Falling for the Forbidden: Forbidden Series #1

by Lorraine, Tracy

  I let out a huge breath and head back up to my room to finish packing for the party. I’m getting ready with my best friend Hannah and her twin Emma, who live next door. We’ve all been friends for as long as I can remember. Being twins, Hannah and Emma are really close, but Hannah and I are not far behind. The three of us do almost everything together; their parents have often joked that they have triplets, really.

  I always laugh along.

  Even though they know what my life is like, I don’t think any of them really appreciate how much I wish that were true.

  I’m just shoving my fourth outfit choice for the night into my bag when I hear my brother downstairs, greeting Mum. She instantly responds to him, which makes me laugh to myself, although it’s anything but funny. One of her golden boys has come to visit. I bet if he needed something, she’d ruin that new nail varnish in an instant. God, I can’t wait to get out of this hellhole I call home.

  “Is Molly still here?” Daniel asks.

  Her reply sounds suspiciously like, “I have no idea.”

  Walking to the other side of the room, I rest my hands on the windowsill and blow out a long breath as I gaze out over the countryside, trying to calm myself down. I keep telling myself not to get worked up by their actions, but sometimes it’s easier said than done.

  “Hey sis, I’m glad you’re still here,” Daniel says as he enters my room a few minutes later. My brothers are a lot older than me; I was an unplanned accident fifteen and a half years ago. Daniel is my youngest older brother and, at thirty years old, he’s crazy protective of me. Steven is, too, but he now has a serious girlfriend so I’m seeing less of him these days. Daniel is my idol—always has been. He doesn’t take life too seriously, does exactly as he pleases, works bloody hard, but always has fun. That’s exactly what I want my life to be like, and I plan on making it so—once I get out on my own.

  “Hey.” I only manage one word because, as soon as I see him, I burst into tears. He pulls me into a tight hug. I hate that Mum and Dad can do this to me. Can make me feel so worthless. It makes me angry every time a tear falls for their actions. I wish I could be stronger.

  “What have they done now?” Daniel asks. Both he and Steven know how our parents treat me. Hell, I couldn’t count the number of arguments I’ve overheard about it on both hands and feet, but nothing ever changes. I’m just grateful that I have two amazing older brothers to turn to if I need to. Plus, I have my adopted family next door, who I’m pretty sure would do just about anything for me if I needed it.

  “Nothing. I’m fine,” I say, pulling away from him and wiping my eyes. I look at him and see the questions in his. “No, really; I’m just being a silly, hormonal teenager.”

  “Hmm…whatever you say, Molls. You still going to that party tonight?” I don’t believe for a second that he buys my lie, but he knows it’s easier for me not to discuss it. Nothing he can say is going to make any of it better, anyway.

  “Of course, why?”

  “I got you something.” I watch as he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a small bottle of vodka before handing it to me.

  “What’s this for?” He looks at me and quirks an eyebrow. “I know it’s to drink, you fool, but why are you giving it to me?”

  “Because I remember what it was like being your age, and I didn’t think anyone else would be buying you some. You deserve to act your age, Molly. Let your hair down. You work too damn hard trying to get your grades. But please be sensible. I don’t want to be visiting you in the hospital or be an uncle yet. Actually…” He pauses as he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet.

  My eyes widen in embarrassment. “No, no, no…I’m good, you don’t need to worry about that.”

  I hate to admit it, but Daniel is the only one who knows what I’ve been up to. He let himself into my room one day while I was in my ensuite to find an open box of condoms on the bed and, being the protective brother that he is, counted them and realised two were missing. I’m hoping he doesn’t want more of an explanation than that, because I really don’t want to sit here and explain to my adult brother that I took myself off to the doctors a while ago and got myself on the pill—you know, just in case. Wouldn’t that make Mummy and Daddy proud, to be grandparents while their daughter was still a teenager? Imagine the embarrassment.

  “Okay, well, have a good time tonight, and ring me if you have any problems, yeah?”

  “I promise.”

  I know I mentioned drugs and alcohol to my mum downstairs, but my group of friends isn’t really into all that. I only said it as a way to provoke her in the hopes of getting some kind of reaction. Yes, there are plenty of kids at school who are at it every weekend, but my group actually cares about getting good grades and good jobs. The bottle of vodka Daniel just handed me will probably be it for us tonight.

  “See you later then, kid,” he says before kissing my forehead and leaving my room.

  * * *

  “That was awesome,” Hannah squeals as the three of us stumble into the twins’ bedroom sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning. Emma heads straight over to her side of the room and immediately starts replacing her party clothes with her pyjamas, while Hannah and I sit on her bed and reflect on the evening.

  “So…come on, spill it…where did you go with Callum?” Hannah pleads.

  “Just for a walk in the garden. I told you earlier!”

  “I didn’t believe you then, and I still don’t now. I saw you two getting off with each other in the corner before you disappeared.”

