It's Only Love by Marie Force
CHAPTER 1
Grief is the price we pay for love.
—Queen Elizabeth II
Resigned to another Saturday night at home, Ella Abbott settled into her sofa with her two best friends—Ben and Jerry. She’d been spending a lot of nights with these guys lately, which she would regret the next time she stepped onto a scale. But who cared about scales or exercise or anything else for that matter when your heart was broken?
It was all she could do to get up, take a shower, dry her hair, eat something that tasted like nothing, go to work and barely function once she got there. She went through the motions day after day, one foot in front of the other with a stiff upper lip that quivered an awful lot when she was alone. No one needed to know that.
She dug her spoon into yet another new pint of Cherry Garcia, which was the only thing that made her feel better. So she overindulged. Whatever. She’d happily pay the piper as soon as she stopped feeling like utter crap.
In the last couple of weeks, she’d had no choice but to accept that nothing was ever going to come of her fierce love for Gavin Guthrie.
“And how’s that going for you?” she asked the ice cream. “Are we at the acceptance stage yet?” She took another bite and then one more. “Nope, still stuck firmly in denial.”
If only he hadn’t kissed her. If only she could take back that one perfect moment of utter bliss on the beach in Burlington during her sister Hannah’s wedding last summer. Not knowing what it was like to kiss him would make this whole acceptance thing a hell of a lot easier.
And it wasn’t just a kiss. That would be oversimplifying what’d happened between her and Gavin while everyone else was listening to Nolan serenade his bride. She’d dared to put her arms around Gavin, wanting only to offer comfort as his late brother’s widow got remarried. But then he’d kissed her—and not the way she’d dreamed for all the years she’d been thinking about him.
No, this kiss had been rough and untamed and powerful, the single most incendiary kiss she’d ever received from anyone.
Thinking about it now, she rubbed her finger absently back and forth over her lips, which had tingled for hours afterward. And during those hours she’d had to act like everything was fine, like her entire world hadn’t been redesigned in the course of five unforgettable minutes.
She’d relived it a thousand times since then. The way he’d swooped in like a man who’d been drowning until she came to rescue him. The way his tongue had swept into her mouth and his lips had pressed so tightly against hers they’d felt bruised later, not that she minded. Bruised lips had been a reminder, for days afterward, that it had really happened. It hadn’t been a figment of her overactive imagination.
Gavin Guthrie had really kissed her. And then he’d walked away like it hadn’t changed everything between them. He’d pulled away so abruptly he’d left her reeling. Worst of all, he’d actually apologized for kissing her. She shuddered, recalling what he’d said.
“Christ, Ella. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m so fucked up today. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
But that wasn’t all he’d said. No, he’d had to take her breath away with a sweet caress to her face and even sweeter words. “You’re beautiful, Ella. Inside and out. If I were going to let something like this happen with anyone, you’d be the first one I’d call. But I’ve got nothing to give you, and it wouldn’t be fair. It just wouldn’t be fair.”