Darker Water

  Darker Water

  Once and Forever #1

  Lauren Stewart

  Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Stewart

  Off the Hook Publishing

  ISBN: 978-0-9903340-1-9

  All Rights Reserved

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover Design by www.PixelMischiefDesign.com

  Edited by Jen Blood www.AdianEditing.com

  Formatted by IRONHORSE Formatting

  Other Titles by Lauren Stewart

  Unseen, The Heights Vol. 1

  Hyde, an Urban Fantasy

  Jekyll, Hyde Book II

  Strange Case, Hyde Book III

  The Complete Hyde Series Box Set

  No Experience Required, a Summer Rains Novel

  Second Bite

  [email protected]

  www.ReadLaurenS.com

  Dedication

  For everyone who doesn’t yet know they’re strong enough to ask for help,

  and for those who want to help them

  there was a young woman who lived in a tall glass tower in the middle of a city. She wasn’t incredibly beautiful but she was attractive, probably somewhere around the eighty-fifth percentile. She was smart, kind, honest, and good with animals.

  But the most beautiful thing about her was her heart, for it was made of the purest of golds. Unfortunately, she wasn’t very good at taking care of it, and over the years, it lost its shine. Because every time she met a prince, she believed him to be perfect—strong but gentle, brave, and caring. So, she would show him her heart and give it to him to hold, thinking he would take care of it.

  What she hadn’t yet realized was that there was a curse put on her...at some time...by someone. And the curse was this: The moment the woman gave her heart away and kissed the prince—believing it to be true love—the prince would begin to change. Sometimes slowly, other times quickly. But he always turned into a frog. And although the frog would give her heart back to her, each time it was a little more worn, a little less brilliant.

  But the woman didn’t give up trying to find a prince who would remain a prince, knowing that somewhere out there was someone who could heal her heart and break the curse by remaining a prince after she kissed him.

  Then one day, she finally understood the curse’s power. No one could heal her, she would never find a prince, and the curse would never be broken.

  And so, clutching what was left of her heart, she gave up her search.

  Chapter 1 - Laney

  My laugh cut off as soon as I realized he might not be kidding. “Wait. What are you talking about?”

  “I’m getting married.” Yeah, he’d mentioned that. But that was impossible. “I’ve been seeing her for about a month.” Kevin sighed. “Sometimes you just know it’s right.”

  It was right. He knew it was ‘right.’ After a month. So all the excuses about why he couldn’t see me or why he was running late were lies. But why did he keep lying to me if he knew it was ‘right’ with another woman? How could he have slept with me less than twenty-four hours ago if he’d known it was ‘right’ with someone else?

  I set my coffee cup down but kept my hands wrapped around it. Just so they wouldn’t shake or reach out and prove how desperate I was.

  He ducked his head to meet my eyes. “Laney, did you hear me?”

  “Um...” I struggled to find a word. It didn’t have to be the right word, but I couldn’t find even one to use. Because I didn’t know how to feel. I hadn’t seen any of this coming—our relationship was the best one I’d ever had. At least, I’d thought it was.

  There had to have been signs, clues. How could I have missed them? Again.

  “I need to go,” Kevin said. “But if you want to talk more we can— Actually, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  I blinked and looked at him. “Where are you going?”

  “How far back did you tune out?”

  “I’m not sure.” The moment my world dropped out from under me. How long ago was that?

  “I’m meeting Brittany downtown. Since the hotel room was already booked, we’re going away for the weekend. But if I have a second, how about I call you and fill you in on the last ten minutes of our conversation?”

  If he had a break from fucking Brittney—the woman he’d proposed to after a month—in the hotel room he’d invited me—the woman he’d been cheating on—to go to a week ago, he’d give me a call to rub it in. Well, that was thoughtful of him.

  “No, don’t do that,” I whispered, lowering my eyes and picking apart the paper napkin, hiding behind my bangs. “I just don’t get what happened. I thought things were good.” Which was why I couldn’t stop wondering if this was some kind of truly torturous joke, or nightmare. But I knew it wasn’t. Kevin was leaving me because I’d screwed up somehow. Because I always seemed to screw up somehow.

  “What did I do wrong?”

  “It’s not about you, Laney. You need to understand that.”

  Then who the fuck was it about? No. This was Kevin, not some jerk. He was doing his residency so he could help people, for shit’s sake. He would never want to hurt me. So maybe he was the one who didn’t understand. Maybe he’d change his mind if he understood how I felt about him. If I told him.

  “Kevin, I—”

  A little voice in my head screamed, “Don’t say it. It’s too late!”

  It was right. Because even though Kevin and I had never said the actual words to each other, he’d used a lot of others: ‘falling in love,’ ‘care so much,’ and the ones that got me on my back the fastest: ‘for the rest of my life.’ Yeah, that was a good one. I’d used some of the same and some different, but he knew how I felt—that I was in love with him. And evidently, he didn’t care.

  If he cared he wouldn’t be saying what he was saying, and we wouldn’t be sitting here—him with his brow furrowed and his head tilted in pity and me with tears welling in my eyes, the feeling of something crushing my chest and the heat of humiliation spreading throughout my body. If he cared, none of that would be happening.