  Callum is the boy at school that every girl dreams of. He’s sporty, clever, funny and, of course, seriously hot, which is exactly why no one expected him to show his face tonight. But he did, and let’s just say that I got to know him a little better than I did before. I’m yet to decide if that’s a good thing or not.

  “Will you two keep it down? I want to get up early tomorrow to do some coursework before we go to Grandma’s,” Emma complains from her bed.

  Okay, so I said before that we work hard to get good grades, but Emma takes it to the extreme. I was actually surprised she gave herself tonight off. She’s doing A-level maths already and does Spanish lessons after school to get herself an extra GCSE. I think she’s putting too much pressure on herself, but she can’t seem to stop in her quest to be the best accountant Oxford has ever seen.

  “Sorry,” we whisper simultaneously.

  “So…come on, Molly, tell me,” Hannah says, keeping her voice low.

  I let out a frustrated breath and go for it. “Okay, so we went outside and found a quiet corner in the garden behind a bush. He pulled me down to the ground and we kissed for a while and let our hands…roam a little.” I look up at Hannah and can see her excitement about what might come next.

  “Oh my God, did you have sex with him?” she asks, but says the word sex much quieter. I don’t know why; it’s only Emma who could be listening.

  “No, I didn’t. I sorta thought we were going to, but by the time I got into his boxers, he was so worked up that he went off like a firework!” I can’t help it, I burst out laughing at the memory, earning me another grumble from Emma.

  “But I thought Callum’s slept with loads of girls?” Hannah asks, confused.

  “That’s what the rumour mill says…I would be inclined to say that this was his first experience and the rumours are just that: rumours.” We fall about giggling like the schoolgirls we are; I guess that vodka hasn’t totally worn off yet.

  “So, you were going to have sex with him, then?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say, shrugging my shoulders.

  “But don’t you want to wait until you’re in love?” she asks innocently.

  The only thing I have never told my best friend is that I lost my virginity last year at a party. Hannah has a different outlook on life thanks to her normal, loving family, and I don’t want to have to explain my reasons for doing what I did that night—and a few times since. I totally understand her
desire to wait until she’s in love, and I admire her for it, but what I needed that night—what I still need—is to feel wanted by someone. And that first night? That was exactly how I felt.

  Falling for Ryan: Part One

  Chapter One

  Molly

  Present

  It’s midnight, and I’ve been sat on Ryan’s doorstep for nearly an hour. I’ve already started on one of the bottles of wine. Although it was a scorching summer’s day, the heat has now worn off, the clouds have gathered, and it’s lumping it down with rain. I’m trying to tuck myself into his little porch to stop from getting so wet, but with the wind direction, it’s not doing much good. I’m soaked through. It was a silly idea to pick white t-shirts when I rebranded the coffee shop; thank God for padded bras!

  By the time I’d cleaned and locked up, it was just gone ten. I love working at Cocoa’s and have done so since I was sixteen. Hannah and Emma’s parents own it. Susan started the business after she finished university. She came into some inheritance and, with the money, Cocoa’s was born. The place was a huge part of my childhood. Hannah, Emma, and I would go there after school to do homework or just chat about boys, and it pretty much stayed that way until we finished university. We still have a booth in the back corner dedicated to us.

  I will forever be grateful for Susan and her husband, Pete, whom she actually met as a customer in Cocoa’s. It was love at first sight for them. Not only did they give me a job, but they took me under their wing when I was much younger.

  Megan, who works in the evenings, had a phone call from her boyfriend at eight o’clock saying their little boy was really sick. I let her go home to be with him and finished up the rest of the night on my own.

  Once I got in my car, all I could think about was having a nice hot bath and snuggling into bed in my tiny one-bed flat with my boyfriend, Max. We’ve been together on and off for the past three years, but when Hannah, whom I’d lived with above the coffee shop, decided eight months ago that she wanted her own boyfriend to move into the flat, I decided it was time I moved out and left them to it. Max had suggested I move in with him. I wasn’t thrilled by the idea, to be honest, but at the time I didn’t have the money to find anywhere decent to live. I hate being alone. I would have had to find someone who was renting out a room anyway, so it seemed like a sensible suggestion and a logical step in our relationship.

  A week later, we all moved. Me into Max’s flat, and Hannah’s boyfriend into the one we’d shared for the past six years.

  The ten-minute drive to our home seemed to take forever. I pulled up out the front; it was weird to be parking next to Max’s car. He had worked nights the whole time I’d known him.

  I dragged my body up the stairs to the third floor and let myself in. I shut the door behind me; the only light was coming from the bedroom. My heart dropped into my stomach when I heard voices and strange noises coming from down the hallway. As quietly as I could, I tiptoed towards them.

  When I got to the door, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Now, I knew Max was no angel, but I was under the impression that we had put the past behind us when we decided to live together and had become a monogamous couple. Yes, the past few months had been a strain, but still.

