Where We Started: The Love They Left Behind

Others are stolen before they ever get the chance to survive.

Ten years ago, Amara Cole left Bellmere with a broken heart and one certainty: Ethan Hale had abandoned her on the night they were supposed to leave town together.

She never looked back.

Now, her mother’s death has brought her home—and straight into the path of the man she spent a decade trying to forget.

But Vivian Cole’s final surprise is waiting.

Amara and Ethan have inherited an abandoned seaside cottage together, the same cottage where they once dreamed about their future. The condition is simple: restore it for six months before either of them can sell.

Forced to work side by side, old anger begins to crack beneath memories neither of them truly buried. Then one conversation changes everything.

Ethan believes Amara abandoned him.

Amara knows Ethan abandoned her.

And both of them have proof.

As buried secrets begin surfacing from the past, Amara discovers that the heartbreak that shaped her entire adult life may have been built on a lie—and someone they trusted may have deliberately torn them apart.

Now she must decide whether the love they left behind deserves another chance, or whether some wounds are too deep to rebuild.

Where We Started: The Love They Left Behind is an emotional second-chance romance about betrayal, family secrets, forgiveness, lost years, and the terrifying courage it takes to choose love when walking away has always been easier.