A Summer To Remember: Novella (Lost Love Book 1) (13 page)

Isabelle

I’m lost, Xavier left a week ago and I can’t think straight. There’s a gaping hole in my chest, I feel as though half of myself left with Xavier. Like I've lost my soul mate. Sighing, I drag myself out of bed, keeping my promise to Xavier to look after myself. My eyes land on an envelope which has been sitting on my chest of drawers since two days after he left. I haven't had the courage to read the written words. I've studied the envelope on more than one occasion. There's no return address. No postal stamp. I wonder who it could be from?

I tear the envelope open and pull out the letter. I scan the heartfelt words. Tears spring to my eyes. The pain is too much. Who was the stranger I spent the summer with? Everything was a lie, I sob. How could he keep so much of himself hidden away? My heart splinters at the hands of his deceit. 

Dear Isabelle,

   I never truly realized how hard it was going to be, being away from you. The need to hold you against my chest. To feel your lips pressed against mine is unbearable. I'm counting down the days until I get to have you be within my arms again.

Okay, so you're probably confused why you’ve received this letter. To be honest, this was the only way I had the balls to tell you the truth. I couldn't bear to see you hurt. To witness to pain in your beautiful eyes. I know I'm being selfish but that’s me. I’m a selfish asshole.

I’m just going to spit it out; I wasn’t completely honest about the real me.  I’m not entirely sure whether you noticed the fact that I  kept myself closed off . Or the fact my attention was focused on helping you. Yet in the way you’re the only person who knows the true me. I am a gamer but it isn’t my true profession, it’s a ploy if you like, to keep me out of the limelight. I can see the questions swirling in your brain but let me finish okay.

My father is part of an MC actually I’ll rephrase that; my father is the president of Rebel Hunters MC. And I happen to be next in line to become president. The reason I didn’t tell you was because I didn’t want to taint you with the lifestyle but I couldn’t keep away. God, I tried but the temptation of you was an impossibility.

Please don’t think everything between us was a lie because that will be bullshit. It was true and real for me. I was happy with you Isabelle, I got to be true to myself. I have many responsibilities regarding the club. But being close to you allowed me to forget the stress and worries of becoming club president.

The only thing I ask from you is, don’t let my confession hinder our relationship.

Please forgive me, Isabelle.

Xavier

The End

Inferno by Kathryn Kelly

Georgie

It’s been written, that, for the life of the flesh is in the blood…
For it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.

The pain sliding across my belly represents the flesh, the blood, and the atonement. The weakness of my flesh,
his
flesh, the heat in my blood, has merged into the life I’m struggling to bear. I want this as an atonement. His, too, but I know it isn’t. Forgiveness for what I’ve done isn’t on the horizon.

If I could make it right, I would. Except making it right means I wouldn’t be laboring to bring his child into the world. Confused, I shudder and cry out at another sharp ache, wanting this over with. After writhing in labor for over twenty hours, I don’t know how much longer I can continue. I’m not dilated fully yet, but neither the baby nor I are in distress, so suffering through it is my only option.

How mistaken I was that I’d feel the agony only in my womb. It’s everywhere and it’s wearing me out. “I can’t do this anymore,” I complain, twisting at the cramping and the intense pressure spreading across my lower abdomen and back.

From where she’s seated in a comfortable rocking chair, Grandma’s unyielding eyes narrow. “You’re not fully dilated yet, dear.”

“Please,” I whisper. The wounded animal noises I’ve emitted for hours has hoarsened my voice. My pinned up hair is plastered to my head, long strands sticking to my face and cheeks. “Do something.”

She snorts. If not for my predicament, I’d mark this date on the calendar in my official remembrance of Helen Sanderson’s low-browed sound. According to
her,
ladies are prim, proper, and elegant.

“Grandma.”

The entreaty in my tone earns me a pinched glare.

“I’m not the one who did this to you. My assistance in this matter only gets you so far. I’ve done all that I can do.”

She nods to my delivery suite, the best money can buy, courtesy of her. Soft lighting, wood furnishing, a gorgeous view of downtown Houston. Music plays as a method of relaxation for me when, in reality, it tears me in two. I’m not sure why she requested to have
his
songs included in my playlist. Then, I remember.

She’s related to Mom. They’re both sadistic this way.

Sloane’s voice lulls me, soothes me, and breaks me. But it’s always been that way between us. From my first encounter with him when my brother’s best friend snuck me into a party I shouldn’t have attended. Fake IDs, a little makeup, and a
lot
of money works wonders.

