by Iona Rose
“That’s Connor, isn’t it?” Eva said.
It was. All air left my lungs. Seeing him brought fresh tears into my eyes. I’d missed him so much. How could my heart be so disloyal? He had cheated on me and what I felt like doing was to run into his arms.
He hadn’t seen us and seemed to be directing the truck driver. Then he saw us and stopped. We got closer and closer and that’s when I saw the words written at the back of the truck.
I love you, Bianca. Only you.
My heart stopped. We got closer and I locked gazes with him. He looked stressed, as if he hadn’t slept in days.
“Explain the woman in the hotel room,” Eva said.
“Shut up Eva,” I said and then turned to Connor. “Explain the woman in the hotel room.”
“I will but you have to promise to listen from the beginning to the end without interrupting.”
“Fine,” I said, pegging my hopes that I’d been wrong.
He started speaking, first in halting tales and then a surer voice when he saw that I was keeping my promise of not interrupting. It was an incredulous tale and it rang true from the sheer craziness of it.
“I’m a fool and an idiot and a whole lot of other things but one thing I’m not Bianca is a cheater. I would never cheat on you and if you take me back, I swear I’ll never lie to you again,” Connor said, his voice sounding broken.
“Dude, that’s not the smartest promise to make,” the food truck driver said, leaning on the truck.
We ignored him.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” My voice was shaky exposing the emotions I was feeling.
“By trusting me Bianca,” he said.
A memory came to me. “After sneaking off to meet Angie, you’d said you’d never lie to me.”
He lowered his head and then raised it. “I’m a work in progress but whatever mistakes I make, I will never cheat on you. Ever. That is a vow. I love you so much Bianca. You’ve taught me what it means to love someone and to trust them. You’ve taught me what it means to be happy.”
“I think he’s being honest,” Eva said softly.
I nodded and locked my gaze with his. “I believe you and I love you Connor Kennedy.”
“I’m going home. I have a feeling I wouldn’t be needed at work today,” Eva said and left.
Connor opened his arms and I flew into them. He held me tightly.
“I love you so much,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I thought I’d lost the greatest thing that had ever happened to me.”
“I’m not going anywhere from now on Connor,” I said.
He took my hand and we entered my apartment building. In the elevator, he took me into his arms again and kissed me deeply. I clung to him and threaded my fingers through his hair.
My world, which had tilted suddenly felt right. The hole in my heart filled up. We ran from the elevator to my apartment like little kids. I led Connor to my bedroom and shut the door and the world out. And this time, when we kissed, we were in no hurry. We had all the time in the world to show each other how much we loved and trusted each other.
Epilogue
Bianca
One year Later
* * *
“Throw it this way Bianca,” Aunt Catherine shouted, making everyone laugh.
I threw my bouquet in her direction but she didn’t manage to catch it. One of Connor’s cousins got it instead. She let out a shriek and went back to her seat, clutching it to her chest.
Our wedding was in the family lodge in Colorado but we’d both balked at having a week-long wedding like Sarah and Brian had done. Instead, we’d settled for a weekend long wedding with all our friends and relatives.
“I wish I’d done my wedding here,” Jenna, who was one of my bridesmaids said.
“Your wedding was perfect,” I said remembering how much fun Connor and I had had in her wedding.
“This is just perfect,” Eva said joining us. Motherhood suited her. She had named her little girl Bianca after me and when she and Jeremy told me I had cried buckets full. It was a sweet gesture and a testimony of the bond that Eva and I have.
“Ladies, I hope you don’t mind but I’d like my bride back. I’d like one more dance with her,” Connor said and whisked me away.
“You look perfect tonight,” he said, singing along to the slow song filling the room.
I laughed. I found it hard to believe that one person could be so happy. After the fiasco with Samantha, our relationship had gone from strength to strength. By the time he proposed, we both knew that was what we wanted.
Our careers were going well too. Eva and I had rented a space in a loft above a gallery down town where we had our office and my design space. I still had my apartment but the plan was to move into Connor’s place after the wedding and then after, get a house in the suburbs to raise our family in.
Connor had stopped working for Samantha Price and he and Marjorie had started their own agency. It had grown faster than either of them had imagined and now they had employed two more people.
“Hey, this is not a day for deep thoughts,” Connor said, gently bringing me back to the present.
“I was reminiscing about how far we’ve come,” I said.
Connor brushed his lips against mine. “We have. This day is the culmination of all those ups and downs. I’m so lucky that you stuck by me. A regular guy like me, getting a beautiful woman like you to love me…it blows my mind.”
“Oh Connor. I’m the lucky one. You are everything a woman would ever want in a man.”
* * *
THE END
Sample Chapter
Trouble With The CEO
Ava
* * *
“Shots, shots, shots, shots,” Sophie chants, looking down at the shots before looking up at me expectantly, a massive grin on her face that says she knows I’m going to protest, but that she also knows she’ll be able to wear me down.
I glance down at the tray loaded with Sambuca shots in a range of colors that span the rainbow. I groan and shake my head. She’s not going to be able to wear me down this time. I can’t drink another shot. Even the thought makes me want to retch.
