The Promise Read online

  Seeing her stand up against that cheating bastard was the highlight of my fucking year. I mean, I would have paid good money to see that shit and I got to see it for free. Pencil-dick wasn’t worthy of her, he never was, not by a long shot, but then again, neither am I.

  As she stood there, I took in her gorgeous body hidden underneath all that delicate white lace, the memories playing in my mind. Full luscious tits begging to be sucked, licked, and kissed. Slim waist and wide curvy hips, just like an hourglass, thick creamy thighs and a beautiful firm, round ass. She’s a vision, wasted on a guy like him.

  White doesn’t suit her though, she is anything but pure and innocent. She is sin, the forbidden fruit calling to me to come and take another bite. My mouth waters at the memory of how she tasted on my lips, of how I want to taste her again…

  No.

  That night we spent together a year ago was something that should never have fucking happened and something that will never be repeated. It was a moment of weakness where I let my dick do the thinking. Story of my life.

  I should have known that it wouldn’t end well.

  No matter how much I wanted it that night a year ago, no matter how much I still want her, I can’t let Gwen that close again.

  I’ve been burned before, by what I thought was love, by putting my trust in the wrong woman. My heart was shattered into a million tiny pieces, and I’ve been trying to patch it back together ever since.

  Never again will I let myself be played like that.

  Never again will I hand my heart over so easily.

  Never again will I give a woman that much power over me.

  I can’t. I won’t.

  But no matter how hard I try to deny it, Gwen took a piece of my heart that night, and I’ll be damned if I let her take any more of it.

  Chapter 4

  Gwen

  The first thing I did when we got home was tug off my wedding dress and stuff it in the trash. I never want to see or think about it ever again. I grabbed whatever shit Josh left lying around my apartment and threw that in the trash too. I want it all gone. I want that part of my life over with and behind me.

  I treated Lucas to a McDonald’s, because why not? Comfort food always makes a bad situation somewhat better, but he was more excited about the little plastic toy in his Happy Meal than the actual food itself.

  “What movie do you wanna watch?” I run my fingers through his hair as he nestles into my side. Like I have to ask that question, because I already know the answer. I bet all the money in the world he'll say Toy Story, he always does.

  “Toy Story! Toy Story!”

  “Again? You only watched it yesterday.” I laugh.

  He leaps off the chair and grabs the TV remote and holds it out to me. “Please, mommy, please. Toy Story!”

  “Well...” I tilt my head with a sigh. Knowing full well what my answer is going to be. “Okay.”

  “Yay!” He jumps up and down, dancing around my living room in his Buzz Lightyear pyjamas.

  God, I wish Luke were here to see his son, to see the beautiful boy Lucas has become, but it will never happen. What hurts the most is the fact that I never got a chance to tell him that I was pregnant before he died, that he’ll never meet his little boy, and that Lucas will never know his daddy.

  I grew up not knowing my father, or my mother for that matter. I often wonder what it would have been like to have had my parents in my life. My mother left me and my dad when I was four years old, so I was told, then my father died a year later and I was sent to live with my grandmother, my only living relative. I’d never met her before then, and apparently there was no love lost between her and my dad.

  I don’t want that for my son. I don’t want him to miss out on anything. I want him to have two parents that love him. Lucas deserves the world and I want to give it to him, I want to give him everything that I didn’t have myself.

  I fight back tears, willing myself not to cry in front of him.

  “Mommy?” Lucas has stopped dancing and is looking at me, his eyebrows pulled together.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Why so sad?” he asks.

  I choke up. I hold my arms open, beckoning him to come over. I pull him onto my lap and bury my face in his hair and silently cry, holding onto my precious boy so tight. “Mommy’s just a little sad today, nothing to worry about.”

  “Where’s Josh?”

  I knew this question was coming. I pull back to look into his little face. “Baby, Josh isn’t coming back, I’m so sorry.”

  His chin begins to tremble, the corners of his little mouth turning downwards, his eyes become glassy with tears. “But why?”

  “He loves you, Lucas, he really does. This is not your fault, you did nothing wrong, but mommy and Josh had a fight and we aren’t together anymore. It’s just you and me now buddy.”

  He nods sorrowfully. “Okay.”

  I swipe away the stray tear the trickles down his cheek with my thumb. “So... Toy Story?”

  And just like that, it’s like a lightbulb has been switched on and his little face lights up. “Yay!” He leaps off my lap and goes back to running around the living room. “To ifinty and byond!” My heart swells at his little three year old voice, infinity being too complicated a word for him.

  I put on the movie and we spend the evening sat on the couch, Lucas snuggled into my side watching his favourite movie for the thousandth time, but pretty soon his breathing evens out and he's fallen fast asleep. I scoop him up gently and carry him to bed, tucking in the edges of his covers before planting a kiss on his forehead and sneaking out, clicking the door shut quietly behind me.

