Release Tour, Exclusive Excerpt & Giveaway:
When We Meet Again by Hayden Hall

Rafael owns my heart.

He stole it with the first clumsy bump in a Parisian bookstore, and I never asked him to return it.

He gifted me a night to remember, a night that shaped the person I would become. And then, I lost him. I lost every trace that could have helped me find him. Until fate meddled again and put Rafael and me on the same cross-European train through the Alps.

But if I hoped that some divine hand guided us to one another, I was terribly mistaken.

Our second encounter sparked a decade of failed attempts and missed chances. For years, I yearned to be with him, and for years, something took him away. Our lives are so intertwined that we will never be free of one another. And yet, each time I see him, my dream of a happy ending fades a little more.

Is stealing moments with Rafael enough to live on? Can I survive on glimmers of hope? I don’t think so.

It’s time to take our happy ending away from fate’s hands. It’s time to break this cursed cycle once and for all.

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The train was largely empty. Zurich in Switzerland to Salzburg in Austria wasn’t such a hot tour on Tuesday morning, even if the distance wasn’t that great and the fare was pretty affordable. I attributed it to the fatigue of a long winter. And that was possibly the biggest reason why I rolled my eyes when a passenger neared my row and stuffed a backpack on the overhead rack.

I stared out the window furiously. Of the entire nearly empty train, this social butterfly just had to sit in the empty seat next to me. Were I not as polite as I had always been, I would have shot them an angry look. But as it were, I only argued with them inside my head.

A single heartbeat before he spoke, a deeply buried memory of sea waves crashing against the cliffs, their spray dispersing a strong scent of salt through the heated air, resurfaced at the forefront of my mind.

I gripped my sketchbook hard enough to rip it to pieces if I weren’t careful.

“You’re late,” came the purr from my left.

I spun my head and blinked furiously to prevent any tears from daring to well in my eyes.

Light brown skin, still as smooth and glowing, and a pair of warm hazel eyes made my heart stumble. “When I said noon, I meant the noon of the next day, Luke.” His lips stretched into a pearly grin.

Heat blossomed on my cheeks as I stared at the apparition. “You…”

“Me.” His smile broadened, eyebrows wriggling playfully.

“How are you…? Are you really here?” I asked in a hurried whisper. I struggled to find my voice. It was true that I had been reminded of Rafael more than once since returning to Paris and much more since arriving at the fated train station yesterday, but I had never entertained the idea of meeting him again. Well, that was only partly a lie. Every now and then, in the last two months, I would walk down a street in the city, and an image of him in a café would float before my eyes before I banished that silly hopefulness from my heart and my mind.