Change of heart, p.1
Change of Heart, page 1
Change of Heart
An Enemies to Lovers Romance Collection
Copyright © 2021 Jamie Knight Romance.
All rights reserved.
Jamie Knight –
Your Dirty Little Secret Romance Author
Check out all of The Heart series of romance collections!
With All My Heart
I Left My Heart in Castle Falls
Change Of Heart
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Contents
Next Door Hater
Chapter One - Elise
Chapter Two - Nate
Chapter Three - Elise
Chapter Four - Nate
Chapter Five - Elise
Chapter Six - Nate
Chapter Seven - Elise
Chapter Eight - Nate
Chapter Nine - Elise
Chapter Ten - Nate
Chapter Eleven - Elise
Chapter Twelve - Nate
Chapter Thirteen - Elise
Chapter Fourteen - Nate
Chapter Fifteen - Elise
Epilogue - Elise
Super Big Game
Chapter One - Stacy
Chapter Two - Stacy
Chapter Three - Elias
Chapter Four - Elias
Chapter Five - Elias
Chapter Six - Elias
Chapter Seven - Stacy
Chapter Eight - Stacy
Chapter Nine - Stacy
Chapter Ten - Elias
Chapter Eleven - Stacy
Chapter Twelve - Elias
Chapter Thirteen - Stacy
Chapter Fourteen - Elias
Chapter Fifteen - Stacy
Chapter Sixteen - Elias
Chapter Seventeen - Stacy
Chapter Eighteen - Elias
Chapter Nineteen - Elias
Chapter Twenty - Elias
Green as Mistletoe
Chapter One – Drew
Chapter Two – Nathan
Chapter Three – Drew
Chapter Four – Nathan
Chapter Five – Drew
Chapter Six – Nathan
Chapter Seven – Drew
Chapter Eight – Nathan
Chapter Nine – Drew
Epilogue – Nathan
I Hate You, Move In
Chapter One - Tina
Chapter Two - Tina
Chapter Three - Seth
Chapter Four - Seth
Chapter Five - Tina
Chapter Six - Tina
Chapter Seven - Seth
Chapter Eight - Tina
Chapter Nine - Tina
Chapter Ten - Seth
Chapter Eleven - Tina
Chapter Twelve - Seth
Chapter Thirteen - Tina
Chapter Fourteen - Seth
Chapter Fifteen - Seth
Chapter Sixteen - Tina
Chapter Seventeen - Seth
Chapter Eighteen - Tina
Chapter Nineteen - Seth
Chapter Twenty - Tina
Chapter Twenty-One - Seth
Chapter Twenty-Two - Tina
Chapter Twenty-Three - Tina
Epilogue - Seth
Sneak Peek of With All My Heart
Sneak Peak of Bad Pet
Next Door Hater
Love Under Lockdown, Book 28
A series of standalone quarantine romance books.
Copyright © 2021 Jamie Knight Romance.
All rights reserved.
Chapter One - Elise
March bit with all its teeth. It was midterm season here on campus, the air rife with a cocktail of pre-celebration elation and existential dread. Snow clung to my Docs as I trudged to class, breath hanging in the air like a phantom.
Echoing halls led to a deserted classroom, the door creaking like a haunted house as I gained entry. I liked to be early in every sense. Gave me some time to myself.
Although even I occasionally succumbed to the comforts of my mattress, and so I’d debated whether I should just stay in bed and rush over at the last minute. I’d finally ended up deciding it was best to arrive early, so I would already be where I was needed.
I liked to sit in the back. A habit I picked up in high school. I was just glad that here in college, I didn’t have to put up with the same shit I’d dealt with back then. Short and overweight, with thick glasses and a passion for learning, I was a prime target for bullying, by both boys and girls. The jocks and cheerleaders were the worst. They always stuck together and moved in packs like a pride of lions, instilling fear in all they encountered.
The only ones they left alone were the small gaggle of metalheads on the fringes of most groups. Only about ten strong with their full numbers, their reputation preceded them, and not even the linebackers wanted to take the risk.
Checking the orange plastic seat for subtle threats, primarily rogue thumbtacks, I settled in and waited for the fun to begin.
“Foucault was a nut,” my friend Amber objected without preamble as she sat down beside me.
“That’s what they always say about people who are right,” countered Thorne, AKA Hawthorne Gray, flanking my right.
“Elise, what do you think?” Amber said, dragging me into the fray.
“Yeah, Vaughn, you’re smart, educate this philistine on the Post-Modern truth.”
It was the first time I’d hear my name in the same sentence as ‘post-modern truth’ and I wasn’t sure how much I liked the association.
“Truth, my ass,” Amber laughed, “had you read post-modernism past your darling Foucault, you would know that there is not set truth, and we live in a meaningless universe.”
“Can’t argue with that,” I agreed.
