This Was Meant To Be
A love years in the making...
A super sexy romance by Ellie Etienne of BWWM Club. Features another free bonus book.
Leigh Wells is a woman with a plan.
She’s a paralegal, finally getting the responsibilities and contacts to fulfill her ambition of going to law school.
But long term boyfriend Carl has other ideas - he wants to travel the world for a year.
So she gives him an ultimatum - stay and wait until she’s ready, or go without her.
He packs up and leaves.
Leigh goes to confide in her best friend Harrison.
But with emotions and feelings running high, she soon starts to look at him in a more romantic way... Again!
Which leaves Leigh feels super guilty.
Harrison moved in with her and her parents aged 10, when his parents died in a car crash.
They’re supposed to be like sister and brother, but Leigh’s never felt that way.
And now with passion blossoming between them, she can’t keep denying how she feels.
Will everything backfire for them as they try to redefine their relationship?
Or can they somehow make it work and find the happily ever after they deserve?
Find out in this pulse-racing yet emotional romance by Ellie Etienne of BWWM Club.
Suitable for over 18s only due to sizzling hot sex scenes.
Tip: Search BWWM Club on Amazon to see more of our great books.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Free Book – The Kinky Billionaire 3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
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Chapter 1
“Carl, honey, you know I can’t just do that. We’ve talked about this already. I mean, a year is just unrealistic.”
Carl pouted.
Leigh sighed. It wasn’t hard to feel like she was being unreasonable. According to Carl, she definitely was being unreasonable.
“I’m sorry, Carl. But you know it’s just not practical for me. Not right now.”
Carl sighed, and it was that long suffering sigh that always made Leigh’s palm itch. She knew she was being unreasonable. Did he have to make such a big deal about it?
“We’ve been planning this for years, Leigh. We were supposed to do this by the time we’re twenty-eight. Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but my twenty-eighth birthday was a couple of months ago. Frankly, Leigh, I was hoping that this would be my birthday gift.”
Leigh shifted uncomfortably. The truth was that she had come dangerously close to forgetting his birthday altogether.
They’d been together ever since college – about six years now, realized Leigh with a jolt. They’d gotten together on her twenty-first birthday, so it had been over six years.
Maybe they’d started taking each other for granted a bit too much. Maybe what their relationship needed was for them to take some time off and travel together, as Carl wanted.
But the idea of taking a year off just to travel… They’d talked about it forever, of course, and Leigh did want to travel. But she couldn’t sacrifice so much of what she had worked for, just for a year of freedom and new experiences. She needed something to come home to after that year, too, didn’t she?
But Carl didn’t seem to understand that. Carl had always been far more spontaneous than she was – far more willing to live in the moment. Leigh always needed a plan, then a Plan B, and preferably Plans C and D, too.
Leigh tried again.
“I know, and I’m sorry, Carl. But I can’t do this now. I can’t take a year off right now. You know how hard I’ve worked to start getting assigned cases that matter, assisting lawyers who get the interesting cases. I’ve just started being specifically requested by Coleman. He’s the best attorney at the firm! I can’t just give up everything I’ve worked for. I’ll have to start from scratch again when we come back.”
Carl got up restlessly and started pacing.
Leigh wished he wouldn’t. It made her feel as if she was in a cage with a prowling beast.
Carl was tall and lean, with wiry strength in him. Leigh had been attracted to that strength, those nearly liquid gold eyes, that olive skin – really, everything about Carl was attractive. When he paced the room like this, he was feline in his grace.
“But if you don’t do it now, when will you be able to do it?”
That was yet another question Leigh couldn’t really answer. Lately, it had begun to seem as if there were a lot of such questions.
She was a paralegal, and she meant to go to law school and get her law degree, as soon as she was ready for it. She had been studying for the LSAT diligently, and the biggest reason why she hadn’t taken it yet was her job.
She was very good at it. She felt she was learning more at her job than she would at a law school. When she did go to law school, she wanted to graduate at least in the top ten percent, and she wanted to go to an Ivy League school.
Those were all non-negotiable conditions, and being a paralegal, working with the best legal minds in the country, gave her valuable resources. It also gave her contacts. Contacts were almost as important as being good.
No, they were often more important.
She knew that, and she had worked hard to build a network. She wasn’t going to give it up to go backpacking in Cambodia, though backpacking in Cambodia did sound like a lot of fun.
But she couldn’t.
“I don’t know,” said Leigh quietly, and she heard him sigh again.
