▪️ Emily ▪️ Olivia wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away what was happening, but I couldn’t sit by his bedside and talk to him, with him having no memory, then call you and repeat the whole story again…I would’ve lost it.” It wasn’t until they’d come home that Olivia told her and Ace the truth—that when Liam first regained consciousness he was so befuddled, he didn’t remember her or his parents, and she’d left the hospital in tears. The next day, sitting with him, waiting and hoping for his memory to return, left her drained and exhausted, but the following afternoon, to everyone’s relief, Liam greeted her with a smile and an “I love you.” And she’d confided to Emily that she’d never seen Liam cry until she told him about the miscarriage. Like she’d done since childhood, Emily wished she could take away her pain and make it her own, but when she hugged him, she could feel her strength. She didn’t need her to fight her battles anymore; she wa
▪️ Emily ▪️ “Yeah. There is, kind of.” Emily set her keys in the bowl and leaned against the counter, wondering why her mouth turned to dust and her heart suddenly picked up speed. “I knew it. Tell me.” “Here you are, talking about going away together, and yet when Liam told you it’s not good to be alone, you couldn’t even answer him.” “I would think the answer is obvious. We’ve been together all summer. I want to continue being with you.” “Nothing in this relationship has ever been obvious. First you wanted to deny anything ever happened; then you said it couldn’t—wouldn’t—ever happen again. And when it did, I respected your wishes to keep it between us at the office because you were right.” “Well, hallelujah for that. One point in my favor,” Emily muttered. “This isn’t a game,” Ace lashed out, startling Emily with his vehemence and depth of pain. “At least I didn’t think so. I’m trying to tell you ho
▪️ Emily ▪️ "Of course I am.” Ace's cocky grin reappeared at last, and Emily knew she was lost. Or perhaps she’d found herself by falling in love with this wild, impetuous man. She never wanted to be the cause of Ace's unhappiness again. “I didn’t believe I was the type of man who’d find love. I’m too serious, too set in my ways…” “You got in my way, and I never want you to get out of it.” Ace's brows drew together. “It’s time we both stopped thinking about who we were, and concentrate on who we are. If a few years ago you’d asked me where I’d be today and what I’d be doing, I wouldn’t have been able to answer you. I didn’t know. I didn’t think about the future. But now, if it’s one year…or five or ten, no matter where I am, I know where my heart will be.” He took Emily's hand in his and laced their fingers together. “With you.” “You’re a romantic.” Ace had shattered all her preconceived expectations and beliefs about so many things. Most of all, who Emily was when they were togeth
"Hello, I'm Cole from Spring Well college....." "Hello, I'm Cole from Spring Well college and I'm calling..." Another hung up phone! Oh dear. It was going to be a really, really long night. She was supposed to be doing this college fund-raiser where undergraduates called up wealthy alumnshe and connected deeply with them in a way that got them all nostalgic and wallet-opening or bank transfer. To be honest, she wasn’t exactly an ideal candidate for the role. Given that she got all squirmy borrowing 60 pence for a can of Coke Zero from the vending machine, she had no fucking clue how she was going to work “and how would you feel about endowing into an English essay ” into a casual conversation with a complete stranger. Her best friend Harper was actually the one who’d signed up, but she’d come down with laryngitis. Which meant the telethon team ended up having to use her instead. She knew as soon as they gave her what was supposed to be two days of training in ten minutes that i
“And apparently you’re the CEO of a multinational banking and financial services holding company. I don’t know what much of that means.” “You can look it up on the Internet. Anything more?” She stared at the next line. “It says you’re a lovely person, and very kind to animals.” “Cole.” It showed how screwed up her priorities were right then that, for a moment, all she could think was, He remembered her name. she imagined his lips shaping it: Cole, Cole, Cole. “Uh, what?” “What does it really say?” Her name, and the touch of sternness, raised all the hairs on her arms. “It says you’re the third richest man in the UK with a net worth in the region of twelve billion quid.” She waited. No idea what for. She'd done as he’d commanded, but he wasn’t exactly going to shower her in praise and cookies for it. she expected he would hang up but he didn’t and so they were stuck there, fresh silence deepenin
