The Confession (The Promise Series Book 7)

by Kate Benson

  She stares back at me, her eyes beginning to tear up as she gently nods her agreement. I take her hand in mine, the faint tan-line on her ring finger reminding me of the wedding band she’d left behind stabbing at me deep as I glance back up and take her gaze once more.

  “I thought space and leniency were what you needed, Analise, but it’s where I failed you. I tried my best to give that to you in all the ways I could and look where it got us,” I counter. Her eyes leave mine for a moment and she glances down at the fallen leaves swirling at our feet. The loss of her gaze hits me hard, immediately. I reach for her chin, gently moving her eyes back to mine. “I’ll use every breath that remains of this life trying to repair what I’ve broken, but the second we began to relinquish who we were, it nearly cost me you. That’s not something I can live with. If this means something to you, if you trust me, desire me, wish to have me back in all the ways you say you do, you don’t need control, darling. We both need to stop fighting who we are, who we have always been.”

  Her eyes shift away from mine, her fingertips trembling against my skin as she gazes out at the turbines in the distance. For a moment, her memories take her away from me, from this place. When she turns back to face me, the emotion resting in her eyes is almost more than I can bear.

  “Our life has been a nightmare for months,” she starts. “I thought it couldn’t get any harder until…” she trails off, the emotion in her chest taking hold for a moment before she shakes it away. “Even in the pits of that despair, the darkest days I’ve ever endured, I realized it took losing everything to find myself,” she admits, as she reclaims my gaze. “To find my way back to you.”

  “Sometimes you have to lose yourself to find your way back home,” I whisper, brushing her cheek, my palm falling gently on her neck, the gentle rhythm of her pulse on my skin calming me. “I know I can’t do this without you,” I admit. “But if you’re here, my sweet Analise, I’ll be here, too.”

  The promise pulls an almost silent sob from her full lips.

  In this moment, in this still moment in the dark, for the first time in weeks, I see her. I see the same beautiful, sweet girl I fell in love with and I know there’s nothing I won’t do to keep her.

  “I’m here, Drake,” she whispers, leaning into my palm and breathing fresh life into us both. “Tell me what to do. Show me where we go from here.”

  “I want the only thing I’ve ever asked of you, the only place we’ve ever made sense,” I confess. “If we’re going to fix this, I need you to give me your submission.”

  Drake and Ana’s story

  will continue

  in

  The Submission

  For more on Adam and Isabella,

  check out The Redemption Series, a spin-off of The Promise Series, available now on Amazon.

  Acknowledgments

  When my husband and I were working on the cover for this book, I’d just sent it out to my beta readers, and it was too soon to have heard anything back yet.

  Aside from The Promise, I’ve never been so nervous about releasing a book.

  The anxiety was coursing through me full-force, the culmination of more than a few tears and two long years of creatively fighting for this story humming in my veins. I was trying desperately to focus on anything but the butterflies in my stomach and failing miserably.

  Yet, as I watched the cover image coming to life before my eyes, something deep inside me shifted. I couldn’t help but reflect on where these characters have taken me, how they’ve literally blossomed at my fingertips, sparking life into me along the way, too.

  This is my twenty-fifth novel and the seventh book in the series that started it all; the same series I was certain at its beginning would be a standalone. As the gravity of that hit me, I recalled my memories of the girl who first sat down at the keys, hands shaking, to type out the first line of The Promise. She’s the same girl who sprawled out on her eight-year-old stomach and became an innocent but oh-so-willing victim to the first literary heartbreak that spawned her dream of growing up to be a writer.

  The cover of this book, the words I’d just sent out into the abyss and those memories all crashed together at once and I just sat on the couch and sobbed.

  I have no idea what I did in a past life to get here.

  Twenty-five books.

  Twenty-five adventures.

  Twenty-five times I’ve fallen in love with them all over again.

  “My God…” Sophie whispered. “I’m just the luckiest girl in the world.”

  Me, too, baby.

  Me, too.

  I couldn’t have gotten here without that dream and these characters, but I also couldn’t have done it without every single one of you.

  Thanks for coming with me.

  I love you.

  XO Kate

  About the Author

  Kate Benson was raised in Texas and currently resides in central Florida with her husband and their fur-boy, Boomer. She learned to read at the age of four and has been hooked ever since.

  She credits her passion for literature to her mother, her love of story-telling to her father and her unwavering faith in happily-ever-after’s to her husband, Sean.

  Some of her favorite things include rainy days, loud music, superhero movies, sweet tea and of course, lazy afternoons with a great book.

  To find out more about Kate, her work or to just say hello, she loves hearing from her readers and can be found on social media.

  To be sure you never miss a release or announcement, join her readers group on Facebook, Benson’s Book Babes and sign up for her newsletter!