by Mj Fields
Hearts So Big
MJ Fields
Blue Valley Publishing LLC
Contents
Hearts So Big
Disclaimer
Also By MJ Fields
Dedication
Play List
Synopsis
1. Stella
2. The Past
3. Stella
4. The Past
5. Stella
6. Stella
7. Stella
8. Stella
9. Stella
10. The Past
11. Stella
12. Stella
13. Stella
14. Stella
15. Stella
16. Stella
17. Stella
18. Elijah
19. Aaron
20. Aaron
21. Aaron
22. Stella
23. Aaron
24. Stella
25. Aaron
26. Stella
27. Aaron
28. Stella
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Hearts So Big
By MJ Fields
Hearts So Big
Timeless Love, Book 3
Copyright (c) MJ Fields, 2019
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of MJ Fields, except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
1st Edition
Published– Blue Valley Publishing, LLC.
Edits– C&D editing
Line Edits and Proofing– Donna Cooksley Sanderson
Disclaimer
This book contains mature content not suitable for those under the age of 18. It involves strong language and sexual situations. All parties portrayed in sexual situations are consenting adults over the age of 18.
Also By MJ Fields
The Steel Series (World)
The Men of Steel Series
Jase • Cyrus • Zandor • Xavier • Raising Steel
The Ties of Steel Series
Abe • Dominic • Eroe • Sabato
The Rockers of Steel Series
Memphis Black • Finn Beckett • River James • Billy Jeffers
The Match Duet
Match This! • ImPerfectly Matched!
The Steel Country Series
Hammered • Destroyed • Wasted
Tied in Steel
Terzetto • Valentina • Paige • Gia (Coming Soon)
LRAH Legacy Series (World)
These families’ stories are intertwined starting with The Love series, they move to the Wrapped Series, the Burning Souls series, Love You Anyways, 27 Truths, 27 Lies, Her First Kiss, His First Crush, and Their First Fall.
Many more series will spin off from these supporting characters already mentioned, and each will be a standalone series, but for those of us who love a story to continue, I recommend reading in this order.
The Love Series
(Lucas Links Story)
(Must Be Read In This Order)
Blue Love • New Love • Sad Love • True Love
The Wrapped Series
(Brody Hines Story)
Wrapped in Silk • Wrapped in Armor • Wrapped in Always and Forever
Burning Souls Series
(Maddox Hines Story)
Stained • Forged • Merged
LRAH Legacy Additions
Love You Anyway • Love Notes
The Truth About Love Series
(Ava Links story)
27 Truths • 27 Lies
Firsts Series
(Begins with London Fields story)
Her First Kiss • His First Crush • Their First Fall• 27 truths About Their First Goodbye•
Their Final Play coming in July 2019
Standalone Series
The Norfolk Series
Irons • Shadows
Titan (April 2019)
The Caldwell Brothers Series
(co-written w/ Chelsea Camaron)
Hendrix • Morrison • Jagger • Visibly Broken • Use Me
Save Me • Teach Me (releasing in late 2019)
Timeless Love series
Cinq A Sept • Amour Battu • Hearts So Big
Couture Love (June2019)
Stand Alone Sports Romance
Offensive Rebound
Dedication
To all those who carry Hearts So Big,
that you place others needs before yours,
your time is now.
Play List
100 Years- Five For Fighting
When You Were Young- Ella Mae Brown
Shallow – Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
How Far I’ll Go – Moana Soundtrack
Despacito- Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber
It’s Not Over – Secondhand Serenade
Synopsis
We don’t always choose who we fall in love with.
It just so happened that I fell in love over a box of crayons and a smile.
Growing up, it was always the three of us: Elijah Donahue, with his genius IQ and a smile he only shared with me. Our best friend, Aaron Esposito, with his crystal-blue eyes and a smile he shared with everyone. And me, Stella McCarty, the girl with the chapped lips and unruly hair. Then we grew apart, which is putting it mildly.
I felt the loss, though my heart belonged to Elijah and his to me.
When my father passed away, we grew back together again. I couldn’t have gotten through that time if not for the both of them. But then, when I graduated from college and moved back home from London, it became obvious that I had been oblivious to the fact that they had never stopped hating one another.
Elijah and Aaron’s hate for one another had apparently been hindered by their love for me.
Only, I didn’t know that they both loved me in the same way.
And I wished I never did.
Love isn’t supposed to feel like this.
