Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
“S-Spencer?” she stutters as if she can’t really be seeing me.
But she is, I’m standing right here staring at the woman who ruined me.
She’s no longer the slim girl I remember so well, but a stunning curvaceous woman who makes my heart beat that little bit faster.
My head and heart duel as she remains motionless in front of me. My head remembers the pain, my heart remembers how good things once were. The war within pisses me off. My heart pisses me off. I’ve spent the past five years trying to convince myself that she didn’t care, that she didn’t love me the way I did her because she didn’t fight for us. Not once.
“Let’s go.” My deep, haunted voice shocks me, but it expresses exactly how I feel.
Reaching out, I wrap my fingers around her upper arm, my grip too tight but my ability to control myself left the minute I saw her.
I drag her behind me, ensuring she can’t say anything. We collect her luggage and I take her straight out to the parking lot.
Part of me screams that I should throw her back on a plane and ship her back where she came from. But then I see my mom. I remember the excitement in her eyes as she explained this plan to us, told us about our early Christmas presents. Then my memory flicks back to my time with Gabby. Us as kids playing in our back yards, the day I looked at her and saw something different, our first kiss.
Motherfucker.
Ripping the passenger door open, I practically throw her inside and slam the door shut behind her.
My heart pounds in my chest as my head desperately tries to make sense of all this.
She’s here.
She was the one holding the rose.
She was the one sent for me.
Why?
Why her?
I throw her luggage in the trunk before pacing back and forth in the lot for a few minutes too long.
I feel her eyes on me in the mirror as I move and it irritates the hell out of me that even after all these years, I’m still so aware of her, that my body is still in tune with hers and what she’s doing.
Stopping, I lift my hands to my hair and sweep it back from my face before marching toward the driver’s door and dropping down into the seat.
“Spenc, I—”
“Not now,” I bark. She flinches at my cold tone and I instantly regret it. But looking at her, it makes all those old feelings of betrayal I felt after she left come flooding back as if it only happened yesterday.
It was five years ago, but the pain of her leaving has never left me.
I guess that’s what happens when you love someone the way I did her. When they leave, they take a piece of you with them that you’ll never get back.
My grip on the wheel is painful as I back out of the space and pull out onto the road that’s going to lead me—us—home.
Jesus. I close my eyes for a beat, thinking that if I open them again, I might realize that this is all a dream. A really fucked up dream.
We’re right on the edge of town when she speaks once again. Her voice sends tingles racing through my body, it’s a sound I never thought I’d hear again but it’s as familiar to me as my own.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m as shocked as you are.”
My lips part to respond, but words fail me.
If it makes me feel any better. How could anything she’s got to say make me feel any better right now?
She’s blindsided me. Completely thrown my world into disarray once again, and all she’s done is walk through the damn airport.
“Did you plan this?” I know it’s crazy to even think it, but I need to know.
“What? No. How would that even be possible? The only thing I knew was that I was headed here. The second Holly told me where my future husband lived, I jumped at the chance.”
“Why?”
She glances over at me. I feel her stare as I focus out of the windshield, but I refuse to look at her. I can’t.
“B-because it’s my home.”
“Bullshit,” I snap, noticing her flinch out of the corner of my eye.
“Spencer, I—”
“I can’t do this now, Gabby.” As I say her name, I pull up to a stoplight and as if my body has a mind of its own, I turn to her just in time to see her entire body jolt at my use of it. “What?”
“It’s Ella,” she whispers.
“Why?”
“It just is. Just drive p-please.” Her voice cracks, her eyes pooling with tears. The sight guts me, but when I look forward, I find the light green and I have no choice but to focus on driving.
Chapter Three
Gabriella
I’m a mess as I sit in Spencer’s passenger seat watching the familiar town pass by outside the window.