All of Me (All Series Book 2)
Read All of Me (All Series Book 2) Online
Authors: Natalie Ann
Text Copyright 2015 Natalie Ann
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without a written consent.
Dedication: To my editor, Alicia. I would have never made it this far without your help along the way!
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Website
http://www.natalieannbooks.com
The Road Series
Lucas and Brooke’s Story-
Road to Recovery
Jack and Cori’s Story –
Road to Redemption
Mac and Beth’s Story-
Road to Reality
Ryan and Kaitlin’s Story-
Road to Reason
The All Series
Ben and Presley’s Story –
All or Nothing
Phil and Sophia’s Story –
All of Me
Alec and Brynn’s Story – All the Way (coming December 2015)
Sean and Carly’s Story — All I Want (coming winter of 2016)
Sophia Mansfield rushed down the hall—the walk of shame the last thing on her mind. She needed to get away fast, get to her own room, shut herself in and lock the memory of the night behind her. Only she knew that would never happen. This memory would be forever embedded in her brain.
With an unsteady hand, she swiped the key card, watched the light turn green, pushed the handle, shoved the door open and scampered inside. Not even caring she looked ragged and disheveled in her bridesmaid gown.
How could she have been so stupid? She had hidden her attraction to Phil Harper from everyone for years. Even from Phil’s sister, her best friend Kaitlin. Except, she realized a long time ago, she hadn’t hidden that attraction so well from Phil.
Lowering her shaky legs on the bed and placing her head in her hands, she fought back the tears.
The first time she saw him, over five years ago, she’d felt her heart knock once and drop to the floor. Cool, capable, strong, independent Sophia. Sophia—who never let a man get the best of her, who always controlled her relationships and never lost her heart—was lost in that moment.
She wasn’t stupid. She’d read his reaction to her in that moment, too.
He had been coming out of Kaitlin’s apartment alone one morning when she was leaving her own apartment. They had come face-to-face, frozen, a look of surprise on both of their faces. Mutual attraction, she saw.
Seconds later, Kaitlin pulled the door open, laughed and said, “Oh, you haven’t left yet, Phil. Don’t forget to get Alec donuts. He just shouted from the bathroom he wanted them.” Kaitlin turned to Sophia and introduced her brother to her. Then Sophia watched Phil dash away down the hall, a cute blush spreading across his handsome face.
Later that night, Kaitlin had informed her that Phil had a girlfriend. He had been dating someone named Linda for a few months and they seemed to be getting along well.
For the last several years, Sophia had to endure all of the stories of Phil and Linda. What they had been up to, how they spent the holidays together and so on. All the while keeping her attraction a secret. Fighting it. Only the harder she fought it, the worse it became.
Over the years Phil would visit Kaitlin, or Sophia would go back to Kaitlin’s childhood home on Saratoga Lake and visit there.
Those visits were the worst. Seeing Linda in person, feeling her animosity and jealousy, while Linda placed a stamp of ownership on Phil for all to see.
Only Phil seemed to have a harder time hiding his attraction than she did. Which was why she slipped as often as she had with him along the way. Letting her guard down more than ever before.
They had never done anything inappropriate. But plenty of flirting, bantering and innocent touches had her heart well and truly gone.
The only saving grace was that Phil didn’t seem to want to be owned by Linda. They never moved in together, never got engaged, and in the last year things seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. And now Phil was single. But no one knew what really happened between him and Linda, and no one dared to ask.
Not that it mattered, because here she was, the morning after Kaitlin’s wedding, wishing she could crawl in a hole.
Too many glasses of champagne on both her and Phil’s part had broken the barrier between them, letting loose what they had hidden from everyone.
Stumbling into his room last night, grasping and tearing at each other’s clothing and falling onto the bed, would indeed give her plenty of fantastic memories. But reality came crashing down this morning with the dread of what had happened.
If she were going back to Manhattan she would have been able to deal with this better. But she wasn’t. At least not permanently. In two months she would be living in Saratoga. The long-awaited promotion to partner at the CPA firm she worked for had finally come through. Only to accept it, she had to relocate.
At first she almost didn’t accept it, knowing how hard it would be, living so close to Phil and not being able to have him. That he belonged to someone else. It was hard enough to see him throughout the years and know she couldn’t have him. Not living close to him somehow made it easier.
But she’d finally decided to accept it and move on with her life, figuring she was strong enough to handle it. So she was completely stunned when she found he’d ended things with Linda.
That meant she needed a plan. She was always prepared. She knew what she was looking for out of a relationship and what she wanted.
Before last night, she’d
had
a plan. Her plan was to slowly ease into things with him. Flirt a little, turn on the charm…make sure she wasn’t his rebound girl. Because she knew from experience that never worked, and the rebound person
never
lasted. She wanted forever. She wanted something she knew very few people had. Something she never even knew existed until she met Kaitlin’s parents.