“Court ordered DNA will prove he fathered your baby. Ruin him. Lock him away for years to come.”

When Grandma discovered my pregnancy, it sounded as if she’d made some type of agreement with Sloane. He’d thrown at me that she’d find a boy my age to claim paternity.

Double agony seizes me. Oddly, my emotional distress overshadows the physical torture. He lied to me. Again.

Tears rush to my eyes. Despite our history, I don’t want Sloane labeled in horrible ways because of his relationship with me. “Emancipate me,” I croak out, wishing the idea had come to me months ago when a haze of drugs claimed all my reasoning to remove my craving for love and search for someone to matter to. “Let me take control of my own life.”

“It doesn’t change your age, Georgiana,” Grandma scoffs.

“I’ll do anything except give up my baby for adoption.” For weeks, she’s attempted to secure my agreement for a closed adoption. “Whatever else you want.” My pulse thumps more frantically now than the hours I’ve suffered through labor. “Just help Sloane. Please,” I add.

Mouth pursed, she studies me. “You’ll never see him again?” she asks after a moment.

“As if he’d want to see me,” I mutter, unable to stop the words. The pain of how he feels about me makes me dizzy. “He hates me.”

“He never cared about you in the first place. He used you to make your mother jealous.”

A sob escapes me. “That isn’t true!”

“He had an affair with your mother,” she states coldly, a fact I already know. “He wanted more with her than she was willing to give, so he flaunted you in front of her. In the end, he rejected her and destroyed her.”

Mom and I might not have anything else in common but Sloane’s rebuff. Images run rampant in my head of the two of them together and Sloane doing the things to her that he did to me. Nauseated, I dry heave. I haven’t had solid food in over a day. By the time I went into labor, it had been five or six hours since I’d eaten.

“No more talk of emancipation,” Grandma says briskly. “You’ll be eighteen in a matter of months. It’ll take longer to finalize the legalities of freeing yourself from…” She waves a hand, her diamond tennis bracelet sparkling as much as the matching ring she’s wearing. Earrings, similar in style, are in her lobes. The straight strands of her silver hair are situated behind each ear. Money. Power. Ruthlessness. That’s Grandma. “You’ll do as I say to help your mother along.”

Bitterness assails me. No one
really
cares about my life. This is all to appease Mom and avenge her bruised heart and ego. My nostrils flare. After allowing another contraction to slide through me, I glare. “If helping her along means giving up my baby, then I’m not doing it. Disown me.”

Grandma clenches her jaw and huffs, tapping her fingers on the rocking chair’s wooden arm. Seeing I’m not backing down, she offers a terse nod and reiterates, “No more contact with Sloane.”

Weak and exhausted, I capitulate even as I wonder what makes her think Sloane would accept a call or visit from me. Humiliation aside, he supposedly used me to get back at Mom. Yes, he and Mom slept together, but I don’t believe he ever cared for her as much as he did me. However, with Grandma’s unyielding stipulations on me, I better understand Sloane’s ability to walk away from me when Grandma demanded it. That still doesn’t explain her renewed determination to make him suffer.

“Seeing you and Sloane together will only send Cassandra into another spiral.”

“Mom has Dad,” I point out. “It shouldn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“Grandma—“

“It’s your choice,” she interrupts. “His future, his
career
, is in your hands.”

Sloane’s music is his life. If there’s any chance for his band to be saved, I have to take it. “Whatever you want. Just help him.”

Satisfaction gleams in her eyes and I turn away, unable to bear it.

The baby kicks as my uterus squeezes and contracts and another groan falls from my lips at the hard wave of suffering. I second-guess my decision for a natural childbirth. Once I deliver, I’ll never think about having another baby again, or having sex again, or falling in love. Sloane’s it for me, no matter how easily I was replaced. I understand his actions. I do. My age, his secrets, and lifestyle doomed us from the beginning.

Another pain hits me and I groan, tears slipping down my cheeks. Throughout it all, I wait for my hospital door to open, but it never does.

I’m alone, except for Grandma to torture me, but without my baby’s father at my side. A small photo of him and me is tucked away in my wallet, a selfie I snapped when we were happy and free, secluded at his Denver mansion. It helps to forget his hatred of me. Not that I really blame him.

I single-handedly ruined the career of one of rock’s favorite sons and the baby inside of me is the proof.

Hey, everyone.

I’m C.L. Richards
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Thank you for reading my book. Through my love of reading and blogging, I thought I'd have my try at writing. That's how A Summer To Remember was born.

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