I stayed quiet for years, smiling through my mother-in-law’s cruelty, so he’d never have to choose between us.  He chose anyway.  Just not me.

Lucy

Talk to me, Ryan.  That was all I ever asked for. I never asked him to choose between me and his family.  His mother did that for me — telling him, to his face, that I simply wasn’t capable of giving the Harris family what it needed.

I waited for Ryan to say no. He didn’t.

It was his composure I fell for first — that quiet, unshakable calm. I thought it meant safety. He gave me that same composure instead — reasonable words, a divorce signed without one argument, wrapped in a settlement generous enough to look like love.

I took the papers. I left the marriage. I left the name.  I never imagined the calm I fell for could be the thing that ended us.

Ryan

Marrying Lucy was the first time I ever said no to my mother.  It took losing her to realize I should have said more.

One signature. A settlement generous enough to look like love. I called it protecting her.  I never asked what she wanted — I just decided, alone, the way I’d been taught to.

Composure was never strength. It was just obedience with better manners.

So I stopped obeying. Walked away from everything that name ever meant — for good. Let the real me be seen.  It was the first honest thing I’d ever given anyone.  I don’t know if I get to ask for another chance.  But I’m done asking for it quietly.

Titles in the Begging for a Second Chance series include:  If You Forget Me ~ Talk to Me ~ Stop Taking Me for Granted ~ Stop Treating Me Like a Footnote ~ Stop Showing Me Off Like a Trophy ~

This is a no-spice romance, perhaps with closed-door or fade-to-black scenes. Tension and kisses might be involved.

Title:  Talk to Me
Series:  Begging for a Second Chance #2
Author:  Roselin Brown
Published:  August 4, 2026
My Rating:  4.5 stars

Talk to Me is the second title in the Begging for a Second Chance series.  While each new story can easily be read as a standalone title, they all share the same theme of a marriage in crisis and feature a couple we might have met in an earlier book.  Lucy and Ryan’s story was, at times, a difficult story for me… I really dislike bullies, and that is exactly what Ryan’s mother is, even if she wraps herself in the cloak of wealth.  Her constant put-downs of Lucy were nasty-minded, and I didn’t understand how a man who loved his wife could let her be browbeaten like that for so long.

In some convoluted part of his mind, Ryan believed the only way to help Lucy was to set her free.  It’s just too bad that he made the decision for them both instead of standing up to his shrew of a mother long before he did.  Yes, he’d been raised never to show emotions, to block them and put on a certain “face” for the world at large, no matter the circumstances.  When he finally understood what he’d lost by “setting his wife free of the demands of his mother” and walked away to reinvent himself was probably the most difficult thing he’d ever done.  For many women, that would have been too little, too late… but not Lucy.  She loved her husband, but she would not go back to the world they’d lived in.  If he couldn’t really talk to her or open up his emotions to her, then she saw no future for them.  Watching both of them grow, the heartache involved, and the new strength they brought to each other was a fascinating journey.

Their story is well-written and emotional, with hope for a second chance that would demand hard work… really hard work.  They might still have a future together, but so much needs to truly change in attitudes and commitments before that can become a reality.  If you enjoy a Marriage in Crisis Romance, then you’d like Talk to Me.

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the author or the author’s team via Booksprout, and I sincerely thank them for their trust. I chose to leave a review with my personal opinion of this book.*

**I’m grateful to authors who put their work into Kindle Unlimited (no matter how long that run may be).  My book budget only stretches so far, and KU lets me read more of the amazing stories these authors offer.

This title is available on Amazon