That sighing was beginning to seriously annoy her.
“Carl, I’m sorry. I could take a few weeks off soon, but there’s absolutely no way I can take an entire year off. Look, you know it’s unfair to ask that. You don’t even need to work!”
She could’ve bit her tongue, but there it was. It was out.
It was true, of course. Carl didn’t have to work. He was a Banford-Miller. The Banford-Millers played at careers because they owned so much land that they didn’t need careers. But Carl had never used his name to get ahead. He had worked hard as a programmer, and he was justifiably proud of that.
He had never used the money behind his name, either. Leigh knew that that was one of the reasons why he was so keen on this plan – he had never gone on any of the international vacations that his family took for granted, not since he was old enough to really remember anything.
This had been a point of pride for him, to do it on his own and see the world on his own terms. He had wanted experiences that his rich family would never have.
Not that he and his family were estranged or
anything. They just saw him as the eccentric one, and when you’ve been in high society for almost as long as high society had existed, eccentricities weren’t a problem. They added character, if anything.
“Do you really think so, Leigh?”
The question was asked softly, but Leigh heard the roiling emotions behind it. She couldn’t blame him for that. She had seriously overstepped, and she had been cruel to do it.
She tried to make up for it.
“No, of course not. I know your career is important to you. All I meant is that if you come back and many of your contacts aren’t useful anymore, you don’t need to worry about supporting yourself while you start from scratch. You don’t have to go back to counting and pinching pennies. I would have to, Carl.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Your parents would support you as happily as mine would support me. No, don’t tell me it’s not the same, Leigh. It’s the same thing. Besides, if I have money, then so do you. You know that, Leigh.”
Leigh felt everything inside her soften. The Wellses might not have as much money as the Banford-Millers, but they weren’t exactly destitute. She knew that she had the choice of not taking a loan when she went to law school, and that was a privilege she didn’t take lightly.
She also knew that Carl’s offers were genuine. Six years together meant they trusted each other. They had assumed, two years ago, that moving in together was the logical next step. Of course, it would soon lead to an engagement, and marriage, then a family. They’d even begun talking about it, in vague terms.
They had recognized each other six years ago, and no matter what, that hadn’t changed.
Had it?
“You know how much this means to me, Carl. I’ve worked so hard. I just can’t do it. I can’t take a year. I’m sorry.”
Carl’s face fell, and he turned away from her. She knew she’d hurt him.
Leigh was tempted to sigh, but she bit it back. There had been more than enough sighing already.
Well, that was dinner ruined. It had been too long since they’d made the time to sit down together for a real meal that included more than one sandwich each. She’d gone to such trouble to get it all right.
But it didn’t look like there was any salvaging it.
Still, she had put a lot of effort into the blackened fish. Might as well eat it, thought Leigh, and attacked the plate in front of her methodically.
Carl left everything on the table and walked away. She heard the bedroom door closed and wondered, again, how they had reached such an impasse.
They used to be able to talk everything through and find compromises. Now, not only was she not very inclined to look for a compromise, she was annoyed that he had so neatly left her to do the washing up.
No point wasting all the food, though.
Leigh finished her food and gathered the plates to take to the kitchen. Once there, she neatly boxed and packed everything and put it in the fridge.
As she wiped down the white counters with the red trim, she found herself soothed by the monotony of the chores.
She didn’t wait for Carl to get to the trash, either. She didn’t want another long suffering sigh.
Leigh walked back to the living room and walked through to the terrace she had fallen in love with two years ago, when she and Carl had decided to move in together. She’d made it her little oasis, with plants and even a couple of boxes of herbs for the kitchen.
She loved getting up in the morning and having coffee on the terrace. She could close her eyes and imagine that it was a real garden, and it was all hers.
She breathed it in, but the calmness she usually found out there seemed to be missing. Even in the city, with city sounds always in the background, she had always felt like she was in a different place when she stepped out there.
Irrationally, she found herself resenting Carl for that peace that evaded her. It wasn’t his fault, of course. She knew that.
It was going to be a hectic week. She had an important case she needed to find many precedents for, and look up a few of the more obscure parts of the law. She was proud, of course, that she was being trusted to do it. But it still meant a lot of work.
Now that dinner had been a bust, she’d need to find a way to make it up to Carl. She knew he would sulk a bit, hoping that she would change her mind. But he’d have to find a way to deal with it.
Maybe she could suggest that he go traveling alone. If it was so important for him to see the world as a backpacker, maybe it could be something he’d like to experience alone.
