This is not your cookie-cutter childhood best friend love story.
We were best friends since as early as I could remember. We grew up together. We were next door neighbors. We shared each other’s deepest secrets. When I was thirteen, we made a pact: if we were still single by the time we were 30, we’d marry each other.
Today was my thirtieth birthday. I was single. I knew he was single too.
But we were no longer best friends, and a part of me knew that he hated me.
This is book one of a three book series. Books two and three will be full-length novels.
Book Two: Promise to Keep
Book Three: Promise of Forever
***New Adult Contemporary Romance **Mature Content** Recommended for 17+ due to mature language and adult situations.***
Promise to Keep is book two in the USA Today bestselling three-book series Promises.
I’ve loved her since we were seven. We were best friends. We even made a pact to marry each other if we were both still single at thirty. I grew up thinking I would always love her for the rest of my life.
But I was proven wrong. Because the first time I made love to her turned out to be the first time I hated her. It became the first time she hurt me, and the first time I wanted nothing to do with her.
Today, nine years after the day that broke us apart, we are both thirty and single, and fate decided to intervene. I finally discovered that the reasons behind her betrayal were far different from the ones I’d created years ago in my mind.
Now I’m torn between my hatred over what she did and my undying love for the one girl who I’ve held close to my heart for most of my life.
But is the truth enough for me to forgive her?
Jackson lays it all on the line…
Keep reading to see the full Love Note!
Dear Chloe,
Last night seemed like a vivid memory from our childhood, and for the first time in almost a decade, I felt that pure happiness of having you by my side return to me. It was a feeling I’d never thought was possible again. But when I woke up this morning to see you still fast asleep in my arms, I knew what I felt last night had been real, and not a dream. Right now, the sun is just starting to come out over the horizon. It’s starting to cast its pale yellow light across your face, and I am in awe with how beautiful and peaceful you look asleep next to me.
Clo, as much as I’ve wanted to resist it, my heart has continued to reach out for you over the years. The hatred I had held onto toward you was built upon the intense hurt and love I’d always had for you. Maybe it’d been fate trying to tell me something, but earlier this week, a quote in the newspaper had caught my eye: “Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” It’d come at the perfect time. It was then that I’d realized that forgiveness might be the ultimate display of love. And if I truly loved you like I’d always thought I had, then forgiveness was something I had to show you.
So please give me time to forgive you, and please also try to forgive me for all the times I’d hurt you, forsaken you, and disappointed you. Despite everything that’d happened between us, I am choosing to hold onto the moments that my heart cares for the most: the moments I’d fallen in love with you again and again.
Here’s to many more of those moments.
Love,
Jackson
Jessica Wood writes contemporary romance.
While she has lived in countless cities throughout the U.S., her heart belongs to San Francisco. To her, there’s something seductively romantic about the Golden Gate Bridge, the steep rolling hills of the city streets, the cable cars, and the Victorian-style architecture.
She loves a strong, masculine man with a witty personality. While she is headstrong and extremely independent, she can’t resist a man who takes control of the relationship, both outside and inside of the bedroom.
She loves to travel internationally, and tries to plan a yearly trip abroad. She also loves to cook and bake, and—to the benefit of her friends—she loves to share. She also enjoys ceramics and being creative with her hands. She has a weakness for good (maybe bad) TV shows; she’s up-to-date on over 25 current shows, and no, that wasn’t a joke.
And it goes without saying, she loves books—they’re like old and dear friends who have always been there to make her laugh and make her cry.
The one thing she wished she had more of is time.
