The Paris Pact, page 1
The Paris Pact
laura farr
Copyright © 2021 by Laura Farr
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editor: Karen Sanders at Karen Sanders Editing
Proof reader: Judy Zweifel at Judy's Proofreading
Cover by The Pretty Little Design Co.
Formatted by Affordable formatting
Contents
Title page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Keep in touch
Also by laura farr
Prologue
Ella – Age 16
Prom night
I run blindly from the gym as tears streak down my face. The heels of my shoes stick in the wet grass, and I stop briefly to kick them off. When my lungs feel like they’re burning, I stop and bend over, my breathing erratic. Reaching inside my purse, I grab my phone and call the only person I can bear to speak to right now.
“Hey, Ells. You having fun?”
“Theo,” I whimper. “Can you come get me?”
“Ella, what’s wrong? Where are you?” His voice is laced with concern, and I’m just about to answer when I hear someone in the background of the call.
“Shit, you’re with Haley. I’ll call my dad,” I say, feeling bad I’m interrupting his date.
“No!” he shouts. “I’m dropping Haley home. Where are you?”
“The school field.”
“What did that fucker do, Ella?” His concern turns to anger, and I break down all over again. His voice softens. “I’m coming. Don’t cry. Is Summer with you?”
“No, she left with her date.”
“I’m on my way.” I end the call and sink down into the muddy grass, my blush pink dress ruined. Not that I care. I just want Theo.
Theo and I have been best friends since we were little. Our moms met at a new-moms group and we’ve been inseparable ever since. His parents ended up buying a house three doors down from us when he was eight, and that just cemented our friendship further. He’s two years older than me, but we do everything together. There’s never been anything more than friendship between us, despite a pretty intense crush on my part last year. I soon realized if I didn’t get my feelings for him under control, it would ruin our friendship, and there was no way I wanted to lose him. I think I’ve hidden my feelings well. They’re still there, just buried so they don’t wreck everything between us. I’d do anything for him though, and I know he feels the same. It was just Theo and me until Summer moved to Brookville when she was twelve. She’s my other best friend and about my only girl friend who doesn’t think my relationship with Theo is weird. Most girls can’t understand why we aren’t dating.
My phone rings in my hand and I look down, Theo’s name flashing on the screen. “Hello,” I answer.
“I’m in the parking lot. Where are you?”
“I’ll come to you.” I end the call and stand up. It’s dark, and I’ve no idea where my shoes are. Not wanting to search for them, I make my way back across the field. The parking lot comes into view, and Theo’s pacing up and down outside his car. When he sees me, he jogs over.
“Fuck, Ella,” he mutters, pulling me against him. “You’re freezing.” I go willingly, loving being in his arms. It’s times like this, when he hugs me or holds my hand, I know I haven’t got my feelings for him under control. He has no idea though. I’m his best friend and that’s all I’ll ever be to him. I take a deep breath and try to calm my racing heart. He holds me for a few seconds longer before guiding me to his car and opening the door. I scoop up my mud-stained dress and slide into the warmth of the passenger seat, watching him as he walks around the hood and climbs into the driver’s side.
“Thank you for coming,” I whisper. He turns in his seat to face me.
“Ella, I will always come for you. You know that.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “What happened?” I rub my eyes, not caring if I’m smudging my eye makeup. I don’t need to worry about how I look with Theo. He’s seen me at my very worst.
“Can you just get me out of here and I’ll tell you on the way home?” He nods and pulls away. “Can I stay at your place? I don’t want to go home looking like this.” He nods again, and we’re silent for a few minutes. He keeps looking across at me, and I know he wants to know what happened.
“Ells.”
I sigh. “Aiden booked a hotel room and tried to get me to go with him.”
“That piece of shit!” I jump as he bangs his hand on the steering wheel.
“He called me a cock tease in front of everyone.”
“Fuck! I’m sorry, Ella.”
“Maybe he’s right.” He slams his foot on the brakes and turns to look at me.
“Hey, don’t you dare! Aiden Greene is an asshole who doesn’t deserve you.”
“You say that about every guy I date.” I roll my eyes. It’s true. I haven’t dated much, my head and heart consumed by him, but anyone who does ask me out, Theo gives me a hard time about.
“That’s because no one is good enough.” He shrugs and continues driving.
“I’m going to be single forever.” I groan and drop my head back onto the seat.
“No, you’re not. You’re amazing, Ells.”
“What if I never meet anyone?” I know I’m being needy, but after my shitty prom night, I can’t help myself.
“Of course you will.”
