Your Little Secret (7 page)

Amber’s eyes went wide at that comment – he saw forever with her?

Amber found it only took one week to make or break a relationship that once meant the whole world to you. Being alone every day, coming home to an empty house was not only cold, but freezing, only solidified the feeling. She had survived the past week, sleeping, eating, drinking, thinking, working and continuing the process repetitively.

Sitting on her sofa, Amber was merely staring at a blank television screen, her eyes skimming across the mountain of takeout cartons she had been surviving on all week, and she felt the hot tears course down her cheeks against her cold distressed skin. Connor had been gone for a week now and yet the memories were still burnt into her memory as if they had just happened. They had made love in their bed after his declaration of love, but with it being her birthday in three days, she wasn't sure if he could get back. The phone calls were longer, but he had only kept that up for three days. However, she hadn't spoken to him in four days, not even through text and she couldn’t stop her mind from casting aspersions. Sniffing and wiping away her tears, she pulled out a book and began to bury herself in the building romance in Fifty Shades of Grey. That's how she saw it, as a romance. It wasn’t a BDSM, violent, pretentious story, but a love, a romance that was never meant to come together. Watching someone fall in love with another who was never meant to be their other half was quite refreshing to her. Closing the novel at chapter 17, she stood up and wandered into her kitchen. She couldn’t stop her own romantic failures from preventing her to enjoy the romance in the book.

The moon shone through her window brightly and she turned on her kettle to make a steaming cup of tea. Her emotions were blank now and she could feel the emptiness beginning to take over. She had even lost Ethan in the last week. The stir fry he left was still untouched and probably mouldy in her fridge, along with the wine and DVD. Finally deciding now was a good time to throw it out, she opened the fridge to see the DVD still in the
Asda bag and pulled it out. She went for the bin when she noticed the DVD he had brought her. 'The Notebook' sat staring at her, the film she had teased him over and he had pushed himself to buy it so they could watch it.

Feeling another overwhelming feeling wash over her, she dialled Ethan's number. The rings came, one after another until she heard his Yorkshire accent fill the line, "
Hi you've reached Ethan, leave me a message and I'll get back to you!
" Waiting for the automatic voicemail lady to finish her speech she sighed into the handset.

"Hey,
Ethie, I don't know why you’re ignoring me. If I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry. I just found your stir-fry in my fridge. It's gone off." Laughing to herself and gulping back tears she continued. "I miss you, best friend. You bought me 'The Notebook.' Hopeless romantic hey? I thought you hated this movie? You did owe me a new version though." She sniffed and laughed softly at her own ramblings. "I just - I miss you, Ethan. I can't last a day without talking to you, so please, call me. I need you, and your stir-fry. Please, just come back to me."

She locked her
iPhone and made herself a cup of tea. Opening her cupboards she found a packet of cookies and switched on her TV, hoping to bore herself with something else. She quickly found the TV was talking to itself as she realised that her life was slowly crumbling down around her with every breath she took. Brick by brick the foundations she trusted and loved were failing her. She laughed to herself at the irony of all this. The two men that had become her pillars of support were gone. Connor was gone. Ethan was gone.

In that sickening moment, Amber clambered off of the sofa and ran for her phone. Picking it up, she rang Ethan's number all over again. As the voicemail blasted into her ear she sunk to the kitchen floor and just closed her eyes, waiting for her moment to speak. The moment the voicemail bleeped, her throat closed up and she sat paralysed. This would be her ninth message and with each new ignored voicemail and text Amber's heart hallowed all the more.

Covering her mouth, she cried at the phone, but she knew she had to speak up. "I'm so sorry, Ethan. I am such a screw up and I understand if this is the beginning of a life without you, but I can't deny how horrible the thought is. I got sucked in by him again and all for him to drop me so quickly. I chose him and why? I’ll tell you why; for him to leave and for you to never speak to me again." She made herself look up to the ceiling to keep the tears at bay a little more, "I'm so fucking sorry, Ethie. I’m a selfish bitch and I don’t deserve you. I see that now."

She closed the call off and began to grip her phone tightly. Clutching it to her chest, she promised that as of Monday she would start a new life. It would be looming onto her birthday and she had to promise herself a new year without so much heartbreak and confusion. She couldn't let a man break her of the woman she prided on being. She had to be Amber Watson; a feisty, strong woman her parents had unintentionally made her into. Curling up against the floor, Amber granted herself one last moment of weakness and closed her eyes. She was so tired of this life - the strife, the constriction around her heart, the loneliness.

"
Amber
," a voice penetrated the darkness she had given herself and she hadn't realised she had fallen asleep. "C’mon, girl, it's time to wake up."

She moaned against his fingertips as they traced her face and then she shot up in fright. She looked into the eyes of Ethan and as confusion mixed she melted with relief. "You're here?" she asked and had to stop
herself from reaching out and touching him.

"Of course I am," he said with a small smile, but he could tell she knew a part of him was now reserved. She knew he was guarded around her now and it broke his heart to do this for self-preservation and push her away.

"Why?" she asked and her tone was whispered and short. "Why now?"

"I've been stupid," he told her reaching out to push her messy hair out of her face. "And the fact you still have that stir fry in your fridge tells me you've barely been eating."

"I'm fine," she bit back at him, not wanting to tell him about her newfound unhealthy diet.

Ethan chuckled, "You need to eat."

"You sound like the book I'm reading," she joked lightly and yet again hated the comparison between her life and a damn fictional novel!

"Yeah, I saw Fifty Shades of Shit on the sofa," he teased her. "You are such a desperado."

Amber pushed him away, killing his sarcastic quip.

"Getting ideas for what Connor can do to defile you?" Ethan continued to joke with her, not being deterred.

