Prison Break by Jade Onyx Page A

Melanie Thomas, your suggestion to include the excerpt anyway
completed this book. Thank you both for your honest feedback about
the last chapter, which helped me transform something “mechanical”
into something exciting for me to write. Thanks also to ThirdEye
Critique for a few more nuances to the last chapter. All of your
insights saved me from embarrassment and helped me make this book
and the characters stronger.
    Thank you to my mate and my children for
permitting me, willingly and unwillingly, to enter my writer's
cave. Special thanks to my characters—for inspiring me and holding
me hostage at times to write about their lives. Thank you for
opening the curtains to your sex life and your hearts.
    Last but not least, I want to thank erotic
romance authors Kallypso Masters and Shoshanna Evers. Kally,
partaking in a craft writers group and seeking a critique partner
was just what I needed! Shoshanna, you inspire me as a fellow mama
writer with a young one at home. Thank you for encouraging me to
write a series.
     
Author's
Note
     
    This novelette evolved from an excerpt from Awake (Book One of the OceanCrest Series), a full-length
novel. I was over two-thirds done writing the first draft for the
novel when I needed to take a “vacation” from the book length
project to write this novelette. This vacation practically started
as soon as I wrote the excerpt, which is entitled “The Trail” for
the second-to-last chapter in this novelette.
    My screen went blank for the rest of the
novel, because Natalia and Mateo's story gripped me. They wouldn't
leave me alone until I gave them their happily ever after.
Actually, Natalia did not like being one of the lesser villains in Awake and had desired redemption in Prison Break .
More like, she really wanted to get laid and have the best of both
worlds—great sex and a great marriage. And she knew she was going
to get it from me, because I'm a sucker for a happy ending. :-)
    By the time you finish reading this
novelette, you'll probably think Natalia bullied me into getting
her happily ever after. Not true. I had nothing but compassion for
her desperate plight, because I truly believe that misery
disappears in the presence of happiness. In other words, happy
people make others happy.
    Since Argentina is Natalia and Mateo's
homeland, I want to point out that the PFA is the Argentinian
equivalent of the FBI. Other terminologies unfamiliar to the
English reader are used in context so that the reader will pick up
terms related to food and sexuality. Machismo , for example,
is hypermasculinity or aggressive manhood.
    Some questions may remain for you as the
reader and I hope that Awake will answer them for you,
especially Jeremy and Jessica's relationship as siblings and Jeremy
and Maggie's blossoming relationship as lovers.
    To stay tuned about Jeremy and Maggie's
happily ever after in Awake , sign up for my email list at www.JadeOnyxBooks.com .
     
     
1. Dinner
Break
     
    The handcrafted dining table was warm with carbonada criolla and potato and beef empanadas .
However, Natalia Varela felt anything but warm sitting across the
dining table, under the cold scrutiny of Mateo Varela's
coffee-colored eyes.
    She sipped some of the stew to help her heat
up, but to no avail. Their evenings for the past year were equally
cool and distant. An ominous question dangled as visibly as the
chandelier hovering over their meal.
    Every month for the past two years, the same
question surfaced. The first year, the question remained unspoken.
The second year, the question became audible. Tonight was one of
those nights. Although she expected the question to arise, what
made the question unbearable for Natalia was exactly when the
question would spring.
    The air grew thick, so thick she felt she
could not breathe. Avoiding Mateo's gaze, her throat tightened. She
swallowed carefully, trying not to choke on her food. Her breath
became shallow. She became painfully aware of a thick band of pain
in