I drop my head back on the seat and groan internally. I don’t know how when all I see is him. He’s going to meet someone one day and our friendship will change. He’ll want to spend all his time with her, and I wouldn’t blame him. He’s not going to want me hanging around like a spare part when he’s in a relationship.
“Do you think we’ll always be friends?”
“Yes. Why would you ask that?”
“Promise me we will.”
He reaches across and takes my hand. “I promise, Ella. Why don’t we make a pact?”
“What sort of pact?”
“How about if we’re both single when you’re thirty, we get married?”
“To each other?” I ask in surprise, and he laughs.
“Yes, to each other.” My heart pounds in my chest at the thought of marrying him. “We could meet in Paris.”
“Paris!” I exclaim, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. His face is lit up in a smile, and I can’t help but smile too. Him offering to marry me when I’m thirty does nothing to help my not-so-under-control feelings for him. Not that he would be single anyway. He’s gorgeous.
“I know how much you want to go to Paris. We could meet under the Eiffel Tower at midday on your thirtieth birthday.”
“What if we’re not both single?” A frown mars his beautiful face, but it’s gone as quickly as it came, and I wonder if I imagined it.
“Why don’t we meet there anyway? You’re my best friend, Ella, but I know you can’t wait to get out of Brookville. We might not be living in the same state when we’re thirty, let alone on the same street.”
“Do you mean it? Not the marriage bit, but the meeting up in Paris?”
“I mean it all, Ells. Promise me we will?” he says, repeating my words from a few minutes ago.
“Okay, but can we do twenty-eight instead of thirty? If we’re getting married, then I want to be young enough to have babies. Thirty might be pushing it.” My voice is deadpan, and he throws his head back and laughs.
“Twenty-eight it is!”
“If I’m standing under the Eiffel Tower alone on my birthday, Theo, I will kill you!”
Chapter One
Ella
12 years later
I breathe a sigh of relief as I leave work, wrapping my coat around me as I hurry toward the subway. It’s Friday, finally, and it’s been a shittier-than-normal week. The cold March wind whips my hair around my face as I join the hundreds of other New Yorkers on the sidewalk. Not that I can actually call myself a New Yorker. I moved here from Brookville, Indiana, almost six months ago. I’d lived there all my life, dreaming of getting out of small-town suburbia and living in the big city. Now I was here, I hated it.
As the subway station comes into view, my phone vibrates in my purse. Pulling my hands from the warmth of my pockets, I grab my phone and smile as I see a message.
Summer: I’ve landed!!
Me: Thank God! Grab a cab, and I’ll meet you at my place
My shitty week at work is forgotten as I practically run down the subway steps. A visit from my best friend is just what I need. It’s been far too long.
I arrive back at my apartment before her, giving me time to change out of my work clothes. Opening the refrigerator, I reach inside for the bottle of wine I put in there last night. Just as I close the door, the intercom rings. I cross the small apartment and pick up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Ells. It’s me,” Summer shouts, her voice laced with excitement.
“Come on up,” I tell her on a laugh, holding my finger on the button, allowing the main door downstairs to open. Replacing the receiver, I quickly grab two wineglasses and set them down on the breakfast bar. When the doorbell chimes, I swing open the apartment door. “Summer! You made it!” I fling my arms around her neck, hugging her tightly. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since I left Brookville, and God, I’ve missed her. I’ve got a few friends in New York, mainly the people I work with, but no one quite like Summer.
“Missed me?” she asks as she squeezes me back just as hard.
“More than you know.” I pull back and gesture for her to come in. Dropping her overnight bag on the floor, she heads across the room to the window that overlooks the New York skyline. My apartment is tiny. I don’t make enough as a physical therapist to rent a bigger place, but the view from my window is something special. It’s what attracted me to the place when I first saw it.
“Ells, this is incredible,” she says, her nose pressed against the window. I fill up two glasses with wine, then cross the room and hand her one.
“It is.” She smiles as she takes the glass from me, sipping slowly as she continues to stare out of the window. Snapping from her daze, she turns to me.
“So, tell me everything. How is life in the Big Apple?”
“It’s… good?” It’s more of a question than an answer, and she tilts her head and frowns.
“Okay, what’s up? You’ve been weird on the phone the last few weeks, and you’re being weird now.”
I sigh as I turn and flop onto the sofa. I’d been able to hide how much I hate being in the city when I was talking to her on the phone. I should have known I couldn’t do the same face-to-face. She always knows when something is wrong.
“It’s not how I imagined, Sum.”
“What isn’t?”
“Being here.” I gesture to the window.