It isn’t supposed to hurt.
1
Stella
Present Day
“Eight hours and twenty-seven minutes. You got this, Stella McCarty,” I mutter the chant under my breath as I take the final step onto the Boeing aircraft that will take me from London to New York. I keep my head down to hide the anxiety written all over my face, not wanting to cause any uneasiness, nervousness, or distress to anyone sitting around me.
The truth is: I hate flying.
Hate. It.
Sitting in first class, I buckle my seat belt, even though the flight won’t take off for another twenty minutes, then pull my phone out of my carry-on and scroll through it as I try to trick my anxiety into believing we are simply spending the next eight hours and twenty-seven minutes looking at pictures of sweet kittens, fuzzy puppies, and the de la Porte’s fashion blog. Yet, even that—my pet project from my post-graduate internship at de la Porte’s London headquarters—can’t keep me from feeling like a spool of worry.
I look at the empty seat beside me where Elijah, my boyfriend of five years, was supposed to be flying back stateside with me, angry he had to cancel last minute.
I take a calming breath, remembering what Elijah said on the phone before he had to go into a meeting.
“
Stella, you’ve flown transatlantic flights two or three times a year for four years now. You’re going to be fine.” He had then covered the phone while barking out orders to his latest assistant, Spencer.
I cringed at the way he was speaking to his employees, which is probably the reason he’s been through more secretaries in the past four years as the number of flights I have taken.
I mentally put that on the list of things he and I need to talk about.
“Just take a pill, do a shot, pass out, and I will see you when you get to New York.”
If he had been anyone else but my Elijah Donahue, I would have told him to take a pill. However, he wasn’t just anyone else. He was the boy who has loved me since we were toddlers, and I was the only girl who has ever made him smile. Even with all he had been through—a scandal involving his father, the late Benton Donahue, who co-owned one of the largest investment securities companies in the country, Donahue and Hearst—I could still make him smile.
It was speculated that Donahue and Hearst’s funds had been mismanaged, so the company was investigated. His father was asked to step down as CEO. His partner, the less business-minded socialite elitist, Evan Hearst, replaced him.
Evan didn’t give a damn about the business, but somehow he was able to save it, because his son was Elijah’s best friend, and Elijah, the freaking genius, would spend hours at their home and at the Manhattan office, worried about the business, helping to solve the issues of the missing funds in order to save the company … at thirteen years old.
My man was a child prodigy. A genius.
When the board figured out it was a boy puppeteering the man they had put in charge, and the news was leaked to hostile employees, competitors, and naysayers, Evan spun it like only a man of money and connections could.
At just thirteen, Elijah had news article after article written about him, the “Wonder Boy” who saved Donahue and Hearst, and somehow, investors trusted them even more.
Because of Elijah.
When Elijah’s father, Benton, and his best friend Aaron’s mother, Joselyn, died in the accident, foul play was alleged. Evan was the prime suspect, and the faith in the company was shaken once again.
Evan stepped down, and then the first fifteen-year-old CEO was appointed to a major investment firm in New York City.
Despite all this, Elijah still went to school, the same arts high school I attended, and he never spoke of his job nor did anyone ever say a word to him about it. Except for Timmy Thurston.
When Timmy approached the subject, Elijah gave him a bone-chilling death stare, and no one ever said another word to him about it.
He always kept to himself, was at the top of our class, his designs flawless. He loved designing. It’s the only time I ever saw him relaxed.
My biggest wish is to see him laid back once again.
When the plane’s engine begins to start, preparing for takeoff, I grip the armrest, my palms beginning to sweat, and my wish changes.
Closing my eyes, I wish for a safe flight.
My wish turns to prayer as the plane starts to taxi down the runway.
I try to push the fear away, knowing my anxiety is all in my head.
As the plane takes off, I hold my breath. As terrified as I am, I know I will be fine.
Eight hours and twenty-seven minutes. You got this, Stella McCarty.
Sitting in the back of the black Town Car, driven by Roger—whoever Roger is—I look down at my phone again and read the message Elijah sent as I was getting off the plane.
Elijah: Sorry, I couldn’t be there to greet you when you landed. Had a last-minute issue to deal with. Roger will take you wherever you’d like to go. I’ll meet you at seven. Glad to have you back in New York.
I’m annoyed, tired, and deeply bothered by his message.
