Jilted by Rachael Johns Read Free Book Online

it all rushing back. The intensity of first love, first passion. How he had loved her so completely and stood up for her at every turn. Romeo and Juliet had nothing on Flynn and Ellie. Hope Junction had been up in arms when their golden boy – son of third-generation landowners – had started going out with her. Not only did she not come from farming stock, but her mother had dumped her and her father hadn’t even stuck around long enough to see her born. Thankfully the teenage Flynn had already developed both backbone and morals. He didn’t give a damn what the town thought. He saw past her situation to the real Ellie, and before long his dedication won over his parents and the rest of the town too. Pretty soon Ellie was loved and accepted as if she were a fourth-generation local as well, and that was no easy feat. When Flynn had asked her to marry him, everyone was genuinely ecstatic. The only comments about them being too young came from girls Ellie’s age and she wrote off their jibes as simple jealousy.
    ‘Oh Flynn.’ Sniffing, she looked down at the photo and tried to push away the millions of what if’s that floated into her mind. What if things had been different? What if her mother had never asked to meet her in Perth? What if, for once, she’d put her own needs first and said no? What if Flynn had come with her to Perth as he’d said he would? What if she’d stayed and married him anyway? Would they be happy now? Would they have kids? Some would say her life in Sydney as an actress and celebrity was a charmed one, but her whole body ached with the thought of just how magical it could have been if she’d been living it with Flynn.
    Sunday morning, Flynn woke. His head throbbed and a heavy naked weight lay sprawled across his equally naked chest. This realisation roused him like no bucket of cold water ever could.
    Glancing round the lamplit room at his surroundings and then taking a closer look at the woman in his arms, he froze. Scenes of the previous night flashed one after the other. Cringeworthy and stupid didn’t even begin to describe what he saw and how he felt. He wanted more than anything to extricate himself from beneath Lauren.
    Lauren? Had the drink stolen every ounce of his common sense? Again? He wanted to collect his clothes from wherever they’d landed, flee home, crawl under the bedcovers and stay there all day. He wanted to forget this nightmare had ever happened. But he saw one immediate problem with that tempting scenario. Lauren.
    He’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to have noticed the mammoth crush she’d harboured for him since primary school. But he’d been fastidious in avoiding her advances – at least until now. Because although she was fun and pretty – if you liked her kind of style – she was also a local. Flings had been few and far between in recent years, but any that Flynn did have, he kept far out side the boundaries of Hope Junction. Local girls were a no-go zone. It was safer and easier that way.
    Lauren, on the other hand, was very local. And she was like most single women approaching their thirtieth year. Stars in her eyes when it came to weddings, babies and happily-ever-afters. But after all Flynn had been through with Ellie, he didn’t have a marrying bone left in his body.
    He cursed himself and his lack of restraint, not so much for not resisting Lauren, but for getting so absolutely hammered that he thought hooking up with her was a good idea in the first place. He’d been dry for eight years now, and although his addiction was always in the back of his mind, he’d forgotten how much of a tool he became, and the kind of stupid choices he made, when he got drunk. It wasn’t pretty, nor something he was proud of.
    Lauren shifted on his chest. She made a tiny noise like a mewling cat and opened her eyes. Their faces so close, he could do nothing but look straight into her eyes. She smiled like a Cheshire; he gulped like a minnow facing a great