“Oh, you’re with Camus are, ya,” Thorne accused.
“More than Foucault? Yeah, I am, mostly because Camus is less likely to cause a dark, echoing void of despair. The entire idea behind The Myth of Sisyphus was to argue against suicide. Foucault almost seems to encourage it with his froth and blather about power structures.”
Thorne honestly looked like he was going to cry. Foucault had long been a hero of his, almost a father figure. His books and philosophy were the main way he coped after his father left. All three of us had lost a parent in one way or another, it was part of how we became friends.
“What do you know anyway? You’re an English major, you know nothing of philosophy.”
“Right, the fact that most of the most famous philosophy books were written as novels makes no difference at all,” Amber snarked.
Thorne just crossed his arms and silently fumed as he always did when he knew he had been beaten, particularly by Amber. I’d have thought he would be used to it by now, though, honestly. And considering the way he felt about her, I’d almost started to wonder if he just liked it.
The class trickled in, filling each of the seats until none remained, like a reverse game of musical chairs. When the last butt was in the final seat, the professor came in as though they had rehearsed. Though, it had more to do with Dr. Palahniuk’s near military regimentation. You could literally set your watch by him.
Our discussion more or less continued, only through the mouth of the good doctor, who mostly seemed to agree with my way of thinking.
It was a simple but powerful idea, at its heart inherently optimistic. I tried to take it onboard. Maybe then I might be able to relax a bit. What a wonderful day that would be.
Classroom to dorm room made for very little change, except on the odd occasions when I managed to sleep. My record to that point was five hours at once. It could have just been stress, but was more likely the caffeine pills. Basically a requirement to hold an A average with a full course load. Particularly with the reading involved.
The only mercy to be found was that my grades were basically my job, thanks to my scholarship, and I didn’t have to hold down a job as well. Amber and Thorne weren’t so lucky.
The camera came on, showing an image of myself like a digital mirror. Even as a ‘child of the digital age’ it felt a bit odd.
The vlog was part of my screenwriting class project. The idea was to document the entire process from beginning to end, while also writing the script. Getting some nuts-and-bolts experience of filmmaking while trying to create the basis for one. The professor had been a bit iffy about letting an English major into the course, but I convinced her to let me do a preliminary knowledge exam, in which she basically fired questions at me in her office for an hour.
I’d lost count of how many I’d for sure gotten right, but my performance was impressive enough for her go give me permission to take the class right then and there. Called the department chair and registrar’s office herself.
“Right, still story-boarding,” I announced into the depths of the camera’s unblinking eye.
Despite the humiliation involved, I held up my crudely drawn storyboards to show my work. Something the professor always insisted on. Unsurprisingly for a film course.
I could only hope my classmates would take the idea of intention over execution, especially at the beginning, to heart. I knew college was meant to be different than high school. The teachers didn’t get after you for missing class for a start. You were paying to be there so what you did was your own prerogative.
Still, I must have used the word ‘rough’ in references to my storyboards at least three times. Just to make sure I dove the point home, through the living room, and out the kitchen door. Subtlety was not my strong suit, though this was in no way a handicap when it came to filmmaking.
I rapidly found myself getting close to the end of my update, though the progress of my process, without spilling a single bean in terms of my overall plot. Stealing among novelists was fairly rare. Not least because a sort of honor among creatives, rooted at least partly in economics.
If your ideas and vision are the main things you have, it would take a real asshole to try and take it away from you. Film, however, is much more lucrative and therefore morally bankrupt. Scruples tend to have an inverse relationship to income.
I tried to write novels too, of course. Lord knows I’d read enough of them and had a good basis in craft. Even if my first love was films; one developed when I was very young, my daddy taking me to the multiplex as soon as I was old enough to see over the seats.
He was a low-budget director while in life. Despite their lack of funding, his work tended to be well regarded. The lack of budget and his ways of working around it became a big part of the charm. My interest only grew stronger when he died, our shared love of all things movies feeling like a connection between us, even from beyond the veil.
The literature was my mother’s influence. My grandmother had been a brilliant novelist back in the day, writing for the pulps and literary journals alike, under her initials so no one would catch on to the fact she was a woman. It was the 1980s after all and things could be quite different then.
She wasn’t alone of course, female authors both before her, P.D. James, and after, J.K. Rowling, pulled the same tactic. Worked like a charm too, the money grandma brought in keeping the family in food and shoes between grandpa’s stints of seasonal work.
When it came to choosing a major, things had mostly come down to practicality. English was the subject in which I had the grades and skills to get and then carry a full scholarship at the school of my choice.
A ritzy liberal arts college upstate, notorious for being more difficult to get into than a bank vault. It wasn’t a matter of snobbery, so much as a need to escape. I’d never considered myself particularly money-obsessed, but most people wouldn’t consider themselves oxygen-obsessed, until it is suddenly taken away.