I tap out my response:
Me: First, you bailed on flying back with me, then you send Roger to pick me up from the airport. NOT ONCE did you message me while on the flight to see how I was doing, and now… now you will meet me? We had plans, Elijah. Fucking plans. We were going to dinner, then back to your place so I could shower, we could make love, and I could sleep in your arms for the first time in nearly six weeks.
I read it repeatedly, my finger hovering over send.
I want him to know that it’s not okay. But it’s my Elijah, and as much as I get angry—more hurt—when he doesn’t put me first, I think back to the time he asked me to stay here for college, and I told him that London was my dream. I knew he didn’t like it, but he accepted it.
Instead of hitting send, I tap the back arrow to delete my message, not wanting to hurt his feelings. He has a lot going on, too. He’s running Donahue and Hearst full-time now and is incredibly stressed.
But I never thought that was what he wanted. It wasn’t his dream. His dream was design. Or, at least that’s what he told me.
I guess things change.
“Where to, Miss?” Roger asks.
Where to? I think to myself. Where to?
“The Staten Island ferry.”
I’m going home—my childhood home—to shower and rest, and then face whatever is to come next.
“I can take you to Mr. Donahue, Miss.”
“I would rather not. I’m tired. I’d like to ride the ferry.”
“Of course, Miss.”
Leaning against the window, I look at the cars we pass, watch the buildings go by, and when I see he’s opted to take the Belt Parkway around Brooklyn, I am tempted to ask that he take the route through Brooklyn’s neighborhoods because I’ve missed the area. But I’m tired and mentally exhausted from the flight I hadn’t slept on, so I don’t.
I lean my head against the seat, knowing it will take over forty minutes to get to the Whitehall Terminal in lower Manhattan, where I will wait for the big orange ferry and board it to ride the twenty-five minutes to One Bay Street, bringing me fifteen minutes from my home.
When my eyes become heavy, I fight to keep them open, not wanting to fall asleep. It’s almost unbelievable how relaxed I feel being in a car with hundreds of distracted drivers that could easily look away from the road before them, cause a life-altering, if not fatal, accident. Yet, I feel safer amongst them than on a plane in the open sky.
Statistically speaking, I am much safer in the air.
I know this.
I do.
“Miss.”
I hear a male voice before I feel him tap my shoulder. I’m so tired I don’t even care that it’s not a familiar voice.
“Miss.”
The second time I hear him, I mumble something incoherent. Hell, I’m not even sure what I said.
“Mi—”
“Roger, let her sleep.”
I know that voice.
I inhale, and his bold, spicy scent fills me.
Elijah.
“Sir, I didn’t realize you were coming,” Roger says.
I feel my eyes burn with pending tears behind my heavy lids. Then I hear a door open on the other side of the car and feel him slide in next to me.
“Take us to the Upper East Side.”
“Right away, sir.”
I keep my eyes closed, not wanting him to see my emotions, all the while trying not to move closer to him like I want to.
When he pushes my hair off my face, he sighs, “Sleep, Stella.”
When I feel a tear trickle down my cheek, he pulls me closer to him.
He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t wipe away my tears, but he tucks his arm behind me and holds me. Still, I dare not open my eyes. I fear my tears, my sadness, will somehow burden him.
After several minutes, I get my emotions in check, and when I look up into his dark green eyes, his eyes narrow slightly. I smile slowly as I look at him, and his mouth curls up in one corner.
“How bad did you miss me, Stella?” He takes my hand and places it on the crotch of his pants, gripping his erection beneath our hands.
I feel heat building as my exhausted body begins to tin
gle with awareness and desire.
He looks up and past me, saying, “Close the divider, Roger, and take your time.”
When the divider closes, he looks at me, eyes darkening with desire. “Show me, Stella. Show me how much you missed me.” He unbuttons his pants and pulls them down just far enough for his impressive length to be fully on display. “Suck my dick, Stella. Show me.”
So, I do.
It doesn’t take him long to finish, and as I lick my lips and sit upright, he smiles.
I lean in for a kiss I desperately need. He cups my chin, and I close my eyes as he kisses me on the cheek.
Slightly shocked, I open my eyes.
He pulls me into a hug then leans forward, moving me backward, and knocks on the dividing window. “Get us to my place as soon as you can, Roger.”
“Yes, sir.”
He sits back, not looking at me, and continues, “Get Spencer on the line. Let her know Miss McCarty will be with me this evening, and I won’t need her to accompany me to the Schwartz fundraiser.”