  I return to the living room to find my phone buzzing on the coffee table. It’s Hayley.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi, how are you?” she asks.

  “I’m okay.” I flop back down on the chair, pausing the movie which still continues to play on screen.

  “So, I was thinking…”

  “Uh-oh. Hayley’s thinking… this isn’t good,” I joke.

  “Shut up.” I hear her laugh. “Anyway. I was thinking, why don’t we go out on Friday night? I’ve asked Ellen and Nate and they said they’ll take Lucas and Sara for the night. We could try that bar in the city we’ve been talking about for ages.”

  “Yeah sure.”

  “Great! We’ll meet you there at eight?”

  “Eight’s fine.”

  “Awesome, I’ll tell Kyle to let Zach know.”

  “Wait, Zach’s coming too?”

  “Of course he’s coming.” Great.

  “Okay,” I sigh.

  “Love you.”

  “Love you too, babe.” I hang up.

  Getting out might do me good. It could help me forget for a few hours.

  I stay up for another couple of hours before retiring to bed myself. I look over to the empty side of my bed where Josh is usually lying next to me, but I force him out of my mind. I refuse to let him take up any more of my thoughts.

  The funny thing is, I should be lying in bed watching Bridget Jones’s Diary nursing a very large glass of wine, or two, while I cry my eyes out over what Josh did to me, but I’m not. If anything I’m relieved.

  I should be heart broken, but I’m not. Why is that? We were together for over a year so why don’t I feel anything?

  I roll over onto my side and close my eyes, only it takes what feels like hours for sleep to finally find me. Instead, I lie awake, my mind wandering to Zach, my heart quickening at the thought of him.

  I know it’s ridiculous, how he affects me. After today, men should be the furthest thing from my mind, but I can’t stop it. I know that night we spent together was a one-time thing, never to be repeated, to be forgotten, but I’d be lying if I said I had, because I didn’t, I couldn’t. We came together at a time when I was feeling down and lonely, and for a short while he was a distraction, a way to dull the pain, and he did exactly that, he took some of my pain away, but only to hurt me even more
with his rejection.

  I can’t allow him back into my life, I can’t allow my heart to be broken for what feels like the millionth time. Time and time again I always seem to make the wrong choices, the same decisions that have the same outcome, me being hurt and ending up alone.

  My problem has always been that I get too attached, too quickly, letting the possibility of love cloud my judgement. I give my heart away too easily, which is why it has been broken too many times to count.

  But I won’t, not anymore. The next time I give my heart away, I’m going to be sure that it’s for the right reasons, that I fall in love myself, not just fall in love with the idea of love.

  And it won’t be Zachary Gilgunn, that’s for damn sure.

  Chapter 5

  Gwen

  “How are you, love?” Rose asks as I hand her a cup of coffee before taking my own and sitting opposite her on the couch.

  I’ve known Rose since I was five, since my grandmother took me in after my dad died. She’s in her early seventies, but doesn’t look a day over fifty, I guess it must be an Irish thing. After moving from Belfast to New York when she was a teenager, she hasn’t lost her brogue, though if you listen closely, it has an American twang to it.

  Rose is like family to me, especially after my grandmother died six years ago, taking care of me, and helping me take care of Lucas. Whenever I need to go to work, she’s always there to help look after Lucas, who too adores her just as much as I do. Right now, she’s the closest thing I have to a grandmother, though she likes to think of herself as more of a mother figure, grandmother makes her sound old, the one thing she hates being reminded of. She never married or had children, so it’s just her, which I guess is why she considers us her family.

  I take a sip of the scalding liquid, swallowing quickly so as not to burn my mouth. “Strangely… yeah, I am. Though I can’t help but think there’s something wrong with me.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I didn’t feel anything, I wasn’t upset when I found out he’d cheated on me. Sure, I was angry, but it didn’t hurt how it should have.”

  “Why do you think that was, love?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me something darlin’, did you love him?”

  “I… I was with him for a year…”

  “But did you love him? Give me three things you loved about him.”

  “Well, I…” I fall silent, suddenly aware that I can’t think of a single thing that I loved about a man that I was with for a year, a man that I was ready to marry. No matter how hard I think, I can’t come up with anything.

  “That’s what I thought.” She smiles softly, placing her hand on top of mine. “Gwen, love, you didn’t feel hurt or upset because you didn’t love him, not in the way you should, not in the way that matters.”

  “But what does that say about me? I was going to marry him.”

  “I can’t tell you why you didn’t love him, that’s up to you to find out for yourself. But I’ve always believed that things happen for a reason. Maybe Joshua wasn’t the man you’re supposed to be with, and it’s the Universe’s way of tellin’ you.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” I smile.

