Billionaire chemist Max Varela is selling his company and leaving New York for good when Emily Wade bursts into his office, desperate for his help in funding her program for disadvantaged kids and shelter dogs. Seven years ago, he fell in love with her when she was married to another man. To fight the unbidden attraction, he cut off all contact—but he’s never forgotten her.Ever since her husband … her husband died, Emily has poured her heart and soul into the after-school care center. Seeing Max reawakens the pain of her loss, but it also brings unexpected hope for the future. As emotions thought long gone resurface, the two begin a passionate affair that seems destined for a fairy-tale ending.
That is, until Max reveals that he’s moving to Chicago in a matter of weeks and wants Emily to uproot her daughter and her life to come with him. If a second chance at love is possible, someone’s got to give.
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A 7-year itch waits to be scratched while Max and Emily do the “I want you but don’t know how to approach you” dance. Meanwhile, we readers are holding our breaths in suspense of their big coming together. And it’s a douzy, with sleek, sexual moments that will incinerate in the best possible ways. But behind all this yummy goodness is a beguiling story to tug on your heartstrings, and the two are masterfully melded together to form a day’s worth of beautiful reading.
“Second to None” was a great romance read. Seven years ago, Max and Emily knew each other. Emily was married to Max’s best friend. The only problem? Max was in love with Emily, so Max left and cut off all communication with them.
Now in the present, a widowed Emily comes to Max for help and the attraction is still there. They have an intense affair that Emily hopes is going somewhere until Max tells her he’s moving to Chicago. You’ll have to read the book to find out what happens next.
I loved the kid Diego and the dog he rescues! I always love dogs in stories that I read and this pup was so cute.
I discovered a new favorite author!
Second to None is a sweet second chance of a sorts romance. 7 years ago Max and Emily were friends. Max and Emily’s husband Jake worked on a new polymer that would become a lifesaving element in soldier safety. Max was the inventor and Jake was the Marine who worked with Max to test out the new armor infused with Max’s polymer. Unbeknownst to Emily, Max had developed strong feelings for her, so when his time consulting with the Marines came to an end, he cut off his contact with his friends and he hadn’t seen Emily or Jake again until the present when Emily bursts into his office with a request for his foundation to help her center with funding.
Max is instantly taken back to his time spent with Emily and Jake, and he’s saddened to hear that Jake had passed while serving overseas, but he’s overjoyed to know the object of his fascination was single now. When Emily and Max spend one steamy night together, I was tearing up a little because I knew it couldn’t possibly be that easy, and it wasn’t. Max was planning on moving to Chicago after he had sold his company, and Emily was dead set against long distance relationships. She couldn’t uproot her daughter, Izzy, nor could she leave her beloved center and its children and animals in need. So what’s a man to do? Go to Chicago without the woman he had just gotten back? Or stay and renege on the deal he had just made to sell his company?
The way things were wrapped up is sweet and seeing Max fall in love with not just Emily and Izzy, but a new special friend Emily brought into his life was just so sweet and adorable that I might have swooned a little. If you like your romances with sweet little girls, children and dogs in need, sexy inventors and strong heroines, 1 click Second to None today.
I always love Herkness’s billionaires. They have all the money they could possibly need, gawking handsome, but find that money is never what completes the heart, the soul, the spirit. They are easy reads and leave you uplifted.
Max thought he was over Emily Wade, his friend’s wife. He’d stayed away seven years, built a company making him a billionaire. She suddenly reenters his world. He finds she’s even more attracted to her. She’s changed. He has, too. But that chemistry begins to sizzle again. What changed? Emily’s husband had been killed in action three years previous, enough time to dull the pain.
Emily is on a mission when she shows up in his office. She needs money to keep a worthy cause afloat. It didn’t sound very hopeful from Max’s side, but little does she know he cannot get her out of his mind, even though he’s in the middle of finishing a project before the end of the year. He seeks out her project and immediately sees the value of this center. He plot double the money down to make it work.
The story will warm your heart. Herkness writes with such poignancy, very often involving animals and children. She will not disappoint you in this novella. If you like hot passionate scenes, Emily and Max make up for lost time, but not before the hope of finding their second chance crashes over their heads. Ah, there’s the rub.
Longing was a key element that was for Max and Emily. For Max love came at a time when he could not act on his feelings. The man who seemed to have it all together was internally falling apart. Kate is a woman with a great deal of plans. Her work helps her through loss and a sense of guilt that has haunted her every waking moment. Dealing with her emotions has never come easy, but nothing worth having ever is. Ms. Herkness is a crafty storyteller. She weaves intricate tales that have emotionally challenging themes, but can seduce the most critical of skeptics to open up their hearts and minds to her brand of temptation.