Things had been okay with Mom and Daddy working together, but when he died, things took a Wile E. Coyote style plummet off a cliff. Mom did what she could, but it had become abundantly clear that the only way out was to go to university. There weren’t many options open to English graduates, but they were still better than for someone whose education ended at a high-school diploma.
Not only was my major chosen before application, I was already at least on a Master’s track if not a doctorate. I knew it was weird for a 17-year-old to have a “10-Year Plan,” but there I was, already a year into it. The first step in the journey of a thousand miles.
“Hey bookworm, what’cha up to?”
I glanced up and flashed a smile at my roommate as she entered before turning back to the camera. “Brenda Smirnoff, everybody.”
“Not a nickname, either,” Brenda pointed out, leaning down and winking at my webcam.
“Roommate and best friend of circumstance for the last semester,” I explained to my would-be audience.
“Thanks, babe, love you too.”
“I’ll get back to you later,” I said, killing the webcam.
The chair squeaked spiritedly as I fully turned to face the new arrival, decked out in full party gear, making her look even more stunning than she usually did.
“Wow.”
“What? Do I have something on my face?”
“No, you’re perfect,” I said without a second thought.
“Not without effort,” Brenda said, taking it in her stride. ‘
Wasn’t that the truth. I’d tried to wear makeup once, and it took nearly two hours to put on even remotely right. Brenda had it down to an art form. She also had an impeccable fashion sense, her outfits sexy while also understated, and seeming to be a natural extension of her personality.
“Heading out?” I asked.
“Absolutely, it’s Friday, we are honor bound to party.”
“I don’t remember that in the student handbook.”
“You need to read between the lines. C’mon, I can give you a makeover.”
“Do we really have time?”
“Hey, don’t put yourself down, Elise, seriously. I won't stand for it. I’ll make time if you want to go.”
“Want yes, but I can’t. I need to -”
“Keep your grades up to stay in school, got it,” I couldn’t help but feel a tiny stab of guilt at the disappointment in her face.
“Have fun, though,” I offered weakly, “And hey, be careful, I heard they actually found a couple of cases of that Covid thing here.”
I hadn’t been too worried about the virus I’d heard whispers about in the news so far, but the last thing either of us needed was to get sick.
“Always.”
After she’d gone, I raided the dorm fridge to see what was left to help keep me awake. Snagging a tiny carton of Ben & Jerry’s and vowing to pay Brenda back later, I devoured the entire thing while watching the entire Cornetto Trilogy as research for my screenwriting project. And tried to ignore the nagging worry about the dreaded “Freshman Fifteen.”
I’d lost a lot of the pudge from high school, but I definitely teetered to a more “plus” size, but fortunately I’d grown into it a little bit and felt a little less ashamed of my curvier figure. But that didn’t mean I was eager to destroy it, either.
But worries about my weight quickly dissipated as I lost myself in the movies, and the cares of the real world fell away as my mind melted into the silver screen.
Chapter Two - Nate
It shook like a paint-mixer. The wagon had been old when my dad bought it and had only gotten more so. He kept it up by himself as best he could, trusting most mechanics about as far as he could throw them. He was no slouch in that way himself, but there was only so far you could go with used parts, both literally and figuratively.
I eased the roaring beast to a state of calm, smack between the yellow lines on the first try. The lot at the field was nearly empty, which was part of the reason I preferred it. There was no hunting for spots, because there were only a few taken by the stragglers who couldn’t get spots near the dorm buildings or student bar. Those always went first.
Most of the guys held Saturday mornings as sacred time and would only get out of bed before lunch at gun point. Luckily, games were booked for the afternoon. I should have at least a few hours by a conservative estimate.
The glove box banged open on its loose joint, revealing my bounty. A first edition of Caging Skies I’d managed to find online for a steal. It was an auction site and there was no one else bidding. Probably because no one else had any idea what it was.
The paperback had stayed in nearly pristine condition despite being nearly as old as most of the freshmen. I was a bit older than most of them, going back to a first-year course, even though I was in second, going straight to college after graduation.
The team was very eager to have me and wanted me in uniform at the first possible opportunity. They were already third in the league, and with me in their jersey, most were agreed, they could finish first. The school was known for its passing game, and my high school team called me The Ghost, because I was seemingly impossible to hit, tackles flying about behind me like modern dancers. It was quite graceful, really, at least if I do say so myself.
I cleared nearly a hundred pages before the other guys showed up. Ditching the book back in the glovebox like I was trying to hide porn from my mom, I leapt from the driver’s seat into the March air and tried to get into character.
It was a tactic I’d learned young. Try to fit in and you’re less likely to get pounded. Even at that point, during my second year of college, I was smaller than most of the guys on the team. But I didn’t have to be big to be a running back. I had to be fast. Another talent, honed in my youth, before the diplomatic approach had occurred to me.