“No more for me,” I say, holding my hands up and shaking my head vigorously. “I’m done here.”
“Oh, come on Ava, don’t be boring. We’re meant to be celebrating graduating from college,” Melanie adds, pushing one of the shots towards me with great determination.
I watch it slide towards me with a look of horror.
Melanie just laughs and keeps pushing the glass.
“Drink it, or it’ll spill and what a waste that will be,” she chants.
I shake my head.
“This is a once in a lifetime celebration,” she cajoles.
“Do you want me to be sick?”
“You’re not going to be sick. Anyway, it’s not a celebration if you don’t wake up with a hangover.”
I stare at her.
“Come on. Don’t let me get drunk on my own.” She pushes her lip out like a pouty child. “Please, Ava, please.”
“Ok, Ok,” I laugh, holding my hands up in mock surrender.
Melanie stops pushing the little glass but her hand hovers around, ready to start up again if I back out now.
“But I swear this one is my last one.”
I know I should have stood my ground, but Melanie is right. We’re meant to be celebrating and it’s not like we graduate from college every day. Ah fuck it. I’m only going to do this once so I may as well make it a good one I tell myself.
“Sure, that’s your last shot,” Sophie agrees with a wink that says ‘until the next one’. “Now drink up.”
I shake my head and roll my eyes, but I can’t help but smile as I pick my shot up and down it. It burns my throat as I swallow it and my mouth floods with saliva at the aniseed taste. It’s mixed with banana flavor, not a good combination in any way, and the taste of the aniseed mingled in with the fake sweetness of the banana mak
es me want to retch once more, and I quickly swallow a mouthful of my gin and tonic to wash away the taste. Sophie and Melanie look as though they enjoyed their shots about as much as I did.
“Remind me again why we drink these things when none of us actually like them,” I ask, still grimacing from the sickly taste of the shot.
“Because they hit the spot.” Melanie laughs, rubbing her belly.
I laugh with her. She kind of has a point. Once I get past the urge to retch, the warm feeling spreading through me is kind of nice. I’m already floating on air after graduating from college and the shots only make me feel even more giddy, even more happy.
Sophie grins at me and holds out another shot to me. I shake my head but Sophie makes no effort to take the shot away.
“Two for you because you’re celebrating two things,” she says. “Graduating and getting the job you wanted.”
“It’s kind of the same thing really,” I say. “I already had the job offer dependent on me graduating.”
“Irrelevant. You still need to celebrate,” Sophie insists.
The last few shots must be doing their job because I no longer want to be sensible and refuse to drink the shot. Instead, I reach out, take it from Sophie and down it in one gulp. I chase it down with a gulp of gin and tonic, then stand up.
“Come on girls, let’s hit the dance floor,” I shout above the music. “I love this freaking song.”
We make our way across the club, pushing our way through the warm and writhing bodies until we find a space on the dance floor. Then we begin to move. The combination of the heat, the alcohol and the thrumming of the music makes me feel wild and untamed, like I can really let my hair down tonight and just have fun.
As the three of us dance and drink, I realize that I don’t want this night to end. It feels good to have this one weekend where I’m no longer a student and I’m not starting work until Monday. It’s one last weekend of freedom where nothing defines me and I’m free to do whatever the hell I like. No studying to do, no assignments, no panicking about exams, and no work over the weekend. I love that. Even knowing it won’t last forever doesn’t make me sad like it perhaps should. In fact, I think knowing that it can’t last forever is part of what makes it so special.
As I down the last of my drink, I’m aware I’m more than a little bit tipsy now. But I don’t care. It’s not like I’m falling down drunk. Not yet anyway. I’m just at that pleasant stage of drunk where everything is funny, and all of my inhibitions are starting to fall away. It’s also that level of drunk where I know if I stop drinking now, it will wear off quickly and I won’t be able to get it back. With that thought in mind, I stop dancing.
“Are you ok?” Sophie yells over the music, looking at me with a frown of concern as I look for a way through the throng of bodies on the dance floor.
“Yeah,” I shout. “I’m fine. Better than fine. Great in fact. I’m just going to the bar. Same again?”
Sophie and Melanie both nod and keep dancing and I finally spot a small opening in the crowd and I make my way through it to the bar. I order our drinks – another gin and tonic for me and two vodka and Cokes for Melanie and Sophie - and then I take a moment to have a look around the club. The club is busy – busier than it was when we moved onto the dance floor - but it’s not packed to the point where you can’t move or where you can’t get a drink without waiting for twenty minutes.
I get our drinks and pay for them and make my way back to Sophie and Melanie, somehow making it across the dance floor without spilling a drop. I hand the girls their drinks and start dancing again, taking a long drink of my gin and tonic. I kind of miss the burning heat of the shots and I wonder absently if I should have gotten more of them. No, I think that would have been a bad idea.
“Isn’t that Darlene over there?” Melanie asks.
I look over at the area she’s pointing to and I see that it is indeed Darlene. Great. Just the person I don’t want to see tonight. Or any night really. It’s not so much that Darlene and I are enemies, or even that we don’t like each other as such, it’s just that we’re not each other’s cup of tea. We’re total opposites to each other and not in a good way.
