PROLOGUE: CAYDEN
Five Years Later
I should hate her for what she did to me. She completely shattered me when she left, and I never thought I’d fit back together without her. Life was hard with her gone, and I did what I could to get any scrap of how she was doing in life. Brendan would mention from time to time what she was up to, and I’d check her socials all the time just to look at her.
Baseball turned back into my only focus to try to take my mind off her, but no matter how hard I tried, I could never forget her.
Here I was, waiting for her to get off a flight from England to get a chance to see her again. To be alone with her. To see if she still felt the same after all those years apart.
I glanced over at the gate where a few people were walking from. My breath caught in my chest the second I saw her. She was still as beautiful as she was the first time I met her. Expect she’d grown into a full woman. Her white, blonde hair sat straight, hitting the curve of her ass, and that ass had definitely gotten rounder since the last time I saw her…and those thighs.
Fuck. I should not be looking at her like this. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this again. That I’d treat her like a step-sister this time. These five years of distance should have stopped me from feeling this way about her. But seeing her now only made them stronger. I couldn’t hate her for what she did. I could never hate her.
She smiled at me when she saw me and made her way over.
“Hey, Cayden.”
“Hey, Bells.”
I hesitated for a moment, then held my arms out. She fell into my arms straight away, and I hugged her so tight. She still smelt of vanilla with a hint of cherry. I fucking missed being able to touch her like this.
“Who takes a flight that arrives in LA at 2am?” I said, trying not to yawn.
“This person, clearly,” Arabella replied.
I let out a chuckle. I’d didn’t realise I’d missed her so much until now.
“Dad couldn’t make it?” she asked, pulling away.
“He’s in New York at the moment, so I’m taking you back to mine.” I grabbed her suitcase.
I swallowed hard to clear the lump in my throat. I was worried she wouldn’t want to come back to mine after not seeing each other for so long.
“You got your own place?”
“Yeah, about a year ago now. I can take you back to Brendan’s if you want. I’ve got a key.”
“No.” She smiled. “We can go back to yours.”
We started walking, and silence fell around us. I didn’t know whether to bring up what happened between us or what she wanted to do.
“Cay, I don’t want this to be awkward,” she said, breaking the silence.
“Why would it be awkward?”
“With everything that happened with us.” Her cheeks tinted pink, and fuck did it make me weak for her all over again. “I want us to go back to how we were. That friendship we had. I’ve missed it.”
She wanted us to be friends. Fuck. I wanted so much more with her, but if that’s what she wanted, I’d take it just to be close to her.
“I’d do anything for you, Bells, you know that. You never need to ask. I’ll always be here for you.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “Thank you.”
“Let’s get going. I’ll even treat you to one of those mocha frappies you like so much.”
“Do you think you can stretch to a burger and fries as well, because the food on the plane sucked.”
I scrubbed my stubble, then placed my arm around her neck. “Anything for you, Bells.”
“Such a gentleman,” she teased.
“Only for you.”
It felt like we’d never been apart
As we reached the car, I placed her luggage in the boot, and she ran her finger over the paintwork of the brand new BMW I had.
“Guess pro baseball pays well.”
“You know how much it pays because your dad owns the team.”
I was lucky to be drafted to the LA Knights. There was a moment I thought I was going to end up somewhere else, but luckily, they had first pick. They took Asher as well, and I was glad. He was a really good player, and we’d built a friendship over the years.
I opened the door for her, and she slid herself in. Then I got into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb.
“How’s your mum?” she asked.
“Yeah, doing well. Busy with her charity work.”
Mum had taken up charity work. It was a foundation that Brendan had set up with funding to help single mums. Mum was passionate about it and loved doing all the work for it.
“How was England?”
I didn’t know if I really wanted to know. What if she met someone else and forgot about me? Forgot about everything we had. I couldn’t bear to hear that.
“It was really good. It’s what I needed at the time.”
My eyes flickered over to her, then back to the road. She needed to be away from me.
“What about your art?”
“I carried on studying out there. It was so different, but I loved every minute of it. I made a few friends on the course. They didn’t want me to leave, but I knew it was time to come home.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m really glad you’ve had a good life, Bells. You deserve it.”
She was out enjoying her life whilst I was here pining over her. Praying she’d come back and we’d do everything we had planned together. But things change.
“Did you miss this place at all?”
She turned to face me, smiling. “Of course, I missed you.” She shifted in the seat, and my eyes flickered to her bare legs in those shorts, then back to the road. “I’m not sure about this stubble,” she teased, feathering her fingers over my jaw.
I cleared my throat to try to hide the groan that wanted to break free from her touch. This girl did things to my body that should never have happened with her still after all this time.
“I think it makes me look rouged.” I tried to lighten the mood to stop These feelings from exploding and saying something stupid.
“If you say so,” she laughed.
The laughter soon died down, and we were now in a comfortable silence. That’s the thing about Arabella, she always made you feel you didn’t have to try to be anything else but yourself with her.
“So, mum and Brendan want us at theirs tomorrow for dinner.” My eyes flickered to hers for a second, then back to the road. I heard her mumbling under her breath. “He wants to see you, Bella. He told me to make sure you were there. I think he’s missed you.”
“He was never happy that I left.”
I wasn’t happy that she upped and left without talking to me before she did it. I thought we were in it for the long haul. All these plans we’d made together for the feature, but I guess it was just a dream that was never meant to be reality.
never knew, or if she did, I don’t think she felt the same, because nothing ever happened between us. It couldn’t. But how I fucking wish that it did.
