Romance: One Fine Holiday by Amy McAdams Read Free Book Online Page B

witty and charming.  A man like that is well out of my league. 
    I knew that from the start.
    But for a few foolish days, I believed that I was good enough for someone like him.  I felt special.  He was certainly the most beautiful man I have ever met.
    But he was a liar.
    He lied to me about being an island local and he lied to me when we jumped the fence. 
    “Are you doing ok?” Kate asks me.
    “I’m fine.  Why?” I try to hide the pain for the sake of the holiday.
    Kate smiles.
    She knows the truth. 
    She can see straight through my lies.
    But she can also tell that I don’t want to talk about it.
    “Here,” Mel leans across, “Let’s go through the pictures.”
    Mel pulls out her camera, loads it up, and begins to flick through the photos from our holidays. 
    The photos are amazing.
    Set against a backdrop of tropical sunshine, the three of us are laughing, smiling and playing in all the photos.
    Those are the parts of this holiday I want to remember.
    I want to remember us sitting by the pool, relaxing at the day spa and drinking wonderful cocktails. 
    Despite the fact that we have not seen each other for a number of years, the whole holiday felt like a continuation of the last time we met.
    These are truly great friends and they are friends that I will have my whole life. 
    I love these women.
    No matter what happens in life, I know that I can rely on their love and support when I need it.  When I needed it on the island, they were there for me.  I hope they feel the same about me.  I hope they know that whenever they need help, they can rely on me.
    I want to remember this holiday for them.
    But sadly, my mind keeps coming back to Clarke. 
    I can’t stop thinking about his amazing eyes, his charm, and his deep voice.  For a short period of time, I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world.
    When he looked at me, I felt like I was the only person that mattered.
    But now I know that it was all part of his game.
    I bet that he has pulled that move a hundred times before.  He must have known that my heart would melt at that first sunrise.
    I shouldn’t have fallen for him but he was too perfect to resist.
    I knew from the start that he was going to break my heart but still I fell for his body.
    Some say it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all – but I say it is better to hold that love, then to have loved and lost. 
    Unfortunately for me, I was just a play toy to Clarke.
    If he had been upfront about his motives from the start then I would have still probably slept with him, and it would have been left at that. 
    But that wasn’t enough for him.
    He had to draw me all the way in, and then cut my heart loose.
    Bastard.
     
     
     
     

 
     
    Chapter 15
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
    Three months later
     
     
     
    I am back at work doing everything that I dread. I was flung straight back into my workload the second I walked through the door.  And then I had to do fourteen hour days on the C.J Rowan case to catch up on everything that I had missed. 
    But it feels comfortable. 
    The city is my security blanket. 
    It is my way to disappear.  I can hide under the hard work and endless commutes.  I can hide under the overload of information, and I can hide in constant noise.
    It is only when I arrive home late at night do I realize I have nothing.
    Work is all I have.
    It fills the space in my head that would otherwise be occupied by thoughts about how lonely I am, but I work so hard that I don’t have much time to think about those feelings.
    My nightly ritual is one of arriving home very late, going to the fridge and microwaving a frozen dinner, only eating half of it because I don’t want to get fat, throwing it in the bin, and then going back to the fridge for ice-cream twenty minutes later because I am still hungry.
    I wake up early to go and exercise and then travel back to the office to slave away for another long day. 
    This is my life.
    It is