And sometimes, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s just pretend. In her charming debut novel, Bethany Chase reminds us about the one that got away, and makes us wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t.Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke, co-authors of Your Perfect Life The One That Got Away is juicy, steamy, witty, and real.Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of After I Do Look for special features inside. But when a devastating injury overseas throws Luke back into Cassie’s life, they must make their marriage seem as real as possible to army personnel or risk being sent to jail for fraud.

The two of them make a pact: they’ll get married for a few months, make the money they need, and then get divorced when Luke has returned from duty and the time is right. Unbeknownst to Cassie, he desperately needs the money to pay off his old drug dealer from before he got clean. Frankie says he can’t help her because he has a girlfriend, but to Cassie’s surprise, Frankie’s annoyingly intense friend Luke volunteers to marry her instead. So when she runs into old friend Frankie, now enlisted in the Army, she proposes a deal: a marriage license in exchange for better insurance for Cassie, and Frankie will keep the increased paycheck he’ll get now that he has a “family” to look after. Added to her worries are concerns for her mother, who’s getting older and has no one else to look after her. Even with her basic insurance, she is drowning in medical bills. But a chance encounter at Cassie’s bar will throw them together in ways that they’d never expect.Ĭassie has been barely getting by financially ever since discovering that she has diabetes. Luke is an Army trainee, about to ship out for duty, who finds comfort in the mental and physical discipline of service after a difficult time in his life. Beautiful and enigmatic Cassie is a struggling artist, working nights at a bar in Austin, Texas to make ends meet while pursuing her dream of becoming a singer/songwriter. Cassie Salazar and Luke Morrow couldn’t be more different.

The One That Got Away by Bethany Chase