Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
“Camille,” he said, his gold-flecked eyes latching onto mine. “Will you marry me?”
Again, tears fell down my cheeks. My heart cracked right down the centre. Derek was asking me to marry him, and I … I had to say no even while everything inside me yearned to say yes. I felt like I was being torn apart.
“Derek,” I whispered, tenderly reaching out to stroke his hair. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t.”
My response caused a visceral reaction in him, and his shoulders sank as his chest deflated. I hated myself in that moment. Hated that I had to hurt him.
His gaze flickered back and forth, confusion marring his handsome features, then at last, devastation. “You don’t love me,” he said, a statement not a question.
He began to stand, rising back to his full impressive height. I reached for his hand. “That’s not it. I feel a lot for you. You’re my b-best friend. But we’re too young to make such a commitment. I’m only nineteen, and you’re barely twenty. It wouldn’t be … It wouldn’t be prudent.”
His eyebrow arched. “Prudent? If you felt for me what I feel for you, prudence wouldn’t even enter your mind, Milly. Not for a single second.” He slammed his palm against his chest. “I know with absolute certainty that I could love you for the rest of my life. Not a day would go by where I didn’t worship at your feet. If that feeling were returned, there would be no question. You’d move mountains to be with me just like I know I’d do the same for you.”
His words took me down, striking hard like a knife to the heart. Was that true? If I loved Derek like I believed I did, would hurting my aunt even matter? Maybe he was right. One thing was for sure, I didn’t deserve him. Not for a second. He was willing to marry me, devote his life to me, but I couldn’t commit to him in the same way.
Derek shoved the ring box back in his pocket, his eyes so forlorn it was difficult to breathe.
“I hope you find happiness, Camille. I hope you fulfil all your dreams and do everything you set out to. Wherever your life leads, I will always love you, and I will always think of you.”
With that, he bent down and pressed a paralyzingly mournful kiss to my temple before he turned and walked away. I stood there until his figure was far in the distance. Then I dropped to the sand and cried until I had no more tears left to shed.
9.
Milly
~18 years later~
Present day
My hands shook a little holding the bottle of wine as I approached the front door of the Balfe family home.
I hadn’t stepped foot in this house in almost two decades. It was like travelling back in time. Aside from my old friend, Nuala, it had been years since I’d seen most of these people. My social anxiety was getting the better of me, but it was my own fault for accepting the invitation to Nuala’s mother’s sixty-fifth birthday party in the first place. It arrived three weeks ago while my daughter, Deirdre, and I had still been unpacking our belongings after the moving van arrived from London. I was full of fresh start energy, deciding I might finally discover my inner social butterfly and RSVP’d straight away.
Now I was living with the regret of that decision.
Making plans was always so much more fun when said plans were weeks or months in the future.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t excited to see Nuala. It had been several years since we’d met up. Normally, if she were coming to London, we’d arrange to meet for lunch, but she hadn’t been over for a few years. No, it was her elder brother I was most apprehensive about seeing.
Derek Balfe, my teenage sweetheart. Well, almost. We’d never quite gotten past the “friends who pined for one another” stage, which I accepted was all my fault. I’d kept him at arm’s length, denied my feelings for him because of my loyalty to my aunt.
At the tender age of twenty, Derek had gotten down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I’d said no. Sometimes I still felt a sharpness in my chest at the memory of that day. How I sank down onto the sand as he walked away, my heart breaking in two for rejecting him. At the time, it was the hardest, most callous thing I’d ever had to do. In certain ways, I still felt awful about it, but we were so young, definitely not ready to make such a big commitment.
Anyway, I doubted Derek even thought of that day anymore. He’d moved on and gotten married to someone else a few years later. As far I’d heard, they were now divorced and shared custody of their two kids. I knew a little about sharing custody since my fifteen-year-old daughter divided her time between her dad, who was still living in London, and me.