He broke her heart. When he finds out just how badly, it will break his too.
Nick Walker found the love of his life when he was just nineteen.
Found her.
Loved her.
Lost her.It’s been ten years since Nick watched the only woman he ever loved walk out of his life. Now this FBI Special Agent will do anything to win her back.
But it won’t be easy…
Mia’s heart was shattered by Nick. They’ll have to face their painful past if they want a future, including Mia’s own secret about that day it all fell apart.
Do you believe in second chances?
Oh, this was a beauty! From the first page till the end it was a heart-warming; gut wrenching & poignant story of two people who have loved only one single person and their journey due to the consequences of their decisions.
A story that puts the reader through the ringer; it has to for the love that is shown in this book is not only the first love, but a forever kind of love that takes everything inside you and gives you back tenfold.
I haven’t been a fan of McKinney Brother series, to be honest; but I just couldn’t move past this blurb – a man tortured by the memory of his only one; a woman destroyed by the man to whom she gave it all!
Inter-spaced between the present and the past – you see both sides of the story; a story that tugs at your heartstrings right from the start.
Nick Walker is a very special man; he is a man who at the tender age of 19 took custody of his siblings after the death of their parents and became a surrogate father to his 2-year-old sister, Hannah. He juggled his school; his responsibility towards his siblings has taken over his life but a ray of sunshine that shows up is his Mia; his love and his life.
Nick & Mia were together for many years; in fact, they became the parents to Hannah, except they weren’t married to each other. But boy, were they committed. Their love for each other was tangible; I could physically feel the warmth of their connection from my e-reader; but knowing that they were apart in the present, that warmth was underlined with an ache that I could physically feel!
Things happen (which I am not going to elaborate on, if you aren’t already familiar with the McKinney Brothers Series), but it tears them apart like nothing else – but to be fair, they held on, or at least tried to in the face of such tragedy that it was not only admirable but gut wrenching when it did not work out.
“I have no defenses against you,” she whispered sadly.” I never did.”
He spun on her so forcefully, she stepped back. “And you think I do? You think you aren’t burned in my brain? In my heart. You’re there. You’ve always been there.”
When they both come face to face years later; there is still much that is left unsaid, but their feelings, god; their feelings remained just as strong! But there is also resentment and bitterness between them, that for a moment I had no idea how they were even going to move past all that was between them.
“I lost myself, and I’m sorry. I heard you, but I didn’t answer. I locked you out, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
Mia is such an amazing heroine; she has the quiet strength that belies her normal vulnerability but sometimes her understanding nature could be construed as being a pushover; but I understood her empathetic nature and it is easy not only to admire her, but also to respect her, because no matter what image she portrayed on the outside, her emotions always pulled a rough-shed over her.
Nick is the penultimate overprotective brother – which to be honest, he does take it quite far, but that guilt and that overprotectiveness made him lose the one woman who was his everything, but even then, I could not find fault with him!
“I never stopped loving you.”
He framed her face in his big, warm hands. “Not for a second. I might have buried it so deep, you couldn’t feel it, but it was still there. Always. I lost you, lost us. Now it feels like I have a chance again. Like we have a chance.”
While it was my sincerest wish that I end the book without having any issues; there was a minor irritant – I really hated the fact that while Mia was open about her time apart, there was no verbal confirmation or even apology by Nick and I know that he didn’t have to be committed to someone he let go, but what I would have wished for was the he should have been honest with her, more than that Mia (mostly me!) deserved a verbal confirmation.
This book will bring you to your knees, give you all the feels in the world and yet you will end up with a huge smile on your lips and warm feeling from equivalent of a hug by a book!
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ .5
For The Love of Fictional Worlds 