The Promise
River Laurent
Contents
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
1. Cole
2. Taylor
3. Taylor
4. Taylor
5. Cole
6. Cole
7. Cole
8. Taylor
9. Taylor
10. Taylor
11. Taylor
12. Taylor
13. Taylor
14. Cole
15. Cole
16. Taylor
17. Taylor
18. Cole
19. Taylor
20. Cole
21. Cole
22. Cole
23. Cole
24. Taylor
25. Taylor
26. Taylor
27. Taylor
28. Taylor
29. Taylor
30. Cole
31. Cole
32. Taylor
33. Taylor
34. Cole
35. Cole
36. Taylor
37. Taylor
38. Taylor
39. Taylor
40. Cole
41. Cole
Epilogue
Kissing Booth
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue (1)
Epilogue (2)
Daddy’s Girl
Appreciations
1. Quinn
2. Quinn
3. Madison
4. Quinn
5. Quinn
6. Quinn
7. Quinn
8. Quinn
9. Quinn
10. Madison
11. Quinn
12. Quinn
13. Quinn
14. Madison
15. Quinn
16. Quinn
17. Madison
18. Madison
Epilogue
Cinderella.com
Cinderella.com
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Epilogue
Deleted Scene
Too Hot To Handle
Untitled
Acknowledgments
1. Madison
2. Madison
3. Madison
4. Madison
5. Madison
6. Madison
7. Madison
8. Madison
9. Madison
10. Madison
11. Chad
12. Chad
13. Chad
14. Chad
15. Madison
About the Author
Author’s Note
Hiya!
The Promise is a full-length standalone novel. It ends before 100% on your kindle file because of awesome extra content, which includes the never before published exclusive, Too Hot To Handle. He is one hot Alpha and you don’t want to miss him!
Happy reading.
xoxo
Acknowledgments
Contributors:
Brittany Urbaniak
Caryl Milton
Elizabeth Burns
Nicola Rhead
The Promise
Copyright © 2018 by River Laurent
The right of River Laurent to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patent act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-911608-16-5
Created with Vellum
This book is dedicated to:
Georgia Le Carre
Thank you for being so amazingly generous and kind always!
Cole
She fuckin’ hates you, Cole Finley. Let it alone. You’ve survived all these years. Just damn well leave it alone.
But I can’t.
Her smell is in my nostrils, which is plum stupid because while it’s true she is back in town, she’s miles away. Letty, who runs the Lake hotel, called to tell me that she arrived last night. From that moment on, I stopped being able to function.
Damnit to hell, but all I want to do is hold her warm curves again, feel her heart beating, fill my lungs with her breath.
My body feels as if it is an iron filing and a giant magnet is pulling at it. The draw is so strong I have to clench my hands into fists to stop from grabbing my car keys and going to her.
I glance at my watch for the hundredth time and pace the floor of my library restlessly. The funeral must surely be over by now.
A car comes up the driveway, and I stride over to the window. It’s my mother. Impatiently, I watch her take her time getting out of her car and walk up to the door. She is still dressed in the black outfit she wore to the funeral. I turn away from the window, relax my hands, and wait while she travels through my house. I turn around and she is standing at the doorway.
“What does she look like?” I’d tried to keep my voice neutral, but it comes out hoarse and throbbing with need.
Her eyes widen with surprise.
I clench my jaw and stare at her. She better not even try to say anything.
She doesn’t. With a defeated sigh, she heads to the drinks cabinet.
Barely able to control myself, I wait while she pours out a large measure of vodka. No chaser. She drinks it down as if she needs it more than I do, and slams the glass down on the counter.
She turns towards me. “She looks like a star,” she says flatly.
I run my hands through my hair. “But does she look happy?”
She raises her eyebrows. “She was attending her stepmother’s funeral, so one shouldn’t really expect cartwheels.”
I glare at her with frustration, my shoulders tense. “You know what I mean. Does she look like she is happy with her life? Like she made the right decision to leave here?”
My mother shrugs delicately and walks over to a sofa. She settles herself and leans against the leather. “It’s hard to say, but she looks like someone who no longer belongs in Black Rock.”
My chest tightens with pain. Even breathing hurts. “Was she there … alone?”
Her eyes fill with pity. “Yes.”
That one word feels like fireworks exploding inside my body. “Ma.”
“Yes?”
“I need to see her again.” My voice is clipped and hard.
My mother’s face tightens. “Don’t do that, Cole. She’ll be gone by tomorrow and your life will go back to what it was. Don’t spoil it. Don’t make it harder for yourself ... and her.”
“I just want to see her for a moment.”
She leans forward. Dr. Westwood’s injections have made it impossible for her to frown, but I know that expression, she is trying to. “It’s a terrible idea, Cole.”
“I don’t fucking care.”
“Oh, darling. She’ll destroy you.”
I start backing away from her. “Then let her.”
She gasps with horror.
“I just want to see how she is. After all this time, no one can begrudge me that one thing. If she’s truly happy, I’ll walk away. I swear it.”
