Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 65429 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65429 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
A small-town, friends to lovers, second chance romance from Wall Street Journal & USA Bestselling Author M. Robinson
Being the man of honor in my best friend Rosie’s wedding wouldn’t be such a big deal…
If I wasn’t in love with her.
But I won’t turn her down. No matter how much it’ll tear my heart out to watch her walk down
the aisle toward another man.
It should have been us—from friends to lovers and back again. But after college, I was so busy
building my empire that I let her slip through my fingers. She was my first. And once she
realizes he’s the wrong one for her…
I’ll be her last.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
Ethan
Have you ever had a connection with someone so fucking deep you can feel them from across the world?
It was where time and distance knew no bounds, and it almost seemed as if the further you were away from one another, the closer you’d feel to each other.
From my mind to my body to my soul…
Livvy Collins had always owned every last part of me.
We’d been best friends since we were kids. I couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t the most important person in my life. I couldn’t remember a memory that didn’t involve her in some way, shape, or form. The list of things I couldn’t forget about her was endless.
From her laughter to her smile to her intoxicating scent… taste… feel…
It didn’t matter what life put us through, our friendship always came first. From friends to lovers to friends again, our unbreakable bond remained the same—even after we fell in love with each other.
Separate colleges.
Multiple relationships.
Different careers.
Not one milestone changed anything between us. If anything, our friendship became stronger despite the odds of it. Through it all, we were always there for one another.
And that night at three in the morning was no fucking exception.
I felt her before I ever heard my cell ring. Shooting straight up in my hotel suite bed, I woke up from a dead sleep seconds before my phone actually rang. Not thinking twice about it, I didn’t have to check the screen to know it was her.
Instead, I answered, “Are you okay?”
She giggled. “Is that any way to answer your phone?”
I sighed in relief. “It is when you call me at this time of night.”
“Well… I’m surprised you’re not working.”
“Who says I’m not?”
“I can hear it in your tone,” she playfully informed. “You were sleeping.”
“Livvy, even when I’m sleeping, you know I’m still working.”
“I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?”
“Are you calling to ride my ass about working too much?”
“I would never,” she mocked in a condescending tone that made me grin.
“Just think of how much the Beauet stock would collapse if your app wasn’t number one?”
“So you did call to ride my ass.”
She giggled again. “Is Celeste with you?”
“Celeste and I aren’t together anymore.”
“You were together two nights ago.”
“That was two nights ago.”
“Another one bites the dust, I see?”
“Livvy, you know I don’t have time for that.”
“You have time for me.”
“I make time for you,” I stressed, lying back on the bed. “There’s a difference.”
I didn’t have to see her face to know she was smiling on the other end of the phone.
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
“What’s this about?” My eyebrows pinched together as she hesitated for a second.
“Where are you?” she asked, sounding so far away.
“In a hotel suite in Canada.”
“Far from home then.”
Narrowing my eyes, I repeated her question. “Where are you?”
“On the balcony of an estate in Colorado.”
“Livvy, what—”
“I need you, Ethan.”
I immediately asked, “What’s with all the cryptic? Are you alright?”
“I’ve never been better.” She paused for a moment, and I could sense her hesitation.
“You think you can take time off from work for the next week?”
“Not until you tell me why?” I cautiously waited for I don’t know what.
“I just need my best friend.”
I abruptly sat up, about to respond, but she would have knocked me on my ass if I wasn’t already sitting down. It all happened so fast, yet it still seemed as if it played out in slow motion.
She unexpectedly revealed, “I’m getting married.”
“What—”
She cut me off, bluntly adding…
“And I need you to be my man of honor.”
Chapter
One
Livvy
The Beginning: Fourteen Years Old
I spent the entire summer riding my bike with my best friend Ethan Carter.We met on the school bus halfway through first grade. I was the new kid in his town and school, and he shared his seat with me on the bus so I didn’t have to sit alone. From that moment forward, we were inseparable.
My dad got a huge promotion at work, and that was why we had to move to Charleston, South Carolina. It seemed like it happened overnight. He became the vice president of some big company, and all I knew was that he was an important person.
Our small town knew who my father was, and he never let me forget it. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great dad and I loved him very much, but appearances were his top priority. He constantly reminded me that my bad decisions would reflect on our family, and I took that advice seriously.
Ethan’s life was very different from mine. He lived a few blocks from my house, outside the gates of the private community where I lived. His mom passed away from cancer when he was a baby, so he didn’t remember her at all. His father didn’t handle her death well, and Ethan’s uncle adopted him instead. He moved in with his mom’s brother before he started preschool. So his uncle was raising him and worked a lot.