The thought of a long-distance relationship for a year did give her pause. If she didn’t have the time to go with him, would she have time to make sure that their relationship didn’t just crash and burn when he was away?
Leigh was a bit shocked to realize that she wasn’t sure.
She ran long, slim fingers through her straightened, dark hair that fell past her shoulders. Her whiskey-colored eyes were troubled as she considered her options.
It would be unfair to expect Carl to put his life and his dreams on hold for her, just as it was unfair of Carl to ask her to let her own dream slide back a few steps for him.
It occurred to Leigh that this whole trip was beginning to seem like something she had to do for him, not something they looked forward to doing together.
Well, standing there and brooding wasn’t going to help. She needed to get some sleep.
When she walked to the bedroom after making sure that everything was locked up, and changed into her comfortable old cotton pajamas, she didn’t make a sound.
Carl was already asleep. She was glad. He had been working hard, and he needed the sleep.
Besides, she really didn’t want to argue again.
Leigh stretched out beside him and pulled the blanket over herself.
They could deal with it in the morning. It’s not like lying awake at night, worrying, ever helped anybody.
So Leigh set it aside and slept, but she didn’t sleep well. That was becoming too common, happening far too often, too.
*****
Harrison hated to admit it. But it had to be faced.
He was bored.
There was no challenge in it anymore. It was just too easy.
Of course, he thought with a wry grin, a couple of years ago, he would’ve been thrilled to have things easy. Things had been quite difficult then.
But now that he had that success that had seemed so elusive for a while, he wasn’t too fussed about it, except that he was bored.
Of course, he could work on something new. There were always ideas, and acquisitions, which was the way most entrepreneurs who really made it big seemed to go.
He’d never really thought that his gaming app would take off when he’d been having fun with it. It had just been fun. But then, he had uploaded it, and it had exploded.
When his head stopped spinning, he’d found himself at the head of an empire. So now, at twenty-nine, he found that he could buy whatever he wanted, and most things were available for the right price.
He was disillusioned.
The one thing that he had wanted for a very long time, though, was still not his, and no amount of money could give him that.
Harrison brushed the thought from his mind, and pushed it firmly away.
What he needed was some kind of entertainment to keep him occupied, to make sure that he didn’t start brooding.
Things never went well when Harrison started brooding.
“Anna?”
He pressed the intercom button and called his assistant.
She materialized as if by magic.
Everybody dressed casually at his company – except for Anna, who was pushing fifty and always dressed as if she could go to church. And, possibly, take you to church.
“Yes, Mr. Bloom?”
She was also the only person who called him Mr. Bloom. It was a very strange feeling, especially since he hadn’t grown up getting used to anybody being called that.
Being an orph
an could do very odd things to a person. It could creep up and grab you at the oddest of moments, even when you were all grown up and supposedly past all the trauma.
Anyway, it wasn’t even like he was the stereotypical orphan – if there was such a thing. He was one of the lucky ones.
After his parents had died in a tragic car crash, he hadn’t known what might happen to him. He’d just been ten years old.
But Martha Wells had come home to break the news, along with people in crisp suits who intimidated him. She had explained to him, simply, what had happened, and he remembered how she had struggled to fight back tears even now.
Then she had asked him a simple question: ‘Do you want to come home with me, Harrison?’
And that had been that. She had taken him home, and that had been home.
Well, maybe not that simple. He knew, now, how much they’d had to do to make sure they could keep him, since his parents hadn’t appointed legal guardians. Apparently, they’d assumed that they would live forever, much as he had.
But then, what child ever expects his parents to die, except in nightmares? He had imagined his own parents to be invincible. They had been everything to him. He had never cared about not having grandparents because he’d had them. He hadn’t needed more.
The worst happens when you don’t expect it. At ten, the worst had been if he couldn’t go to the arcade and shoot a few aliens. Until the worst really happened, the day his parents died.
He could still remember the numbness that had crept over him when he was told that his parents had been in an accident.
They’d tried to break it to him gently, of course, but it hadn’t worked. It just didn’t occur to him that they might not come back.
The worst he could imagine happening to his parents… Well, maybe a broken bone or two.
Death had been something he had never even considered.
He hadn’t understood, not really. Not the kind of understanding that makes you feel like your heart is being frozen and you might never feel again.
The Wellses had done more for him than even they realized. He knew that.
They had helped him feel again, when he’d thought he would never feel anything again.
This Was Meant To Be: BWWM Romance Page 1
