Hi everyone! I'm not sure if you remember me, especially if you have been a FF reader for a while. I was writing lots of D/E stories in 2013. Some of my stories were:
In Love With a Criminal
Never Let Me Go
The Promise
Witness Relocation Programme
Unique as You
If you do remember or you read my stories, I'm really sorry I randomly took them all down. I had a bad time with my mental health and I just removed any presence of myself on the internet. After that, I completely lost my love of writing and I miss it. I want it back.
So I'm hoping that doing this again brings back that love of writing where I get so excited to sit in front of my computer and write.
So if you did used to read my stories, here is a rewrite of The Promise. I always look back and wish I did some things differently so this may be a bit different to what you remember. Hi again to you! If you've never read anything I wrote here and none of what I have said makes sense to you - Hi!
Here goes…
Do you ever look back and wonder - what if? I do it all the time. What if I chose medicine instead of journalism? What if I had said yes when Jake asked me to prom? What if I chose differently? Sometimes I think that no matter what choices I have made, fate would have still bought me to this moment right here. Our lives and endings are already planned from the moment we're born. Then sometimes I think that if I had chosen differently, things could have been different for me. Dare I say maybe even better?
But here's what scares me most. Here I am, sitting in a cold sweat at the airport, twenty-five, alone and pregnant while my soulmate and the father of my unborn child (unbeknownst to him) is getting married to a woman he can't stand. It's a pretty crap situation to be in and yet if someone told me that I could go back and make a couple of different choices (maybe not go to that bar or maybe just ignore the handsome stranger who started to talk to me) and my life wouldn't turn out this way… well… I don't think I'd have chosen any differently. How messed up is that?
It doesn't matter anyway. I couldn't go back even if I wanted to and clearly, I don't want to.
How did I get here?
1 Year Earlier on New Years Eve
"I'm really sorry but I gotta say it," the bloke next to broke the silence first. "It does fill me with great joy that you look more miserable than I do tonight. Here I was thinking that I was going to be the saddest twat in the bar."
I raised my glass to him and nodded. Oh no, I thought, you couldn't get more pathetic than me.
"Let's play a game," he carried on. "Whoever has the most pathetic story buys the next round of shots."
"I don't do shots," I said.
"Fine. The lamest of the two of us buys two burgers and a portion of fries. You do food - don't you?"
I took a deep breath and glanced up at the clock on the wall - two hours left til' midnight. I'd been drinking since lunch and barely had breakfast. A free burger didn't sound too bad and I could do with the company or at least a distraction from the shit going on inside my head.
"Fine. Do you want to go first?" I asked.
He knocked back the rest of his drink and moved to the stool next to me. As he got closer, I saw him more clearly and understood why every woman who walked into the bar did a double-take as they walked past him. He was beautiful. Albeit he was slightly rugged-looking, he was well-kept and appeared to be a professional. With grey suit trousers and a white shirt tucked in, his sleeves rolled up and his top few buttons undone, a tie loosened around his neck, he was easy on the eyes.
"Today I found out that my fiance fucked my brother on the night we got engaged," he said. "Then she left for a modelling job in New York. My nan died about one hour ago. I've also had to fire a work partner today as five women have complained about him being inappropriate and they have also decided to quit. Oh! And it's my birthday."
"Shit," I laughed, "what a day to remember."
He hollered for the barman to come over and refill his drink - bourbon.
"Here's to 2021," he smirked and knocked back his drink in one.
"Yeah that's pretty crap, but I still win. I got fired today and I got home to find my boyfriend in bed with my best friend."
He stared at me for a few moments, his deep blue eyes seemed lost and confused. Don't cry, I thought to myself. Don't cry on a strange hot guy's shoulder, I chanted. He slowly reached out and gently tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. His smile was gentle and caring as if he was a friend comforting another.
"He's an idiot," he spoke quietly. "You gonna forgive him?"
"No, we're done. Three years wasted in one night. What about you? Will you forgive your fiance?"
He scoffed and ran his hands through his hair. His eyes quickly changed from lost to stormy. I could sense there was much more than just a cheating woman, but it wasn't a question a stranger should ask.
"It's not that easy," he mumbled. He waved his hand at the bartender again and ordered two burgers, one without pickles, and a large portion of fries to share. "Call me old school, but I like to buy the pretty girl's dinner."
We spoke aimlessly for an hour, drinking and eating, laughing as if we were old friends. We never shared our names, but neither of us asked. We spoke about where we came from and what we did for a living. He told dirty jokes and flirted in a way he probably did with all the ladies. I asked the barman to stick a candle on a brownie and sang him happy birthday to his surprise. He said he hadn't had a birthday cake in years. We played Never Have I Ever and I realised that I was pretty boring in comparison. We shared a bottle of champagne to celebrate him turning thirty and then we danced around to forget the day we'd both had.
I know it was wrong of me but for the hour that we got lost in conversation, I'd forgotten that he was engaged to another woman and I let myself pretend that this was a date and not just two unhappy strangers in a bar sharing their misery.
With thirty minutes to go until midnight, the bar got busier and louder. Neither of us felt like partying in the new year and so we grabbed our coats and walked through the neighbouring park. The silence was comfortable and I could tell he felt it too.
"You never said why you got fired," he said. Instinctively, he slipped out of his leather jacket and gently hung it over my shoulders. The smell alone made my knees buckle. It was a mixture of whiskey, cologne and leather. "You don't have to tell me if you don't like."
