of relationship my friends and I knew was destined for a ring and proposal.

Kora paused, taking a sip of her Aperol spritz. Gazing into her glass that had an orange coloring, she remembered the sunset one particular evening.

"It was a lovely warm-weather evening, and the sun was lowering over the lake. Hues of orange and red shone brightly. That evening, everyone I knew believed it was finally the night, the one where my boyfriend, Ben, would ask that all-important question."

Dori offered a sympathetic glance from across the table. Pushing up her sweater sleeves, she leaned in to listen more intently.

It began with Ben picking me up at home and driving us over to the scenic backdrop of a nearby lake. I remember the trees were just edged with fall colors, and the lake glistened with a beautiful sunset. I had anticipated the rest of the night would unfold with my eyes full of wonder—I had a feeling a commitment was forthcoming. With seriousness written all over his face, surely this was it…a life-changing question to follow. I sensed a proposal on his hesitant lips.

Kora took a breath and closed her eyes as the memory seemed to momentarily pain her. When she opened her eyelids, she stated, "I just remembered how I was nervously biting my lip, knowing my answer would be yes!"

Kora lowered her lips to her glass to take a sip to tamp down the feelings rising in her throat.

Sadly, nothing of the sort happened. I actually broke the skin on my lip and tasted blood. All I wanted to do was dive into the lake and escape the words Ben said.

Tears again filled Kora’s eyes, and she tried to compose herself.

He said, ‘I love you, but I am not in love with you. You deserve honesty, and I have met another girl at my office.’

Dori sat, taking all this in, seeing the sadness wash over her boss’s face. Their order of appetizers—hot wings with a side of chunky blue cheese, pulled pork eggrolls, and beer-battered onion rings—had been placed on the table. Dori sampled them as Kora remained silent.

Kora’s thoughts of all the time she spent with Ben flashed away in a blink. A man she truly loved, expected to marry, and then after, paint their home’s walls with their chosen color.

She had known then she had a passion for interior design. It was after this deep wound of being unexpectantly dumped that an idea crossed her mind…of painting—well, of creative decorating. One she would never have dived into or sought after so passionately if Ben was still in her life.

Oddly enough, sometimes you discovered fate. In time, Kora heard directly from Ben’s lips the words she longed to hear. Not a rekindle of their love, but that he had, in fact, settled into a life with his new girlfriend.

Dori was now a great sounding board for Kora to release so much of her thoughts. I have been making money with my creative side, and my heart is fulfilled as I pour emotion into every project. I seem, though, to lack those details with relationships, as my first, long ago, had an unhappy ending. But the good result was my designs carried me far into home and building décor, which made many happy.

Dori listened intently with her eyes widened. She loved to hear stories from Kora, even if this one was far from their day-to-day work discussions.

Let me tell you about that first relationship—it was Ben who ended us, breaking my heart. But it started a new heartbeat, a do-over, for me. I became very independent, only interested in furthering my own achievements. It was a silly young love, one where Ben planned everything and led me around until he found a newer shiny toy—another woman. Kora paused, taking in a deep breath. They still touched her, the memories she shared with Ben.

After a long silence, Kora wiped her eyes and placed a smile on her lips. Dori, I hope I haven’t bored you, not letting you utter a word, and me just rambling along.

I don’t mind at all. I got to finish off most of these appetizers. She wiped her mouth with her napkin after finishing almost the last spicy wing, which left a rim of hot sauce on her upper lip.

Thank you for sitting here with me, Dori. I am in a better place now…creating spaces and, one day, hopefully a better romance too. And now there is Stephen…and he is, well, just Stephen, you know, my current guy…boyfriend? Kora said the word boyfriend with hesitation as she knew Stephen was not the one.

Dori, do not take this wrong, but I feel Stephen is like a placeholder you set out on your dining table, in case you bring a date to dinner. I feel he is that plus-one at a wedding or event with me, but never a significant other, just someone in place for times of performance. I hope that does not sound cold. I just do not get all the emotions associated with love for him.

Kora blew out a deep breath of relief. In fact, when we part, which I am sure we will eventually, I don’t think my heart will skip a beat. I won’t miss him, but I know deep down my heart is yearning and missing for that one special guy.

I could never think of you as cold. We girls know when we fall for someone and when the fall hasn’t even happened. Dori offered a warm smile.

They clinked their drinks, and Dori glanced at some men across the room raising her eyebrows as potential suiters for Kora. But, in unison, they laughed and didn’t follow through with meeting anyone new.

Kora knew she needed a man to challenge her, and one always crossed her mind—not Ben, he didn’t challenge he, nor was Stephen stepping up to the plate to win her.

She’d been in a competition with one guy, Kegan, since they both attended the same design school in Philadelphia many years ago. Kora was always the top student in her class, eager to learn and willing to put in as much time as necessary to be the best.

Kegan, on the other hand, seemed to fly by the seat of his pants. While she was ten minutes early to every class, he sauntered in fifteen minutes after the class had begun, probably hung over. And yet, he managed to charm every professor, and, she admitted, most of the women in the class wanted to sleep with him. Sure, he was handsome, if you like a man who can’t find the time to shave or have good time management—this seemed to annoy Kora more.

He didn’t even try to be good-looking. Like everything else in life, it just came easy to him. It seemed Kegan was the one who kept reoccurring as that person for her. She wanted to hate working alongside him, but one couldn’t claim to hate a food they never tasted. So, in essence, she could not judge a person fully whom she had never gotten to know. She was surprised to develop a secret admiration for Kegan, though it was best not to show it. Yet they happened to meet again and again.

Her brief list of what qualities she would like in a man would appear something like this:

Someone who challenged her, caught her eye, made her laugh, and feel confident. A guy who was a great team player, able to conquer tasks. One she could talk to, eat a meal with and yet…Kegan checked all the boxes and more.

He