BOUND: Together

by Cynthia Dane

  I was already two steps ahead of her, pulling Natalie into my arms and kissing her happy mouth like there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. A part of me can’t believe she agreed to marry me. Although I knew she would, perhaps with some classically-Natalie stipulations, it’s still a relief upon my heart and a punch to the gut that it’s actually happening. We may not be able to get married until later next year or beyond, but this is done. The hard part – the wondering, the discomfort, all of that – is behind me now. I no longer have to plan the perfect moment to propose marriage. It’s already happening.

  “Oh!” A gasp rips through my fiancée as she steps back, shock plastered upon her face. Oh, did it finally hit her that this is happening? She can be slow to realize the gravity of situations. Granted, that’s something I love about my Natalie. She dives in headfirst and asks the important questions later – when it comes to our relationship, anyway.

  Slowly, I realize that she might be thinking about something else.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  Natalie turns toward the closed door. “The others are going to realize it,” she whispers in my direction. “As soon as we go downstairs for dinner, they’re going to see the ring and make a big fucking deal about it. You know how they are! Anything to gossip about is great for them!”

  I sigh. “Especially if it’s about me.” Don’t get me wrong. I like my friends, otherwise they wouldn’t be my friends. But some of them are bigger handfuls than others. Maxine is divorced and has been with her most recent long-term girlfriend longer than I’ve known her, but she doesn’t hesitate to say how much she hates marriage when we’re drinking late at night. Come to think of it, Sloan is recently divorced as well, albeit to a man. Between them, though, I’m pretty sure Sloan will have the choice comment to bring down our merriment tonight. This is, of course, assuming they say anything at all.

  Then again, Natalie’s engagement ring isn’t exactly innocuous. Easy enough to ignore once you know it’s there, but those harpies – whom I love very much and am very grateful to have with us right now – will descend upon us as soon as we sit down for rosemary chicken and mashed potatoes.

  Honestly, the only friend who knows I was thinking about asking is Vanessa, but I’ve known her longer than I have most anyone else outside of my circle. She and I have a lot of frank conversations about love, marriage, and what us joining the world as who we are means for us. Granted, she and her girlfriend Mitch have a much different approach to trauma and all that than I do, but she’s the one I go to when I need a true outsider’s opinion on marrying Natalie. The fact she asked me why I had waited so long to ask was what got my ass in gear.

  “Leave the ring here for now,” I suggest.

  “No. That won’t be enough.” Natalie bites her nail, a sure sign that she’s already calculating the best course of action. Only instead of an unruly business prospect sitting in my office, it’s my own damn friends. “They’ll sense it. They can smell weakness, and at least one of them will take my happiness and automatic wedding-planning as a weakness.”

  Does she mean Maxine? She could also mean Sloan.

  Natalie stands up straight. “We will announce it before we sit down to eat. Take questions, answer them right there… then move on to the main course before someone has the chance to say something truly stupid.”

  “Natalie.” I place my hands on her shoulders, enticing her to look up at me. “They’re our friends and guests, not the press.”

  “The press!” she squeaks. “We’ll have to release a statement.”

  “Natalie.” She’s soon back in my embrace, but instead of hugging, I lead her over to the windows overlooking the gray sky and smoky wilderness. With a sigh, I continue, “Can we take the next few minutes to simply celebrate the fact we’re now engaged?”

  It takes her a moment, but Natalie finally relaxes against me, hand pressing upon my chest. If I turn my head just right, I can see her engagement ring glistening on her hand. I did that, I think to myself. I got me the greatest gal I’ve ever met. And I’ve met some pretty great ones. Even been engaged to some others before.

  This time, though, I’m marrying her.

  “You know what I can’t help but think sometimes?” Natalie asks, interrupting our sweet silence.

  “Hm?”

  She lifts her head from my shoulder and steps before me, arms sliding around my waist. “I can’t believe you chose me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Natalie’s girlish giggle is something to behold. She rarely giggles like this, so excuse me if I am too much in awe to hear what she says at first. “From the moment I was offered the internship to your office,” she says, “I haven’t believed a single second. It all feels like a wild fairy-tale. Any moment now, I’m going to wake up and be back in grad school. Or, worse, I’ll wake up and realize that I was never accepted at all.”

  “If this is a fairy-tale,” I say, “then let’s make sure we give it the happily ever after it deserves.”

  “This is coming from two people who really don’t do fairy-tales, huh?”

  “Who says it always has to be that way? I like to think I’ve been cutting loose these past few years.”

  “Babe.” Whenever I get that look, I know I’ve said something ridiculous. I can never wait to hear what she really thinks. “’Cutting loose’ to you means letting me pick the cheese I put on our pasta.”

  “Have you ever led me astray?”

  “No. Which is why this still feels like a dream three years later.”

  “I chose you, Natalie.” I tip up her chin and consider kissing those enchanting lips. I refrain, however. Believe me, the restraint is something else right now. “I’ll be choosing you every day until I die. Which, according to statistics, will now be much farther off once we’re married.”

  “The statistics only say men live longer when they get married. The story’s a bit different for women.”

