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Julia del Mar Ortiz moved to Texas with her boyfriend, who ended up ditching her and running back to New York after only a few weeks. Left with a massive—by NYC standards, anyway—apartment and the job opportunity of a lifetime, Julia is struggling...except that’s not completely true...

Read on for a sneak preview of Here to Stay by Adriana Herrera, available now from Carina Press.

Chapter One

Julia

If you assumed that being a grown-ass woman who paid her bills and lived ten states away from my Dominican mother meant she would not be all up in my business, you’d be wrong.

“Mami, I gotta go. I need to go and see my boss. It’s important.” My stomach dipped, remembering how pressed my boss had sounded on the phone. Gail, who was usually cool as a cucumber, was pretty flustered when she’d asked to see me. Not that I blamed her. Things around here were getting more stressful by the minute. My new job, on paper, was a dream.

Program director for the Sturm Foundation. Not only did I get to do the work I was passionate about, but I was also employed by one of the most iconic high-end department stores in the world. There was also that seriously impressive employee discount.

Sample sales and meaningful work... I was living the dream.

Except as soon as I got to Dallas, the boyfriend I moved across the country for dumped me for his side-chick. And now six months later when I finally felt like I was settling in, things had taken a not-so-great turn at work. So arriving late to an important meeting with my boss was not the best move I’d ever made, and yet here I was in a hallway making a personal call. Because my family was my Kryptonite and they knew it.

“Okay, pero abuelita wants to say hi.” My mother was aware things at my job were stressful, but that did not keep her from laying on the guilt. “You know she gets worried about you down there by yourself.” You’d think instead of Dallas I’d relocated to the moon. I hoped my mother didn’t start with the guilt trip and demands to come back home. I was not in the mood and it was not the time.