“Cole,” my mother calls, but I am already at the front door.
I get into my car and hit the accelerator hard. The wheels spin on the asphalt. All those years ago she broke me, and maybe she will again, but I don’t care. I have to see her one more time. There’s been no one since she left. Every woman leaves me cold. No matter what they do or say, I feel nothing. My cock is numb.
It is waiting for her.
Taylor
A light spring breeze lifts the side-swept bangs off my forehead. The air smells clean with a hint of freshly dug earth. It makes a heavenly change from the smog of LA. I breathe it deeply into my lungs. Through the lenses of my dark glasses, I watch the priest say the last rites. His voice is gravelly and solemn, but I hardly hear the words.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
There should be sadness in my heart, instead there is nothing. I think of her as she was: beautiful and cold. No, cold is the wrong word. I guess she was bitter. She always viewed me as the competition, but when Dad died and left the house to me with the provision that she could live her life out in it, I became the enemy. How she hated me, silently, coldly, viciously.
While I lived with her I hated her back with an equal intensity, but after I left with a broken heart, I understood her bitterness. My father shouldn’t have left the house to me. It was a betrayal. He should have left it to her. She was his wife. I sent her money every month, which she neither acknowledged, or thanked me for.
I look down at my black Louboutins. I should have known better than to wear them. The heels are too high, and if I don’t hold them with the spikes hovering slightly above the ground, they sink into the soft earth.
The priest stops speaking and turns his head to look at me, a questioning look in his eyes.
I drop the red rose in my hand on the glossy white casket and turn around to leave. People I have not seen or heard of/from for ten years mill around me. Their well-meaning faces filled with genuine kindness and regret. They are good people. I grew up with them. Almost family. I can’t let them unravel me.
Smiling vaguely at no one in particular, I quickly start walking towards my car. Marco, my driver, rushes to open the door of the hired car. I slip in smoothly, and he closes the door with a click. I exhale. Relief floods my body. I’ve done my duty. I’ve given her a good burial.
Marco gets in and winds the partition down. “Hotel?”
“Yes,” I confirm quietly.
“Right.” He nods and activates the remote partition upwards.
“Wait,” I blurt out.
The partition stops its upward journey.
“No. Not the hotel. Take me to my mother’s house first.”
“Got it,” he says smartly.
The car travels through the main street of Black Rock, and it is like being in a time warp. Nothing has changed, Dairy Queen, Tucker’s Diner, the plastic dog outside the hardware shop. The green and white ‘open’ sign is still on the door of Chilli and Goose. Memories of my high school friends and I trying to buy beer crowd into my head.
There’s old Jenkins, a beer can in his hand, sitting outside his tattoo shop sunning himself in the weak sunlight. His face is pure leather from the years he’s spent in the sun, but he is still alive and well. We used to pop firecrackers into his mailbox and he would run out of his house, his face purple with rage, and screaming blue murder.
Marco drives up to the house.
The shutters are drawn. There is a sad air of stillness and neglect around it.
“You can go back to the hotel, Marco. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“You’re sure?”
I nod and get out of the car. It is strange not to be mobbed by paparazzi and fans. Actually, it’s rather wonderful not to have to run like a criminal from the car to the door all the time. For years, I believed I wanted fame. I wanted to be recognized everywhere I went. I wanted to be a big star, but now I know I don’t.
Marco drives away and I go up the wooden steps to the wide porch. I glance at the rocking chair at one corner and feel an odd twinge. A feeling. How strange. I haven’t felt anything for years. My cell rings, the sound muted, but oddly jarring. As if my other busy life has already come to intrude. I take it out of my purse and look at the screen. It’s Nick, my manager. I walk to the rocking chair. Sitting in it I click accept.
“Where are you now?” he asks.
“At the house.”
“You mean the funeral is already over?”
“Yeah,” I reply distantly. I don’t want to talk to him. The sound of the chair creaking against the wood is soothing. My mother used to sit here a lot with me in her lap after she fell ill. I close my eyes. Memories swarm back. Memories of Mom, memories of Dad, memories of Cole. My stomach clenches into a painful knot. I push the images away and open my eyes.
“Are you all right?” Nick sounds anxious, whether for me or my career is hard to tell, but he is definitely concerned. Probably for my career, I decide.
“Yes.”
“You sure you don’t want me to come?”
“Absolutely. I’m not hanging around long, anyway. I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon.”
“That’s good. There’s nothing left for you in that godforsaken town.”
“No,” I agree, but an ache deep inside me starts to throb. I left something here, Nick. I left my heart.
“All right, then. Call me if you need anything, or if you just want to talk, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Love you,” he says.
“Call you later.”
I end the call, and try to think of Nick’s warm brown eyes. He cares about me. He’s a nice guy. We work well together. I have a good life in LA. I have a better than good life in LA. The past is just a mirage. There is nothing left here for me, but my eyes are drawn to the wise old, spreading magnolia tree.