Cole's shift ended at nine, the next group of eager volunteers filing in to reach out to alumnshe in different time zones. While she hadn’t spoken to any more billionaires, she'd actually done okay. Somehow, her conversation with Aiden Crux had given her more confidence in what she was doing and herability to do it. He’d said she was doing a good job, after all. And, coming from him, that had to mean something. Unless he was being sarcastic. Oh shit. What if he was? In any case, she'd even started to enjoy herself once she got into the swing of things. Nearly everyone had memories to share or stories to tell, and as she made herway back to herroom across the moonlit quad, she found myself wondering what herstory was. She'd done so well at school that she'd come to university expecting a cross between Brideshead Revisited and an English version of The Secret History, and fully prepared to be a genius. Except Oxford wasn’t like that
He wasn’t actually being mean. Her course had a reputation for being easy—probably deservedly, since the earliest lectures started at eleven and, while they weren’t presented as optional, hardly anyone went to them anyway. “Yes, but how am I supposed to revise every book written in English from 650 to the present day. That’s”—hervoice went a bit shrill—“not reasonable.” “Can’t you prioritize the important ones or something?” “Do I look like Harold Bloom?”“I’d be able to tell you if I knew who that was.” Cole could have explained The Western Canon, but nobody deserved that. They'd been on the same staircase in her first year and stuck together ever since, despite having nothing in common. She was reading Materials, whatever that meant, and constantly getting internships at MIT. She was also captain of the first girls , played basketball, and had recently returned from Uganda, where she’d been part of a team that was
"Okay, how do I look?” Cole turned away from the mirror over the sink and struck a pose. Harper's expression was carefully neutral. “Honestly? Like a kid in her mom's dress.” The post-telethon dinner was black tie for men and blue dress for women and she didn’t have the right kit, so she'd borrowed Harper's. Not completely grasping the impact of Harper being six foot four and an athlete. When she was pretty much the opposite of that. “What if I rolled the sleeves up?” “Don’t you fucking dare. That’s my best dress.” As Cole walked across the room, the dress felt baggy. Harper winced. “Do you really want to meet important alumni looking like that?” “It’s not that bad.” Her hair was having a small rebellion of its own. She'd quiffed six ways to Sunday but the whole thing had fallen sideways like a drunk on Saturday night. But fuck it. Aiden Crux wasn’t coming anyway. Not because of a single conv
“Hey now,” Cole protested. “He offered me money and the apartment.” “Like you were going to take it. How long was he with you? Did he know you at all?” “We were kind of in the middle of an argument at the time.” “Right. But it’s been over a week.” It had. And Cole had told herself she wasn’t hoping for anything. Except she must have been. Because now she felt silly.Ellery kicked the tree moodily. “Stop feeling sorry for him. I expect he’s feeling sorry enough for himself. Or Lancaster’s found him a new whipping girl.” “Don’t.” “Sorry.” “Did you really come all the way to Kinlochbervie to say ‘I told you so’?” “No.” She pulled her hood up and disappeared into its shadows. “I came to ask if you want to live with me.”Cole nearly fell off the swing. “Live with you?”“Yeah. Thought I should move out. Do some shit with my life or something.” “What sort of shit did you have in mind?”She kicked the tree again. And then, apparently finding
Everything hurt. The hours seemed like wild horses. Dawn broke around Cole. She spent most of the day on the sofa, crying herself out of tears, watching the sky turn tauntingly through shades of silver and gold. She tried to be brave, to be strong, to be less pathetically embarrassing. But her inner Scarlett O’Hara was AWOL—tomorrow being another day seemed like scant consolation. And while she sometimes tormented herself with idle fantasies of Aiden coming back, of sweeping her into his arms, full of sorrow and declarations of eternal devotion, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t sure she could ever bear pain like this again. Later… later… later… Her phone bleeped. And, like a fool, she scrabbled for it, wrecked with hope and fear and hope. It was Harper: “I MOVED MY FOOT!!!!!” **** She slept and didn’t sleep, and the hours sped and sluggished by. And finally, she rang home. Hazel picked up. “What’s wrong?” she said before Cole even had a chance to speak.