“But you’ve wanted to get out of Brookville since we were sixteen. You were the one who had everything planned. You knew you wanted to be a PT, and you thought New York was your way into major league sports.”
I give a half laugh and drink down a mouthful of wine. “If I remember correctly, I wanted to be a PT for the New York Giants.”
“Only because you were half in love with the quarterback.” She bumps my shoulder and I raise my eyes to hers.
“He was cute.”
“Seriously though, Ells, what’s wrong? Everyone thinks you’re living your dream.”
I run my finger around the rim of my wineglass while I try to think of how to word my response. She’s right. I’d wanted to get out of Brookville since I was a kid. I hated how everyone knew every little detail about my life. It felt like I couldn’t breathe or put a foot wrong without someone having an opinion on it. New York is the city of dreams and a place where no one knows me. I thought if I could get out of Brookville and become a PT in New York, it would be a stepping stone to the sports scene. The reality of being alone and away from home in a strange city though was a million miles away from what I thought it would be.
“I love being a PT, but New York is… chaotic. It took me years to be in a position to leave Brookville, but now that I’m here, it’s like I’ve just disappeared.”
“But I thought that’s what you wanted?” She takes my hand in hers and squeezes it gently.
“Maybe what I thought I wanted isn’t this.” I sigh. “I don’t know, Sum. I guess I’m just lonely.”
“Well, I’m here now, and you can always come home, you know. Brookville was never as bad as you thought.”
“Yeah. I’m beginning to see that. Enough of my melancholy. Let’s go dancing!”
A couple of hours later and we’re in the wine bar around the corner from my apartment.
“So, how’s it going with Ryan?” I shout as we fight our way through the packed bar. She looks over her shoulder at me and grins at the mention of his name.
“Good, Ella. Really good,” she replies, gesturing with her head to an empty table in the corner. Sliding into the booth, I place my Jack and Coke on the sticky table in front of me and return her smile. I’m happy for her. She’s had about as much luck as me when it comes to dating, and she deserves this. I haven’t met Ryan yet, but I’ve heard enough about him to know he’s one of the good guys. As happy as I am for her, I can’t help but wonder when I’ll be the one head over heels in love and as happy as she is. “He’s asked me to move in with him.”
“That’s great.” Little pangs of jealousy swirl in the pit of my stomach, and I reach for my drink, gulping down a mouthful. The bartender was a little light on the Coke, and the Jack Daniel’s burns my throat as I swallow it down.
“It’ll be you next, Ells, you’ll see.”
We’ve been friends since middle school and I should have known I couldn’t hide how I was feeling from her. I’d been single for almost three years. Sure, I’d dated, but never anyone I’d wanted to see more than a handful of times. I compared everyone to Theo, and through no fault of his own, he was ruining my love life. I was turning twenty-eight in a few weeks, and I could hear the tick of my biological clock getting louder each year.
“God, I’m such a bitch. I haven’t seen you in what, six months? You have this amazing news and here I am feeling sorry for myself. Just ignore me.” I give her the biggest smile I can muster before taking another mouthful of my drink. “When do I get to meet the man who’s made my friend so happy, then?”
“Ella, you are not a bitch,” she says, ignoring my question. “It will happen for you… if you can let Theo go.”
My head swings around to look at her. “I’m not still hung up on Theo.”
She raises her eyebrows and purses her lips. “Really?”
“Really!”
She bursts out laughing, knowing I’m full of shit. She knows me too well. Her laughter dies and she suddenly gets serious. “Okay, let’s say that’s true. You’ve got to put yourself out there, Ella. No guy is going to come and find you while you’re sitting on your sofa in your Harry Potter onesie watching Netflix.”
“Hey!” I’m a little taken aback at her words. “I do put myself out there!” I can’t deny the Harry Potter onesie and Netflix though. Who doesn’t want to binge on Netflix in their PJs? It’s not like I do it every night.
She folds her arms across her chest and raises her eyebrows. “How exactly do you put yourself out there?” she asks skeptically.
“I’m on dating sites,” I offer feebly.
“Which ones?”
“Erm… Tinder and Bumble.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Have you been on any dates?” she asks, exasperated.
“A few.”
“Are you talking to anyone at the moment?” She holds her hand out, palm up. “Show me your phone.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I sigh and dig in my purse for my phone. Handing it over, I watch as she opens the Tinder app. I shouldn’t be surprised; she’s always been a little bossy. I’m pretty laid-back and usually just let her get on with things. Opposites attract, as they say, and it’s been true for our friendship. After a few minutes, she looks up, turning the phone around so I can see the screen.
