AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Prologue
Katie
Could an agreement you made when you were 16 years old really stand up in a court of law?
I know it was a handwritten letter that I had signed, but surely no one would take the promise of marriage made by a 16-year-old seriously?
Well, that’s what I thought. Until the day I turned 30, and an invitation to my own wedding arrived in my post-box.
When you’re a teenager, you say all sorts of things you don’t mean, especially where young love is concerned. You don’t expect to be held responsible for those words’ years later.
At 15, Mum and I went on holiday to Italy. While she was off busying herself with the Italian waiters half her age, I was left to my own devises, just how I liked it. I have always enjoyed my own company, but in those two weeks, I was never alone, and I loved every minute of it.
On the first day I was walking around the hotel grounds when I heard a whistle. Turning in that direction to investigate, I saw a boy peeping through the fence. He waved me over, and me being the confident teenager I was, I went straight over to him. The boy was Italian, he spoke very little English, but something about him fascinated me, we just clicked. His name was Leonardo, Leo; he was also 15. Every day he climbed over that fence to get into the hotel grounds. We had to be careful no one saw him, he was always so worried about being caught. As the hotel was quite posh and expensive, I assumed he was poor and thought he would get in trouble if he were caught.
We spent every minute we could together. Some nights we even fell asleep under the stars. My mum didn’t notice whether I was in my bed or not. Leo was my first-holiday romance, my first love, my first everything. My heart was broken when I had to leave him and return home. We promised to write to each other every week, which we did. We spoke on the phone whenever we could; I used to count down the days between our calls. Not having a mobile back then meant I had to use the house phone in the hall. I’d pull the wire as far as I could to sit in the coat cupboard in private. This went on for 12 months, each day I fell more and more in love with him.
That was until one day, I arrived home from school to find Mum and I had been evicted. Our house had been repossessed. The doors and windows were boarded up. Notices stuck all over them. We couldn’t even go in and collect our things. We had nothing. My dad insisted I live with him after that. The worst thing about it was that I lost all my letters from Leo. Off by heart, I couldn’t remember his address or his phone number. All the letters I had kept in a box under my bed along with my address book. Devastated didn’t even come close to how I felt. For weeks I tried to remember his phone number, dialling hundreds of combinations, praying one day it would be the right one. But it never was. I cried myself to sleep with a broken heart for months.
A few years later, when Facebook came about, I tried to search for him, but not being able to remember his surname didn’t get me very far.
However, my memory did remember that in our last letter to each other, we promised that if neither of us was married when we turned 30, we would be together and marry each other….
Today is my 30th birthday, and I have just received an invitation to my own wedding!
Chapter 1
Katie
Don’t you just love waking up in the morning? Feeling all warm, cosy and relaxed. I stretch out and feel the broad shoulders of my boyfriend, Jax. Slowly opening my eyes, I’m greeted by the morning sun peeking in around the blinds. I’m at Jax’s place; it’s where I spend most of my nights now. Jax begins to wake up too; he turns and pulls me into him.
“Good morning, beautiful.” Smiling, I snuggled into his arms. I love waking up like this. Jax smells amazing. I’ve no idea what aftershave he uses, but he still smells of it in the morning, that and his sexy manly smell. Running my hand over his head and down the back of his neck, I enjoy the feeling of his short hair against my palm. His dark green eyes are now wide open, watching me with that intense stare he does just before he is about to devour me. With tattoos from his neck down to his wrists, he can be quite scary-looking if you don’t know him. But I know him, every delicious bit of him.
Climbing on top of him for a better view, I trace the tattoos across his chest. His nipples harden while a grown escapes his throat. I bend to kiss his eager, strong lips, but just as I reach them…
*BOOM! * A loud bang echoes through the building.
Jax instantly throws me off him. Flying across the room with such a force my body collides with the radiator. My head splits on its hard metal corner.
“Ouch!” Looking up, I see Jax in his boxers, pointing a gun at the closed bedroom door. A Gun? Where the hell did he get a gun from? Jax doesn’t own a gun. Does he?
“Police, open up!”
The bedroom door breaks off its hinges, falling to the floor at Jax’s feet.
“Drop your weapon!” Three large policemen wearing full riot gear aim their huge, terrifying-looking guns at Jax. Jax drops his gun, putting his hands in the air. Two police officers in normal uniform enter the bedroom. They read him his rights, put him in handcuffs, and escort him out of the room. I can’t believe the scene in front of me. Just 5 minutes ago, I was happy, content and safe, or so I thought.
“Jax, what’s going on?” But Jax doesn’t say a word. He exits the bedroom without even a glance towards me.
“Katie?” My name makes me jump. I hadn’t noticed the police lady standing at the side of me. “You need to come with me. You have one minute to get dressed; then we will go to the station.” She hands me my dressing gown and points to the bathroom. Grabbing yesterday’s clothes off the chair, I enter the bathroom, locking the door behind me. Staring at my reflection, I shake my head in disbelief. This must be some kind of mistaken identity. When the police read Jax his rights, they said something about theft and murder. There’s no way Jax would have done anything like that. Splashing my face with some water, I put on a brave face. Quickly brushing my teeth and tying my hair up, I’m good to go.
“Katie, we need to leave!” The policewoman bangs on the door. I put my gym pants on and pull my hoodie over my head. “Ouch,” I had forgotten about the bang on my head. The bathroom lock turns, and the door opens. She’s obviously had enough of waiting for me and unlocked the door from her side.
“What’s taking so long?” Noticing the blood on my hands, having just touched my head, she comes in to inspect it.
“It’s not too bad. Come on; we’ve got a nurse at the station who will sort that out.”
After the nurse has cleaned and glued my head, I’m taken to an interview room.
