Jane Lark - Just You

Jane Lark

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright HarperImpulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014 Copyright © Jane Lark 2014 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Jane Lark asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007562237 Version 2014-09-30 Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Praise for Jane Lark Praise for Jane Lark's debut New Adult romance, I Found You "Jane Lark has proved what a writing talent she really is. This is an engrossing and telling read…. Be prepared to have your heart squeezed!" BestChicklit.com "An amazing book. It is dark and edgy yet flirtatious and even made me laugh. Its such a combination that made me not want to put my kindle down at all." After the Final Chapters "Dark, gritty and wholly mesmerizing, I Found You is a haunting and compelling read you will not easily forget!" Bookish Jottings "Emotional, romantic, and heartbreaking." Imagine a World

Chapter One

Portia

Justin

Chapter Two

Justin

Portia

Justin

Chapter Three

Portia

Justin

Portia

Portia

Justin

Chapter Four

Justin

Portia

Chapter Five

Portia

Justin

Chapter Six

Portia

Chapter Seven

Justin

Chapter Eight

Portia

Justin

Chapter Nine

Portia

Portia

Chapter Ten

Portia

Portia

Justin

Chapter Eleven

Portia

Chapter Twelve

Justin

Portia

Chapter Thirteen

Portia

Justin

Portia

Justin

Chapter Fourteen

Justin

Chapter Fifteen

Justin

Portia

Bonus Material

Chapter One

Jane Lark

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014

Copyright © Jane Lark 2014

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Jane Lark asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © May 2014

ISBN: 9780007562237

Version 2014-09-30

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Praise for Jane Lark's debut New Adult romance, I Found You

"Jane Lark has proved what a writing talent she really is. This is an engrossing and telling read…. Be prepared to have your heart squeezed!"

BestChicklit.com

"An amazing book. It is dark and edgy yet flirtatious and even made me laugh. Its such a combination that made me not want to put my kindle down at all."

After the Final Chapters

"Dark, gritty and wholly mesmerizing, I Found You is a haunting and compelling read you will not easily forget!"

Bookish Jottings

"Emotional, romantic, and heartbreaking."

Imagine a World

My head hurt. It was like someone was firing a nail gun into the back of my skull. I must have drunk buckets last night.

The weight of my forearm lay on my forehead. I opened my eyes. I could see the sky through the skylight. The day was bleak. Gray. Miserable. Like I felt.

Memories flashed through my thoughts as if someone had switched a PowerPoint presentation running in my head, just images popping up, then sliding out. Shit. Justin. I sat up and my brain rolled forward like a ball of rock, hitting my skull… I felt ill.

I held still for a moment. I was going to throw up. I dived out of bed racing for the bathroom.

It was on days like this I missed people. Anyone. It would just be nice to have someone around who gave a shit sometimes.

Ten minutes later, with an empty belly, and a brain that didn’t belong to me, I came out of the bathroom and headed for the sink by the burner. I poured myself a glass of water, then reached to get some Advil from the cupboard beside it to kill my headache. I drank some of the water, swallowed the pills and then washed them down with more water. My brain throbbed steadily, still protesting about the amount of alcohol I’d drunk the night before.

I sat on the bed, with my feet on the floor, and let memories and images, play through my head. Oh my God. I tumbled back, lying across the mattress, with my hands gripping my forehead and partly covering my eyes––as if I could hide from the pictures, like a stupid kid playing peek-a-boo. The images kept telling me the things I’d done.

Shit.

Did I have sex with Justin?

I didn’t even like Justin like that.

“Oh my God, Portia. What have you done now?” I could remember him kissing me. I’d definitely kissed him. It was after we’d got in the pool. Jason had just disappeared. It was Jason my lonely brain had been interested in for weeks, though the guy was unavailable…

But Justin…

He wasn’t bad looking, but he was no Jesse Williams, and he was a joker, and a bit of a douche. He always hung around the girls at work, too much––so much it was kind of creepy. He was one of those guys who worked so hard at being nice it made you want to back away…

More images paraded in my head. We’d gone through all the clothes and stuff in Mr. Rees’s room looking for bikinis to wear in the pool… Yes, I had definitely been wearing one because there was an image in my head of his fingers slipping it aside to touch my breasts, and I could feel his fingers touching me too.