Cole swayed exhaustedly where she knelt. “Well, I'm not. And I don't How many times is you going to ignore me telling you that I love you? Because I do. I really do. And you can think all these awful things about yourself if you must. But nothing—nothing, do you hear me—will make me believe them.” “You can’t love me. You don’t know me.” “You mean, because I didn’t know about this? That’s only because you lied to me about it.” He paced restlessly, up and down that pristine room. This lost creature in Aiden Crux's skin. “I didn’t lie.” “I asked you outright. In Kinlochbervie.” “No. You asked if someone had hurt me. And they haven’t.” “Oh fucking hell.” She rubbed her hands against her burning eyes. “I could have hurt you. Don’t you realize how completely fucked it feels looking back at all the times I’ve pushed you on sex stuff with no clue about what happened to you?” “Well,” he drawled, “I did warn you that I’m a cruel
Cole glanced up. “I'm not. I mean, it wasn’t fun. But I trusts you. With the worst of me, as well as the best, and all the squishy ambiguous bits in between.” “Thank you,” he said, unexpectedly grave. “I hope to always honor that trust.” “As I will for you.” He didn’t respond. “So, y’know”—Cole nudged him gently—“your turn.” It took a long time, but he did eventually speak. The words coming slowly and painfully, like razor blades from his lips. “If I tell you, you’ll know what Eleanor said about me is right. That I’m sick and twisted and I ruin everything that’s good.” “She only said that because she was angry.” He shook his head. “No, she said it because it’s true. You see, she learned who she was when she was fourteen years old.” “What happened when—wait. When your father died?” “After that. When she seduced his business partner. His best friend.” Cole genuinely had no idea what to say. To
Cole pulled off a truly Ellery-worthy eye roll. “One cigarette a month is hardly going to kill him,” she said. “Is that what he told you? And you believed him?” Natasha asked. Now that she thought about it… he did tend to reach for his cigarettes once they’d sexed. And he’d smoked after dinner. And during Star Wars. And just now in the gCole. Oh fuck. Fuuuuuck.Natasha shook her head at her. “You poor, sweet girl. You don’t know him at all, do you?” “I… I’m in love with him,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I can see why you’d believe that. Aiden can be quite dazzling when he chooses. But you don’t understand anything about who he is. Or the damage you’re doing to him.” She tried to reply, to protest, to defend herself. Defend him. Defend them. But she had nothing. Aiden had de-clawed her with his secrets. Left her powerless and alone. “You deserve better,” Natasha went on softly. “He’s using you like his cigarettes. You
“I love it when you hurt me. I love everything you do. And everything you are,” Cole said. And that was when Aiden turned and drew her into his mouth. It was the teeniest bit awkward—he even nicked her slightly with the edge of his teeth, suggesting maybe he didn’t do this all that often. He certainly hadn’t with her before. Not that she’d minded. He made her come just fine. But…wow. He could have been actively terrible and she wouldn’t have cared: Aiden Crux was sucking her pussy. No teasing. Only his tongue sliding tight round her, his mouth soft and hot and perfect.Ohfuckohfuckohfuck. She was…Aiden was… Cole turned her head into her shoulder in an effort to muffle her noises. Which were at least as loud as when he’d been torturing her nipples, and probably even less dignified. Pain was one thing. She could take pain. But she was pleasure’s bitch. Hone
His fingers closed around her through her dress and squeezed until she bucked and moaned. Some of the anguish faded from her face, the tight lines of her brow and mouth yielding to desire, and something tender she might have called hope. “Don’t move,” he whispered, as he stepped away. “Okay.” Her heart thumped as eagerly as a puppy’s tail. She loved the anticipation that came with his commands. And she loved pleasing him. Of course, her nose started itching almost immediately. But she was determined and ignored it and held still as he had told her to. Aiden circled the pillar, leaving her standing there like Andromeda. Well, Andromeda if she had a massive erection. Then he drew her hands behind her and she felt the cool brush of silk against her skin.It encircled her wrists. Pulled taut. Oh my God. His bowtie. He was bondaging her with his own bowtie. She made a noise of surprise and exciteme
He didn’t quite flinch but he got that look: the closed down, I am a million miles away from you look I knew all too well. “I’ll leave you to enjoy it.” And, with that, he…went away. Again. Cole bit down on a gasp of frustration. She wanted to kick him in the shins. He couldn’t just fix what was probably years of hurt and misunderstanding with a single, and very small, gesture. Also, the fucker had barely spent five minutes with her. But she pushed all that aside and turned her very best and sparkliest smile on Ellery. “So what happens next? Do we all die of the plague?” Ellery sneered at the room. “Mm, here’s hoping.” “Wow, that’s the last time I RSVP to an invitation from you.” “I don’t mean it.” She sighed and with the air of a small child being forced to eat Brussels sprouts added, “Thank you for coming.” “I didn’t know you played the violin.” Ellery shrugged. “I’m brilliant. When I’m not rusty.” “
“What do you look for?” Cole asked. “The thing nobody else sees,” He replied, propping his hip casually against a piece of furniture she didn’t have a name for—something ornate and impressive, probably a credenza or vitrine or whatever. “Society photography comes down to one very simple principle. Anyone can take pictures of Kate Middleton and Lady Gaga. The trick is getting a picture of Kate Middleton with Lady Gaga.” “And have you?” “Not yet. But she’s a long way from dead, and hopefully so are they.” Cole laughed. In a strange way, the woman reminded her a little bit of Aiden. The same conviction, the same merciless drive, although focused and expressed very differently. She guessed it was becoming pretty apparent she had a type.But mainly Cole was grateful. Now, when she looked across the room, she met smiles. Flashes of recognition in other people’s eyes. She knew faces and names. She could have joined some of the conversations. Instead of drifting around pathetically. Stil