  What was happening before my eyes on our bed showed me how wrong I was.

  I numbly slipped back down the hallway and grabbed a couple of pairs of knickers that, luckily for me, were drying on the radiator, and left.

  I tried to keep myself together as I made a pit stop at the shop on my way to Ryan’s house. I didn’t want to be one of those emotional women sobbing in the alcohol aisle, trying to decide which bottle would make me forget.

  Once I’d paid for two bottles of my favourite wine and a crate of lager for Ryan, I made my way over to his new house. He’d only moved in two weeks ago, although it was months ago that he made the decision to buy the three-story townhouse in the new development on the outskirts of the city. It was basically a pile of bricks when he took me with him to see it for the first time, but I could see why he’d fallen in love with it. It was modern and spacious, with amazing views across fields from the back. From the front, you could see all the lights from the city in the distance. Because it was yet to be finished, it meant Ryan could choose a lot of the interior to suit his taste, and he didn’t have to spend his whole summer re-decorating.

  Grabbing my phone, I open up my messages to re-read the conversation I’d had with him earlier. He said he was going out tonight to celebrate the end of the school year but that he wasn’t expecting to be home late. I guess that didn’t really go as planned—not that he’d be expecting me to be sitting here waiting for him.

  I’m starting to think I should have gone somewhere else. It’s not that I don’t have any other options, but out of all my friends and family, Ryan knows me the best.

  What we’ve been through this year has made us close. I think I can safely say he’s turned into my best friend somewhere in the last six months.

  As I wait, images of what was happening on my bed flash though my head. I guess I should have seen it coming, really. A leopard never changes it spots, right?

  Eventually, the tears come flooding out. To add to my misery, I now have black mascara streaks running down my cheeks and red puffy eyes.

  Finally, I see headlights coming my way and Ryan’s white Honda Civic pulling into his drive. At first, he looks shocked to see me. That changes to anger as he strides towards me.

  Ryan

  As I come to a stop, I can see that there’s a very wet Molly huddled in my porch. She looks dreadful. I come to a very quick conclusion that it’s because of her dickhead of a boyfriend. I knew it was coming; it was just a matter of when.

  “Ryan,” Molly sobs as I lift her tiny frame off the ground and into a hug. She shakes from both the cold and the sobs wracking her body.

  Tucking her into my side, I grab her bags and let us in. On the ground floor, my townhouse has a large room with French doors looking out to the courtyard garden, and a bathroom. I thought it would make an excellent gym. The middle floor is an open-plan kitchen, living, and dining room with a small cloakroom, and the top floor has three bedrooms, one being the master with ensuite and the other a large family bathroom.

  I love it.

  From the moment I looked at the plans, I just knew it was going to be my little piece of heaven, and I’m still in awe that I was able to buy this place. I’ll be forever grateful for the generous gift from Susan and Pete. Nothing will ever make up for what we all lost, but thanks to them, I’ve been able to attempt to move on with my life.

  Currently, there are boxes everywhere. I haven’t had much time to unpack with everything I had to do at school to end the year, but my first holiday job is to get this place sorted and looking like a home.

  Anger fills my veins as I lead us up to the living room. “It’s going to be okay. Let’s get you warm and dry and you can tell me what the fucker did.” My fists clench. I want to beat the shit out of him for treating her so badly for so long.

  “How do you know he’s done anything?” Molly asks in a quiet voice.

  “I can read you like a book, Molly Carter. Plus, he’s a massive dickhead. I think I’ve mentioned that before. Only Max can make you feel this bad about yourself.”

  “Why was I so fucking stupid? I had my doubts, everyone had their doubts, but he convinced me that it was what he wanted. I’m not really surprised, but what does shock me is how much it hurts.”

  “Come on, get your arse upstairs and in the shower. I’ll find you a t-shirt to wear.”

  * * *

  As I root through a suitcase in one of the spare bedrooms, the door to my ensuite shuts. I pull out my Oxford Brookes polo and leave it on my bed. I hope my choice will make her smile, remembering happier times.

  I knock lightly on the door. “Have you got everything you need?”

  There’s silence for a few seconds, and I can imagine her checking out all the products in the shower, real
ising they’re all for men. Eventually, I hear a quiet “Yes” from the other side of the door.

  “Okay, I’ll see you downstairs when you’re done. Take your time.”

  I gather up her wet clothes and take them with me. They may be soaked, but I can still smell her vanilla scent on them. It makes me feel oddly warm inside. She’s been my rock for the past six months. I don’t know what I would have done without her.

  As I put everything in the washing machine, I spot her bra poking out of the pile. “What the fuck do I do with this?” I mutter to myself. Something in me wonders if it needs some kind of special cycle in the machine, but fuck if I know. I decide to shove it all in and just put it on a cool, quick wash.

  That shouldn’t do it much damage, right?

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