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Enjoy this sample read from The Fine Art of Deception, Undoing Time (Book 1)
Chapter One
The perfect life can disappear without warning. Like an elegantly designed wisp of smoke, it can be here one minute, then gone the next. And the simple, busy, normal you took for granted suddenly becomes a part of your past, while its absence fuels your obsession to find it again.
And I was down to my last chance to find it again.
In slow, deliberate cadence I paced through the library of my townhome, then across the salon and into the kitchen. My insomnia gave me ample opportunity to practice my pacing routine.
There was comfort in routine. I was calm now.
But just an hour ago I’d woken up gasping, my neck and back slick with sweat. It wasn’t just a nightmare. It was a memory from my childhood—a recurring fear I couldn’t entirely put to rest.
With bare feet I took a turn and padded onto the cold, marble-floored bathroom, sat at the vanity, and brushed the tangles from my hair, giving extra attention to the mass of knots that gathered at the nape of my neck. Fitful dreams gave me fitful hair.
I smoothed a few long strands behind my ears and stared into the large, round mirror. As usual, a related image of my father stared back at me. My sisters favored our mother with their thicker hair and warm, ginger skin tones, but there was no mistaking that I was my father’s child.
I lifted the lid on the wooden box first and looked at my diamond solitaire engagement ring in the back left corner. Jeremy and I had been planning our wedding when he left me for Catherine. She was my best friend at the time. Not so much anymore.
Looking at the ring was part of my morning constitution to remind myself that men weren’t the best investment. For varying reasons, they all left without warning.
I closed the lid on the wooden jewelry box.
Though there was Jack…
This amazing perfection of a man who dropped in on my dreams from some other life we’d shared together. Yes, he had been real to me at one time. Now he was only real to me in my dreams. Still, this man I would keep.
Maybe one day we would meet. Past life reconnections happened all the time. Though I found the idea of meeting him in this life rather terrifying. And potentially exciting.
I picked up the second jewelry box. Trimmed in antique gold and coated in pink enamel, it looked like it could have belonged to Marie Antoinette. Inside was the one surefire weapon that could move me beyond all the tragedies of my life. At least for a few moments. I’d found it in a dusty, antique shop while on a trip to Paris. A cushion-cut, cornflower-blue sapphire, surrounded by pavé diamonds in a wide platinum setting. I’d known immediately that it had been my ring.
I picked it up and read the inscription which was written in English:
To Sassy, All My Love. Always, Jack. May 23rd, 1922
I knew from the first instant I touched the ring that this Jack was the same and only Jack of my dreams. The energy from the ring, and the energy from the man in my dreams, were one in the same. It was undeniable. I had jeweled proof that he existed. That we existed. I thought perhaps it was a gift from the universe to remind me that I had been loved.
When I was Sassy, I had been a very lucky woman.I chose to wear the ring as a reminder that true love existed, so I wouldn’t give up entirely on men, love, and relationships. Something I pledged to do after Jeremy. And basically had.
If the Sassy of 1922 could find someone who loved her that much, why couldn’t Addie of the new millennium find someone who loved her so completely, too? I’d found true love once, maybe I would again someday.
I reluctantly put the ring back in its case, and climbed into the marble-encased tub that sat in the middle of the room to soak in a hot, lavender-infused bath.
The scent that wafted off my heated skin immediately transported me back to childhood when my mother used to give me a lavender bath every morning, telling me it was “the way of the Goddess.” It felt a bit like my duty as a woman in the Montgomery family to continue the tradition.
Plus, it made me feel like a figure in a Greco-Roman relief. Not an everyday occurrence for most people. Unless, of course, you’re taking a scented bath every morning. There’s just something so regal about it. Not the least of which is how the lavender smoothed the frayed edges of dreams destroyed and loves lost.
Excerpt From: Alyssa Richards. “The Fine Art of Deception: Undoing Time.” iBooks. All rights reserved.
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