But what did she do? She became the rebound girl last night—and pretty much blew all her chances to hell.
“Let me help you with that,” Kaitlin said, rushing over to help Sophia maneuver a big packing box full of clothes.
“No. No lifting for you,” Sophia said sternly. Just last week Kaitlin had announced she was pregnant with twins. Sophia wished she could have been there for the announcement. Well, she
could
have been there, but chose not to be, making up an excuse that she had to finish packing.
It really wasn’t a lie. She did have more packing to do. In the last month she had been slowly moving her things to Kaitlin’s old townhouse while it was up for sale. The house she was going to be renting in Saratoga wouldn’t be ready until the first of April. So in the meantime, she’d been staying at Kaitlin’s and commuting back and forth from Albany to Saratoga.
“I’m not hurt,” Kaitlin said, a small pout forming on her lovely face. “I’m only pregnant. Geez, you would think I was disabled or something with the way everyone is treating me. I’m only fifteen weeks at this point. I’m liable to strangle someone if this goes on for the next twenty-five.”
“It will all be worth it in the end and you know it. Enjoy the pampering.” Sophia tugged the box away from Kaitlin and brought it closer to the front door where everything was gathering. The place was a mess and she hated clutter. Material and emotional clutter. But in one week the movers would arrive and transport everything. For now, she was meticulously packing and labeling each box. She had a system at this point in her life.
“I know. I can’t wait. I still have to pinch myself,” Kaitlin said, a soft glow covering her face while she reached for a pair of pants and neatly folded them to place in the box labeled “black pants.”
“It’s hard to believe almost one year ago you were calling me and telling me you had found the solution to your problem with Ryan.”
“And you tried to talk me out of it,” Kaitlin reminded Sophia.
She had. Kaitlin had hated being a virgin at twenty-eight years old and wanted to fix what she considered her pesky little problem. She thought Ryan Mathews, an old friend of her brothers’ and a known playboy in the area, was the solution.
She was right—he was. But little did Kaitlin know at that time, Ryan had no intention of fixing her problem and letting her go. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t listen to me?” Sophia had wanted Kaitlin to get more out of a relationship. To have the real deal. Long term. Forever. Happy ever after. What Sophia was looking for. Not some one-night stand.
“For once, yes, I am,” Kaitlin said warmly.
Kaitlin had always looked up to Sophia, she knew. Sophia seemed to have a touch when it came to transforming people. And Kaitlin had needed a lot of work when they first met. In the end it all worked out, for both of them.
If Sophia had never taken Kaitlin under her wing, she would have never met and half fallen in love with Phil Harper, Kaitlin’s brother.
Thoughts of Phil had her pulling the tape harder across the box and ripping it off with a snap of her wrist, then dropping the box on the floor carelessly. She still couldn’t get over what had happened over two months ago. She was never going to live it down. How could she, when it ruined all her plans for a chance with Phil?
There was no way to avoid Phil now. Not with them living in the same city. She knew they would cross paths. Especially with how close Sophia was with Kaitlin’s family. Under no circumstances was Sophia giving up that closeness with Kaitlin or Kaitlin’s parents.
Sophia’s own parents both lived out of town. She couldn’t even remember what cities at this point, not without looking it up. She’d lost track easily enough. The same way she lost track of how many relationships they’d been in, or how many step and half-siblings she’d had along the way.
After moving around as much as she did as a child, from one parent’s house to the other’s, both fighting over custody, then pushing her away—whatever was convenient for the significant other they were with at that time—Sophia had been thrilled to go away to college. During breaks she either stayed on campus or traveled with one of her parents, never really going home to stay for more than a week if she could avoid it.
She was tired of the games, the tug of war, the lies and the manipulation. Once she graduated from college she moved to Manhattan and never looked back.
Meeting Kaitlin and her parents had been like a breath of fresh air. She’d never known anyone who’d been married as long as William and Isabel Harper. Didn’t actually think it was possible. But she was wrong, and she grew close to Kaitlin’s family. They took her into their fold and made her feel like one of their own.
Then she realized she wanted that life for herself. She wanted that long, loving relationship Kaitlin’s parents had. The strong bond between two people that lasted through it all. Never wavering and never lessening.
It became her mission to find it. And the only person that ever pulled her enough to make her believe she could have it was Phil.
So, no matter what happened with her and Phil, she wasn’t going to let it ruin what she had with the Harpers.
It was bad enough she’d wanted to run with her tail between her legs the morning after Kaitlin’s wedding. But she couldn’t. She had been the Maid of Honor and it was expected that she would be at breakfast the following morning.
Thankfully there were quite a few people from the wedding still there, so she was able to distance herself from Phil.