I generally tend to be fairly quiet, and Darlene is pretty much the life of the party, and where I’m happy to be a part of the group, Darlene has to always be the center of attention. I find her particular brand of obsessive attention seeking annoying and she probably finds me boring. She’s kind of treated her time at college as one long, four-year party and tonight, on the night to end it all, it's no surprise that she’s dressed to kill.
In a skin tight red body con dress and heels so high it would give me vertigo. If she were to fall, I would be surprised if she doesn’t break her ankle. Still it probably wouldn’t faze her – after all, it would get her some more attention.
I catch myself being mean and I tell myself to stop it. It’s likely the last time I’ll have to see her, and the last time she will make me feel boring and inferior. Ok, so there’s a bit of truth. I always feel like Darlene is looking down at me – boring plain little Ava - and that when she does it, other people follow her lead.
“Hi girls,” Darlene calls, waving manically as she spots us.
She starts making her way over to us, smiling as though we’re all best friends. She must be drunk I think to myself, or she would know that she thinks I’m not up to her class. She reaches us, making walking in her skyscraper shoes look easy. She grabs me by my upper arms, and quickly air kisses each of my cheeks. Wow I really must have drunk too much because I feel quite shell-shocked when she releases me. She moves on to Sophie and Melanie. At least they saw what was coming and had a moment to prepare themselves.
“It’s so good to see you all,” she trills, her voice, as always, just a little bit too loud and that’s saying something in a club. “I was so worried I wouldn’t get to say goodbye to you all. I mean I know we were hardly best friends, but four years is a long time to be around the same people, isn’t it, and I reckon we’ll all miss each other in our own little ways.”
I would argue the point. I don’t think I’ll miss Darlene for one minute but I have to admit she makes a fair point about the people around us becoming familiar, and her sentiment is nicer than I would ever have given her credit for. I nod and smile.
“Yeah. It was nice meeting you Darlene,” I say.
“You too honey,” she replies with a flash of her Hollywood white teeth.
She clearly doesn’t know my name and normally the fake show of friendship would annoy me, but tonight I let it wash over me. So what if she doesn’t know my name? I only know hers because she’s such a drama queen. I can’t exactly judge her for not making the time to get to know anything about me.
She starts talking just loud enough to catch the attention of the people around us, laughing even louder than that. People are glancing over, some in amusement, some rolling their eyes. And of course, a lot drooling over her. I can feel my face burning as the attention focuses on our little group and I have to admit I’m more than relieved when Darlene moves on to the next unsuspecting group who she greets initially with a loud shriek across the club and a wave.
“You know,” Sophie laughs when Darlene is out of ear shot. “I can never decide if I want to be more like Darlene, or if I want to strive to be the opposite of her as much as I possibly can.”
I kind of know what she means and I nod and laugh. For all Darlene is annoying at times, there is no denying that she always seems to be having fun and she always has a gaggle of interesting people around her. I think it would be nice to be so unashamedly who I am and have that confidence.
“I’d settle for being able to walk in shoes like that,” Melanie puts in, getting back enthusiastic nods from both Sophie and me.
We go back to dancing and I soon realize my drink is empty once more. I wiggle my glass in the air.
“Whose round is it?” I ask.
“Yours,” both Sophie and Melanie say together.
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They look at each other and laugh and I shake my head.
“I got these,” I remind them.
“Yeah, but some of us have tuition to pay,” Sophie grins.
“Not to mention rent, food, bills, bills and more stupid bills to pay,” Melanie adds. “Oh, and did I mention paying bills?”
“I have bills to pay,” I remind her with a laugh. “And rent to cover. And believe it or not, no one gives me free food either.”
“Well yeah, but you have a job that covers all of that stuff easily,” Sophie says. “There’s no way waiting tables, or working in a store, or something covers it all. That’s why we all have a shit ton of student debt and you don’t.”
I suppose she has a point there. Mr. Kramer, my employer at Kramer and Foley, the law firm I work at, paid for me to go to college and get a degree as a legal assistant. While I was a student, I worked part time but he still paid me my full salary, telling me that getting the degree was essentially part of the job.
I work as Mr. Kramer’s legal secretary. I started as a general secretary when I left school and after a few months, Mr. Kramer asked me to be his personal secretary when his old one retired. After two years, he decided that he needed someone who understood the legal system a whole lot more than I did. I remember when he called me into his office and told me that. I thought I was being fired and I was so upset it took me a while to register the fact that not only was he not firing me, but the offer he was making me was more than I ever could have dreamed was possible.
I think now of my gorgeous uptown apartment that no student would ever be able to afford and my almost new, not cheap car, and I decide that yes, I can get another round in. I grin at the girls.
“Fine,” I say, holding my hands up in surrender. “Same again?”
They both nod and I head back to the bar. The club is picking up now and the crowd is a little bit thicker but it’s still not so bad that it’s a tight squeeze at the bar. I order our drinks and pay for them. As I walk away from the bar, I spot Darlene again. She’s heading towards the exit of the club with a guy hanging off her arm and most likely hanging on her every word while he’s about it.