"He isn't going to do anything with me." She pushed the thought of Connor away from her mind. She then got off the floor, went into the living room to grab the book and when she had it in hand she marched to the bin and just threw the book in. "I'm done with romance. I gave myself to a man once already and got rejected, and this time, this happened!" She looked at Ethan with a wild glare, "I'm done with love. It killed too much of me and I don't want to lose more of me."

"Then don't," Ethan said, reached for her and dragged her towards him just so he could embrace her. "You still feel like Amber to me."

"Good," she whispered against his chest, gripping onto his shirt as if he were only lifeline. Minutes felt like hours as he held her tiny frame in his arms.

"You feel like you've lost weight, Amber. Come on I'm taking you for food." Peeling herself away from him she gave in to him and nodded her head gently. "Where'd you want to go, angel? Anywhere you want."

Clapping her hands together she rubbed her palms against one another and gave him a wide grin forcing away her blackened emotions. "Where d’you think?" she asked giving him a wink.

Rolling his eyes at her he leaned forward to kiss her forehead. "Come on," he said as he pushed her towards the stairs. "Go get dressed and be ready in five, Amber."

***

Pulling into the driveway at the restaurant Amber lightly touched the interior of his Peugeot RCZ.

"I still can't believe you bought this car, Ethan. It's so beautiful."

Parking his car, switching off the ignition he turned to smile at her. "It was a present. I didn't buy it,
Ambi, you know that."

"Yeah, but still-" she said as she reached for the door handle.

"Leave it," warned Ethan as he opened up his own door and walked around to open hers. His feelings for her were forever, he could never change that. Opening her door, he held out his hand so that her petite fingers could fall into his palm as she pushed herself up on his to leave the small space of the car. Standing on two feet, she leant up and kissed him on his cheek and he felt a shudder of excitement overwhelm his body.

"I love you so much, Ethan," she whispered into his ear as he brought her into an embrace. "I'm so sorry for hurting you."

"Shh," he hushed as she felt the tears build up again. "Let’s go eat some TGI's shall we?"

Being led to their seats by the well-endowed waitress, they sat opposite each other and Amber picked up a cocktail menu. Ethan watched her for a moment before he spoke, "You're lucky you’re not driving,
Ambi, or paying for that matter."

She looked up from the menu, her left eyebrow cocked and a smug grin across her face. Flicking through the menu at a radical pace she stopped when she saw
a champagne based cocktail. "Aha. Most expensive one on the menu," she laughed as he pulled a sour face at her and chose her usual Cosmopolitan. She watched as a waitress approached, less volume in her bust area, but more in her hair. She listened to Ethan order their drinks and she played with the corner of her menu, trying to deviate her thoughts. “So,” she started to say as the waitress bustled off.

“So what?” he asked her, relaxing into his side of the booth.

Raising her gaze, she saw him watching her intently. “What have you been up to since I saw you last?” She hated the sudden rush of panic that cascaded through her system. It was like wild panic, an unwanted fever pitch. “I’ve never gone this long without talking to you and,” she didn’t finish; she just shrugged, lost for words entirely.

“
Erm,” he started and then coughed to clear his throat. He suddenly felt himself get nervous. “I met someone, and well, I felt you needed some time with Connor so I was going to wait for you to call me.”

“First off, bullshit because you never wait for me to call you,” she pointed out, trying to keep the rumble of jealousy that hit her quiet. “And you met someone?”

“Fourth date tomorrow,” he said with a small smile. “And how the hell am I supposed to just call you when you dragged me out to the lamest club ever and left me hanging and then I find you in some alleyway entrance with your skirt up around your waist?”

“Oh, that,” she blushed vehemently. “I didn’t intend for that to happen. Nothing that happened that night was what I expected to happen. It just did.” She ran a hand through her hair, remembering the sex, the argument, the onslaught of emotions and the departure. “I mean, I just didn’t expect any of it and the worse thing was
, he left me again. The second time wasn’t great.”

“So where is Connor? It was a pretty ‘fly by’ visit,” he asked her, leaning across the table a little.

“Can we just ignore that?” she asked feebly as the waitress brought their drinks and Amber immediately grabbed hers and took a massive gulp to steady her, to give her a little courage to not break. “I don’t want to discuss it. I’m not in the mood.”

Ethan noticed the tears that filled her eyes and he frowned, “I could kill that bastard for what he’s doing to you. You do know that right?” He asked her, hoping his anger was more than a little palpable. “He really doesn’t realise what a beautifully, amazing girl he has sitting around waiting on him.”

Amber gulped hard, “He told me he wants forever with me so I guess he knows, but he seems to believe that not contacting me makes me want to have forever with him. He hasn’t even mentioned my birthday and I’m pretty sure that he will just skip over it like I’m worth nothing, and then he’ll swan in and I’ll forgive him.” She then put her hands to her head and rested her elbows onto the table top, “And I will, because I love that bastard like I’ve never loved anyone.” She shook her head, and sunk it even further than before, “God, when did I get to be such a fool?”

Ethan's fingers grazed her face softly and she lent up on her elbows. "You're not a fool,
Ambi, you're just in love. It's what happens." His thumb stroked along her bottom lip and she closed her eyes at the feel of him.

Realising where she was and who she was with, she went to lift up her cocktail and take a sip, deliberately so he would drop his hand. Ethan couldn't help but touch her desirable skin, he watched as her lips wrapped over the edge of the glass as she poured the pink liquid into her mouth. Distracting himself, he took a sip of his coke and fidgeted with his napkin.

"So," she said sternly looking him directly in the eyes. "You have a new woman.” She looked down as she said woman and sighed into her drink.

"I wouldn't say new woman per-se. We're sort of dating. She's really pretty." Nodding in approval, Amber took another large gulp of cocktail and met his sky blue eyes.