It took some effort, but she managed to not make eye contact with him once, regardless of his stare she felt on her the entire time. Due to an upcoming storm, she made her excuses the minute her plate was cleared and hightailed it out of there. She drove home fighting back tears the entire ride, and not succeeding very well.
Never let them see you sweat, and never let them see you cry. But she was alone, so she’d cried buckets.
A few weeks had gone by, with her ignoring Phil’s messages. She wasn’t ready to talk to him and didn’t want to deal with it at that moment. Besides, she was starting a new job and needed to prepare.
Being a partner was her dream, although a part of her wished at this point she had bypassed the promotion since it now brought her closer to him.
Sophia had done a good job avoiding Phil, too. Only, three weeks after the wedding, Kaitlin had begged her to come to town for a get-together with family and friends. Since Sophia was already there on business, there was no reason for her not to attend. She couldn’t very well tell Kaitlin she’d slept with her brother and was now avoiding him at all costs. That wouldn’t have gone over real well.
It was torture. Pure and simple torture, being at Ryan and Kaitlin’s house on the lake that day.
She’d arrived late, knowing that Kaitlin would be hurt over that. She’d felt bad, but it was the best she could do. She didn’t want to risk being alone with Phil for any longer than necessary. She knew she needed to talk to him, but she was limiting her time.
Except that didn’t seem to matter. The minute she walked in the door, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to the finished guest suite and shut, then locked, the door. “Why aren’t you returning my calls?” he asked immediately.
“There wasn’t anything to say,” she replied, looking anywhere but his face.
“Nothing to say,” he said incredulously. “How about letting me know if you’re pregnant or not?”
She swallowed, regained her composure and said, “No. I told you not to worry about it.” She didn’t need to tell him she had been sweating it for the two weeks leading up to when her period was due. Then for the last several days while she had been late. Finally, she got it yesterday.
Her plan had been to tell him tonight, in person rather than via text. She felt she owed him at least that much. But she needed to work herself up to it. That meant not telling him the minute she walked in the door.
They had used protection, of course they did. She
always
used protection. Even carried it in her purse, never wanting to risk someone saying they didn’t have it.
That first time they came together, ripping, groping and pulling each other’s clothes off. Phil barely managed to reach for a condom on the table and put it on before they were on the bed frantically bringing each other to a point of ecstasy, completely blowing her mind.
Only the next time, that morning when she was getting up to leave, he pulled her back to bed and started to nuzzle her neck with his mouth. He had the most wonderful mouth. She remembered it vividly, how could she not? “You are so beautiful,” he had whispered against her neck, lifting her blonde hair away and running his hand over her shoulder. “Don’t leave yet, it’s early.”
So she stayed, and made use of that time. But when they were done, he realized that the condom had leaked. Stricken, she grabbed her clothes and got up fast to leave. He followed her to the door, half dressed, and told her to relax, that it would be fine—even though she saw he was just as upset as she was.
She took a deep breath, told him that she was sure it was fine too, then walked out the door.
She really hadn’t had an answer for him until yesterday. Telling him no, she hadn’t gotten her period yet, wouldn’t have helped. She wasn’t even due for it yet when he started leaving her messages, asking.
Being a few days late had caused her to panic, no doubt about it. But in the end she realized the stress, added with all the changes going on in her professional life—not to mention knowing how close she was going to be to Phil—was most likely causing her body to be inconsistent.
“Would it have been so hard to tell me that?” he asked her that day, at Kaitlin’s house.
“I’ve been busy. I told you not to worry. I would have told you if I was pregnant.”
“Would you?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course I would. Do you think I could hide something like that?”
“No. Sorry,” he had apologized, shamefaced, most likely as a result of the crestfallen face she had when he accused her of possibly hiding something like that.
She had never given him any reason to not believe her. She had never lied to him or anyone in his family, ever. And it hurt more than she cared to admit that he thought so little of her, that he thought she would hide that.
The rest of that night had been almost unbearable. She refused to be left alone, sticking next to Kaitlin or Kaitlin’s future sister-in-law, Presley, the entire night, then made her excuses and left.
A month later when Kaitlin invited everyone together again, this time to announce she was having twins, Sophia was thankful that she really did have plans and couldn’t make it.
“Hey, where are you off to?” Kaitlin asked, drawing her out of her thoughts.
Shaking her head and forcing a smile, she said, “Sorry, just organizing my week in my mind.”
Kaitlin placed the last pair of Sophia’s shoes in a box, then walked over and gave her a big hug. “I’m so happy you’re moving close. It’s going to be like old times again.”
Sophia returned the hug. “Yeah, old times.” Too bad she couldn’t go back in time and change the events of the last few months. She’d handled everything poorly.