  “You what?” His tone was impatient but even with that, his voice was one of the sexiest parts about him. He was attractive, smart, made good money, and was ambitious enough to be sure that amount would quadruple when he opened his own practice in a few years. Years I had thought I’d be sharing with him.

  Oh my god, I’d told my roommate I would be moving out by the end of next month. I’d been so excited when Kevin asked me to move in with him that I was already packing up my stuff.

  Wait a minute. Back up a sec. When did he ask me? Right after getting out of this other woman’s bed?

  What a prick.

  “You what?” he repeated.

  I flipped my hair out of my face and glared at him. “I was just wondering how many times you slept with me after you realized it was ‘right’ with whatever her name is.” Every word was stronger than the last because I was sick of being quiet. “How many of those times were after you proposed to her?” Quiet got me nothing but footprints on my back. Man-sized footprints that felt like they were made with metal cleats.

  “Come on, Laney, it doesn’t have to end like this.”

  “Really?” My laugh was flat even to my own ears. “How does it have to end? You’re so smart, Kevin. Shit, you coasted through med school, right? Top of your class ever since kindergarten. So please, use all those years of fancy private school and tell me how it should end.” I paused, not expecting or wanting an answer. “Maybe it could end with a parade or a sky banner or, hey, here’s an idea—how ’bout it ends with you showing a little respect for both the women you’re fucking? Or honesty or integrity or honor. Would any of those be a good way to end this?”

  Shushing me, he glanced around the restaurant uncomforta
bly. Because he cared about twenty strangers more than he cared about me.

  “They aren’t asking you—I am. And after eight months of what evidently was total bullshit, I deserve a fucking answer.”

  He didn’t offer one. Maybe he was preparing another lie or a way to turn it around on me. Did it matter? No. It didn’t change anything—not the situation, not my feelings, not how successfully he’d lied, used, and hurt me.

  “Good luck with whatever her name is, Kevin. I hope you treat her better than you treated me.” Better than I treated myself, for that matter. I’d spent the last eight months desperately trying to do what it had only taken Brittany a month to pull off. Shit, I’d spent the last eight years trying.

  Different guys, same unhappy ending.

  I know exactly the moment it all began: fifteen-year-old me finding out that my first boyfriend cheated on me with a girl on the softball team. The softball team. I still don’t understand that. Flash forward eight years, and it’s some woman named Brittany. She probably knows how to play with soft balls, too.

  I couldn’t take a deep-enough breath until I was on the street and didn’t have to look at Kevin’s face anymore. The face of a guy who was everything I’d always wanted. Nope, that wasn’t true. If it was, I wouldn’t be crying on the sidewalk, looking for a cab to take me home so I could tell my roommate my plans had changed and I needed to keep living with her instead of moving in with Kevin.

  There were always cabs in this part of San Francisco. Always except for now. I stopped looking so I could concentrate on walking home without bumping into anyone. The bright side of living in a huge city was that no one would notice my tears or whimpering. Even if they did, they wouldn’t care.

  I watched the elevator numbers go up to nine before I realized I hadn’t pressed the button for my floor. So whoever had called this elevator, whoever was expecting it, would get what they wanted really soon. And I would have to wait. I punched the sixth floor button and leaned against the back wall so I could close my eyes and imagine I was somewhere else, someone else. Someone who wasn’t cursed.

  “Is this you?”

  “Huh?” I opened my eyes and saw a woman looking at me with impatience, gesturing to the open elevator door. I hadn’t even noticed when she got on.

  “Six?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  I was glad my roommate Hillary wasn’t home, because I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. I went into my room, curled up in bed, and closed my eyes so they would stop spraying idiot-tears all over me.

  When I woke up it was nineteen hours later. It had taken nineteen hours of unconsciousness to figure out the obvious.

  Nothing was worth this. Nothing was good enough to keep trying and failing as many times as I had. Eight years, five guys, and I was used up. I didn’t have any more to give and, if I did, I needed to hold onto it or I’d have nothing left for myself.

  All I’d wanted was for someone to love me, to be someone I could love. A friend and a lover who respected me and didn’t lie, manipulate, or use me. But evidently, that wasn’t something I could have. Evidently, my judgment was so off, the only men I wanted were the ones who would treat me like shit. So my only choice was to stop looking—for a man, for heartbreak, for someone to love.

  Lesson learned at the ripe old age of twenty-three. No matter how many times a man says he cares, he doesn’t. He only cares about the pieces he can use, picking the parts he wants and leaving the rest behind. A woman wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do that. A woman wouldn’t want to tear someone apart and throw away the leftovers.

  Because women were just stupid enough to believe we could have it all—the knight in shining armor and all that bullshit. I’d spent a lot of nights with knights, and when I finally woke up, when there was enough light to see who he truly was, he was already on his way out the door. Off to sweep the next idiot off her feet, to promise her everything and leave her with nothing.