  “For the love of God.” I sweep her up in my arms, planting a kiss upon her throat. “Who cares?” Those words come out with a huff of laughter I don’t think Natalie was anticipating. That’s why it takes her so long to embrace me back, our lips soon meeting as the clock ticks away the minutes until it’s time to go down to dinner and face the music.

  I can’t wait. For the first time in my life, I can’t wait for people to pry into my personal life and ask uncomfortable questions that are honestly none of their business. Because, for the first time in so damn long… I have nothing to hide!

  The End

  If you have enjoyed this story, please feel free to leave a review so other readers can find it. Cynthia and Hildred both have mailing lists so you can stay on top of future projects. If you’re only interested in lesbian romance, please just join Hildred’s list as Cynthia’s solo projects are M/F centric.

  NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR

  BOUND is not like most of the books I’ve written over the years, and yet at the same time it felt the most like a callback to my early career than anything I’ve written since. Lust, love, and gender dysphoria (with a healthy dose of obsessing over one’s own mortality) are basically my bread and butter.

  But BOUND is different. Although it wasn’t written until 2017, the seeds for it were planted over two years ago. The concept has always been the same: a young (but not naive) intern falls in love with her new boss, one of the most powerful men in the business world. Except that male boss she loves so much turns out to be anything but.

  WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL PLAN?

  How did it differ? The original outline called for the “truth” to come out at the climax of the whole story. A shock to all readers.

  The issue was that this was not a very marketable book, especially when you juggle both F/F and M/F audiences like I do. F/F readers don’t want to read about a woman’s lust for a man for a whole book, and M/F readers don’t want to find out that their newest book boyfriend is actually a book girlfriend. And who the hell was I supposed to write it as? The o
riginal plan was to release this book under a brand new pen name and see what happened. A grand experiment.

  Things changed, of course. One of the things that irked me the most was how little justice my original plan did to Erica, since we wouldn’t be given much of a chance to see her side of the struggle. The story hinged on Natalie’s shock, instead of a real love story for the audience to enjoy.

  HOW DID IT EVOLVE?

  Once it was decided this book would join Cynthia and Hildred’s bibliography of billionaire (*cough*multimillionaire*cough*) lesbian eroms, the original plan was scrapped. It helped we now had a universe for this book to properly join. This story is the culmination of two writing worlds coming together and bridging the world of how a straight romance is written and how a lesbian romance presents itself to its audience.

  Suffice to say, it was a fun challenge to balance both sides!

  BUT WHO IS ERICA, REALLY?

  The decision Erica will ultimately come to cannot be contained within the time line of this book. I can confidently say that Erica will eventually realize her identity as a gay woman, but it’s going to take a few years before she can comfortably espouse that label. As someone who has struggled with gender dysphoria in her past, I know firsthand how much it confuses you and your relationship to gender and sexuality. Erica’s case is more extreme, of course, and she must undergo much self-reflection and therapy to come to her own conclusions.

  PRONOUNS, IDENTITY, AND NATALIE’S JOURNEY

  The main side of this story is, of course, Natalie’s. I wanted to fully explore her side of the main discovery and what it meant for her own identity. If Erica represents the possibilities of “nurture,” then perhaps Natalie is meant to embody the world of “nature.” When I sat down to write this story, I expected her to struggle with her attraction to Erica once the truth was revealed. She is, after all, a “straight” woman now presented with a woman for a lover.

  But I was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly she embraced her circumstances and looked past the facade to see the person she had truly fallen in love with. This isn’t a book that goes out of its way to say “bodies don’t matter!” It’s one that tries to instead show how powerful love can truly be. It also helps that Natalie is quick to embrace new things that make her life easier. Like realizing she’s bisexual.

  One of the challenges in writing this novel, however, was approaching pronouns and how Natalie slowly shifts from seeing “Eric” to “Erica.” Part 2 is meant to be a mess of pronouns as Natalie struggles to see the person beneath the suits and dresses. I’m sure most readers were excited to see the transformation in her perceptions take place - when Eric firmly becomes “she” in her mind.

  Of course, ease of reading is also necessary, so Natalie figured it out quicker than most probably would have!

  THE MEANING OF “BOUND”

  The title of this work since its conception has always been BOUND. On the surface, it refers to the way Erica concealed her identity when making love. But beyond that, it represents how each character is bound to circumstance or some stagnant way of thinking.

  Ultimately, it’s my hope that it also means Erica and Natalie are always meant to be bound together.

  Thanks for taking the time to read this! I hope this clears up a few thoughts you might have had while you read this book. See you next time!

  -Hildred

  Interested in this story in its original form? Check out both the book that started it all, AND the alternate POV version! Includes tons of scenes and POV thoughts you didn’t get in this version,

  BOUND - Natalie’s POV

  BOUND: REFLECTION - Erica’s POV

  Cynthia Dane writes contemporary M/F romance. Her biggest titles include Dom Vs. Domme, His Domination and The Billion Dollar Contract.

  Want to get in touch with Cynthia? Take your pick below!

  Official Site // Facebook // Twitter

  Hildred Billings writes contemporary romance and fantasy with a lesbian / bisexual twist. Many of her books are set in Japan or feature Asian main characters.

  Want to get in touch with Hildred? Take your pick below!

  Official Site // Facebook // Twitter