"I refused to edit something. It was a slam piece of a young local celeb and it didn't feel right. I just had this gut feeling not to do it and so I refused. Apparently, that means I'm never going to be a good journalist."
"Maybe not," he said truthfully. "Being a journalist is all about being ruthless, but it does mean that you're a good person and that trumps being good at your job."
We carried on walking in silence until we came to a large white house. It had black gates around the gardens and large windows that gave me a glimmer into the lifestyle of the rich and famous. He stopped outside a gate and held a tab up to the keypad.
"This is me," he said. "Sorry - I must have been on autopilot."
I guessed that was his way of saying the night was over for him. Maybe he wanted to see in the new year alone, clear his head.
"I can call a cab if you just tell me your add-" before I could even finish my sentence, his lips crashed onto mine. They were soft and warm enough to stop the shivering and heat my skin. His large hands cupped my cold cheeks as his thumbs rubbed round in small circles. He slowly pulled away with his eyes still closed shut.
"Address," I finished.
My stomach flipped and my knees collapsed beneath me, but his strong arms held me up and he smirked knowing what he had done to me with just a simple kiss. I wanted to say that I was drunk and that's why I was letting a married man kiss me, but I was sober enough to know right from wrong.
"You're cold," he whispered.
"Am I?" I asked dumbly.
He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and softly ran his thumb across my lips. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking but every time I opened my mouth nothing came out.
"Do I need to apologise for what I just did?" He asked.
I didn't answer him. I didn't know what to say. I never kissed men I didn't know, let alone men I knew were taken, but there was this feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me that this was more than just an inappropriate kiss.
Shove that feeling away, Elena, I thought to myself.
"Do you want to come in?" He asked. "If you don't, I-"
"I do," I cut him off. "You're not a weirdo who is gonna kill me once I walk in, right? Or lock me in your basement?"
"I don't have a basement," he smirked. "No, I'm just unhappy and tonight, for the first time in a long time, I've felt like myself again and I don't think I'm quite ready for that to end."
I followed him through the gates and through the large front door. It opened up into a pristine white and marble hall where there were large black and white portraits of a beautiful woman in sultry poses hung on the walls. They must have been his fiance. She was beautiful, so why was he kissing me?
He turned around to face me and shrugged as if he was silently asking me what to do next. I wasn't brave enough to reach up and kiss him like I wanted to, but I plucked up enough courage to place my palms on his chest and move in just a few steps closer.
He cupped my cheeks again and slowly closed the distance between our lips. Although he started slowly, he quickly upped the pace and held me tightly against me, as if he thought I was just a dream. I gripped his shirt firmly in my fists and pulled myself up to get as close to him as possible.
He moaned against my lips as his jacket fell from my shoulders and onto the floor. His hands quickly worked on my tank top and somehow all of my nerves had disappeared long enough for me to help him climb out of his clothes. It'd been a while since I had been naked in front of a man and never in front of a man who looked as good as he did.
"God, you're fire," he mumbled into my ear as he led me upstairs and into a large bedroom. The bed hadn't been made, so it must have been his… their room. I shoved that thought out of my mind and he pressed kisses along my jawline and down my neck.
Before I knew it I was lying flat on his bed with him hovering over me. He pulled the comforter over us as I shivered with the cold air around me. He stopped for a few seconds and gazed at me as if he was drinking me all in. Or maybe he was checking I hadn't changed my mind - I don't know.
"There's something about you," I whispered.
And with that, he took me like never before. My breath caught in the back of my throat as he held onto me with one hand and gripped the bedsheets with the other. Never tearing his eyes from mine, he pressed a sweet kiss to the tip of my nose and bit the lobe of my ear.
As fireworks boomed out over the balcony, I smiled up at him thinking that 2020 didn't end on such a bad note and when he smiled and quickly glanced over at the colours in the sky, I knew he felt the same.
"Happy New Year," he said before crashing his lips back down to mine.
The sound of my phone woke me from the best sleep I'd had in a long time. My legs were sore, my mind rested and my heart calm.
He was fast asleep behind me, his arm slung over my side and his face buried in my hair. If anybody had seen us, they'd assume we were a happy young couple in love, but that was far from the truth.
I had to be at my parent's house in a couple of hours and I didn't want to go dressed in last night's outfit, smelling of the man I'd been making love to all night.
I pulled away from his arms and reached for my clothes. I quietly got dressed in the en-suite and washed my face. I didn't want to leave, I didn't want to walk out the door and know I probably wouldn't see him again, but maybe it was for the best. The sun had come up and reality had to set in at some point.
"Hey," he said groggily as I crept out the bedroom door. "You're not going to say goodbye?"
"It felt wrong to wake you," I lied. "I have to go. I'm supposed to see my parents soon and explain why I'm now unemployed."
He nodded and sat up in his bed.
"Last night was fun. I guess you can now say you and your fiance are even," I tried to joke.
"Yeah," he smiled, "I guess we are."
"Well have a great year, whoever you are."
He waved me out the bedroom door and I jumped into the taxi I'd ordered as quickly as I could. A part of me knew if I'd stayed longer, things might have escalated again and I couldn't stay any longer and risk growing feelings for a man I could never have.
I watched his house disappear in the rearview mirror and sunk in the car seat.
"Did you have a good night?" The driver asked.
"Yeah," I answered honestly. "The best."