  But ultimately it wasn’t the guys’ faults. It was mine, for trusting them, for believing in something that wasn’t true or possible. For handing them all the weapons necessary to beat me.

  I give up.

  ‘Don’t worry, sweetie,’ my parents would say every time I called them sobbing over a guy. ‘You’ll find someone. Someone who deserves you.’ I’d bought into that crap for my entire dating life. But who the fuck deserves a spineless idiot? Someone who doesn’t even remember what she wants or likes because she’s always been told what those things were by whoever she was dating at the time. Too afraid to actually have an opinion, let alone share it.

  I didn’t want to be like this anymore. I wasn’t always. I was a real person at one point. A strong one. That’s who I needed to be again, to turn back into.

  ‘You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.’ My mother’s favorite expression was completely fucking wrong. If you kiss a lot of frogs, all you end up with is sore lips and a bunch of frogs. And if you kiss a lot of princes, hoping at least one of them will stay that way, all you get is a horrific amount of disappointment and even more frogs.

  Thanks, but I was done lying to myself. Princes didn’t exist, happy endings never happened, love was all make-believe.

  I took a long, cleansing shower and got ready for the day. A new day, new start, new Laney. And all the frogs could go fuck themselves.

  Hillary was in the kitchen pouring cereal. “Have you been in your room this whole time?”

  I nodded, taking another bowl down. “Had to figure some stuff out. The deep emotional shit you don’t have to think about.” Because Hillary was happily deluded and had been for almost two years, minus about a week and a half six months ago. A moment of clarity that she called a mistake. But her boyfriend was nice and treated her well, so I hoped it lasted even while I knew it wouldn’t.

  “Did you figure it out?”

  “Think so.”

  “And the verdict?”

  “I’m done.”

  “With your business or the art?”

  “Neither. I’m done with men. Relationships. Love. It’s not real. Except for you and Eric,” I added because it wasn’t my place to ruin Hillary’s fantasy. “I think most”—all—“people only pretend they’re in love. Or are deluded.” It couldn’t just be me—I’d have to be a lot more narcissistic to think that the whole world was against me and only me. There had to be others who’d figured it out. I hadn’t met any of them, though. We realists needed to set up a support group. No frogs or fairy tales allowed.

  “Well, I think you’re wrong.” Of course she did. Because Hillary hadn’t met as many frogs as I had.

  Chapter 2 - Laney

  Five months later…

  Even though it was Saturday and I’d taken most of the day off—a big perk of working for myself—I couldn’t go home yet. I’d heard Hillary and Eric yelling at each other from out in the hallway and did an about-face to avoid getting involved. I’m sure the fight was truly important, like why he never took her out anymore or something equally vital to the well-being of the planet.

  By my estimation, twenty minutes later, they were either still fighting or they were already making up. Either way, there’d be screaming I didn’t want to hear. So, I decided to stay at my favorite coffee shop for at least another half hour.

  I took one of the comfy chairs in the corner, put my coffee and my feet up on the large ottoman in front of me, and opened the Angry Birds app on my phone. About fifteen minutes later, I saw jean-clad legs in my peripheral vision. His shoes were pointed towards me, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Listen, I’m sure you’re a wonderful person, but I need to focus.” I pointed to my phone without raising my head. “Or I’m going to break my winning streak.”

  “I’m not sure if you know this”—the legs moved a step closer—“but when you win, you don’t actually get any candy. Yeah,” he grumbled. “The day I found that out was one of the worst days of my life.”

  I wiped my mouth to cover my smile—he�
��d probably take it as a sign I wanted to keep talking to him. “As much as I appreciate the tip, I’m not interested.”

  “Me neither. Wait, what aren’t we interested in again? Oh, did you mean you and me…being interesting together? Then yeah, actually, I am interested in that.”

  I looked up at him briefly. Well, no one could ever mistake him for average looking, that was for sure. Full lips that looked very comfortable wearing a smirk. The tattoos covering most of both forearms would’ve made my mom shake her head and say something witty like, ‘Maybe his parents didn’t give him enough coloring books when he was little.’ Light-brown hair tossed in a hot, I-have-more-important-things-to-take-care-of-than-my-hair way. One of those more important things might be his body. If I wasn’t completely cured of men, I’d thank him for making it a priority. Not that I didn’t find men attractive anymore—I couldn’t control that. And sure, I’d love to take a few more looks at the guy. But that wouldn’t bring me anything but frustration. And frustration didn’t bring me anything but the need for more batteries.

  Three months ago, I would’ve been blushing, stuttering, making a fool of myself, and planning our wedding. Now I had more important things to take care of, like my sanity. And some very unhappy birds.

  So I slumped into the chair and went back to my game. “Trust me, you don’t want me to get to know you, not if you like who you are right now. I’m cursed. I could turn you into a frog with barely any effort at all. Go find someone else to pretend to be in love with. I wish you luck.”

  He picked up my coffee from the ottoman and sat down. “Congratulations. You’ve just made yourself twice as intriguing. You have to know that all men enjoy a good chase every once in a while.”

  “I’m not running—I’m telling you to run. Go hunt down someone else.”