  Rose has always had a way of making me see things differently, seeing deep into me in ways I never even thought of. How could I not love a man I was ready to marry? Why didn’t I love him?

  There was no heart stopping, love at first sight moment when I first saw him. He just found me at a time when I was lonely and needed someone to take care of me for a change. We met a week after Zach and I spent the night together after he hurt me, I guess Josh just filled that empty space inside of me that Zach left behind.

  Our relationship was easy, comfortable, well it was, up until two months ago anyway.

  “I should be back from work around ten-thirty, is that alright?” I stand up, grabbing my bag off the floor and sliding it over my shoulder.

  “Of course darlin’, Lucas and I are goin’ to have so much fun, aren’t we, sweetheart?” she asks, resting her hand on his shoulder as he stands next to her.

  “Me and Rosie gonna play games!”

  “Have fun, baby.” I bend down and engulf him in my arms, pecking a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll see you later.” I give them both a wave before heading out the door.

  ∞∞∞

  I arrive for work on time and round the bar where Terry, the owner is loading the dishwasher with dirty glasses.

  For the past four years I’ve been steadily building my own wedding planning company, it’s small and profitable, but I can’t live off what I make planning weddings alone, so for the past couple of years I’ve helped out at Terry’s, a bar about ten minutes from my apartment. It’s the first job I’ve been able to hang on to for longer than a few months. Terry’s is a place that Hayley, Aaron and I used to meet up on a weekly basis. Only now, with Aaron away in Chicago, and Hayley and I both having kids and other commitments, we rarely meet up anymore.

  “Gwen, what are you doin’ here?” Terry asks when he sees me.

  “Figured I’d come to work.”

  “You know you don’t have to, considering everythin’ you’ve been through lately.”

  “I know, I just want to take my mind off everything for a while, and what better place to do it, right?”

  He chuckles. “Okay, well thanks, tonight seems busier than usual, we could use the help.” Terry is in his fifties, attractive for an older guy. Short silvery-grey hair that shimmers in the light, a short stubbled beard and a solid body who stands a few inches taller than me.

  I place my bag in the back room and tie my apron around my waist and get to work. I’ve always loved working here, the warm atmosphere, the people, the energy that simmers in the air that seeps into your bones so deep you could feed off of it.

  It was just as Terry said, the bar is packed tonight, so it keeps my mind blissfully occupied. It’s loud in here, people talking over each other and drowning out the music from the vintage jukebox in the corner. It’s so loud I’m starting to get a headache, but I keep working, hoping the buzz I get from how busy it is in here is enough to numb the throbbing in my skull.

  I don’t stop moving for the first few hours into my shift, mainly because happy hour is coming to an end and everyone wants to get their last discounted beer. I juggle between working the bar and helping serve the food to the tables in the back. Soon, happy hour is over, and the bar begins to quieten down.

  I round the side of the bar and grab myself a glass of water, my throat feels like sandpaper it’s so dry. I down the entire thing and place the glass in the dishwasher.

  “Well I for one am glad that little bastard is out of your life. Never liked the guy,” Terry says, while drying off a glass with a towel and placing it on the rack behind the bar.

  “Me too, babe. He’s a hot shot whose head’s a little too big,” Jake, the bartender comments. “What you did was epic!”

  “It did feel pretty good.” I smirk.

  “This mean I can finally take my girl out for dinner sometime?” Jake asks with a grin, throwing his arm around my shoulders and pulling me into his side.

  Jake is off the charts hot, and the cocky bastard knows it. He is the embodiment of the typical jock in every teen high-school movie ever made. He was a senior when Hayley and I were in our freshman year, captain of the football team, obviously. Tall, dark, cocky with a rock-solid body, but he’s a total player, a different girl in his bed every night. Jake has worked at Terry’s long before I started, he was here when Hayley, Aaron and I used to come here together. There has only ever been friendship between us, though he’s made it his life mission to change that.

  “You wish, asshole.” I laugh, shrugging off his grip and punching him playfully in the stomach.

  He slaps a hand against his heart and pouts. “Come on G-spot, just dinner, I swear.”

  “When have you ever had just dinner?”

  “I’ve had dinner with a girl,” he sa
ys. “I took her out, we had a nice meal…” he trails off. I cock an eyebrow. “Okay, granted, she was dessert, but that’s beside the point.”

  Terry snorts a laugh behind us as he continues drying glasses.

  I shake my head, laughing as I walk away, seeing two guys sitting down at one of the tables in the corner of my eye. As I near them and their faces come into view, and my stomach sinks. Brad and Mason, Josh’s two best friends.

  Fuck.

  When they see me approach, Brad’s face stretches into a wide smug grin. I choose to play it cool, deciding not to let them get to me.