The Vow Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by J.L. Beck and Cassandra Hallman

  All rights reserved.

  Cover by Black Widow Designs

  Editing by Kelly Allenby

  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.

  Blurb

  After tragedy struck, I vowed never to fall in love again.

  For the last ten years, I kept that promise, never staying with a woman longer than it took to screw her.

  Then she walked in…

  Ten years ago, she was nothing but a little girl, but now she’s all grown up, with curves, and a smile that reminds me of everything I’m trying to forget. My attraction to her is wrong, on so many levels, and I’ll do anything I can, even make her hate me if I have to, to stop it.

  She’s here to study, and I’m the newly appointed Dean.

  I shouldn’t be tempted by a student, especially one who’s ten years younger than me.

  And I definitely shouldn’t be having feelings for her.

  But I am…

  Because as badly as I don’t want to admit it, Lily might just be the one person to make me fall in love again.

  That is if I can let go of the hold her dead sister’s memory has on my heart.

  Contents

  1. Sebastian

  2. Lily

  3. Sebastian

  4. Lily

  5. Sebastian

  6. Lily

  7. Sebastian

  8. Lily

  9. Sebastian

  10. Lily

  11. Sebastian

  12. Lily

  13. Sebastian

  14. Lily

  15. Sebastian

  16. Lily

  17. Sebastian

  18. Lily

  19. Sebastian

  20. Lily

  21. Sebastian

  22. Lily

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  Also by the Authors

  When Rivals Love Preview

  About the Authors

  1

  Sebastian

  Sitting at the large desk in my brand-new office, I sign the last stack of papers for the day. It’s still weird to write my name on the line above Dean of North Woods University, but I’m slowly getting used to it. It’s not like I never thought I would make it here. I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.

  Thanks to the old dean’s sudden early retirement, my career got fast-tracked exponentially. Not that I’m complaining at all. This is a great job, my dream job, to be honest.

  My stomach growls just as I sign the last dotted line, reminding me that lunch was a long time ago and that I stayed late yet another day to get shit done. Shoving the papers in an envelope, I move to get up, grabbing my jacket from the chair behind me when a soft knock on the door fills the room.

  “Come in,” I call as I slip into my coat. It’s probably just a student needing assistance with something. The door opens, and I look up to see a woman hovering in the doorway.

  My heart stops beating in my chest. All the air leaves my lungs, and every thought evades my mind. All I can do is stare at the small woman standing in my office.

  Shoulder-length blonde hair, a heart-shaped face with a small button nose in the middle, two large blue eyes the color of the summer sky, and pink pillowy full lips just begging to be kissed. Her skin is the same pale shade of ivory I remember, everything about her is just like I remember… my Amy.

  “I wasn’t sure if you would even remember me, but the look on your face tells me you do.” Her voice fills the room, and like a needle popping a balloon, I deflate. It’s the voice that does it because it’s not Amy’s voice, it’s not her soft sing-song voice I hear and how could it be… Amy is dead.

  “I’m sorry, I…” I trail off, still staring at the woman like an idiot. I know it’s not Amy, deep down I do, but the woman before me looks so much like her, and then it hits me like a pile of bricks falling from a tall building.

  She just said that she wasn’t sure I’d remember her. Which means I do know her, and if I know her, and she looks like Amy…

  “Lily?” Her name slowly falls from my lips.

  A smile spreads across her beautiful face, and again I’m rendered speechless. The similarities are too much. My heart aches just looking at her, and it’s a stark reminder of everything I’ve lost. Of everything that I’ll never be able to get back. Still, I can’t stop myself from looking at her. My eyes are glued to her face, taking in every breathtaking inch of her.

  “I just wanted to come, say hi,” she explains sadness seeping into her eyes. “I’m a new student here. I just moved into the dorms.” She takes a step forward, closer to me, and I can’t handle it. Glancing away from her face, I drink in her body.

  The last time I saw her, she was only a child. Amy’s little sister, with pigtails in her hair and barbie dolls in her small hands. She was mourning the loss of her big sister, of her parents, while I was mourning the loss of my world.

  She’s not a child anymore. She is all woman now, her hips swaying from side to side as she steps closer. I swallow hard as she gets close enough for me to catch a whiff of her. Coconuts and jasmine; exotic and forbidden. I force myself to look back up and into her eyes. She might be all grown up now, but in my eyes, she’ll always be Amy’s little sister.

  “You’re a student here?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.

  “Yes, starting classes next week,” she beams at me.

  “Wow, that’s crazy… I mean... You’re all grown up, going to college… here. That’s great,” I say, stumbling over my own words trying to catch my footing before I stick my foot in my mouth and say something stupid.

  “Yeah, I can’t really believe it myself. But I’m glad it’s happening, I’m glad to finally be out on my own. I didn’t think it would happen, but I ended up getting a scholarship. The dorms are really nice, by the way, and I like my roommate.”

  “That’s amazing. I’m glad you like it here. North Woods is a great school… and the new dean is amazing, so I’ve heard.” At my joke, she starts giggling softly, the sound vibrating through me, and I don’t understand what it does to me. It stirs something inside me, something I haven’t felt in so long that I don’t remember what it is. Shoving that feeling down, I try to compose myself, standing up a little straighter.

  “I’ve heard the same.” She smiles. “Congrats, by the way, on your promotion.”

  “Thank you, and congrats on your scholarship.” For a moment we just stare at each other, neither of us saying a word. This odd feeling overcomes me that she is taking me in, the same way, I’m taking her in, with a sense of reminiscence.

  “Well, I better get going. Got to prepare for classes and stuff,” Lily says, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Yes, good luck, and let me know if you need anything,” I offer, but some part of me regrets doing so. I already know that I need to stay away from Lily. I should try to avoid her at all costs. Too many feelings are stirred looking at her. Feelings I swore to bury and never dig up again. She’s trouble waiting to happen, and I’m not about to find myself in that kind of situation, least of all, with my dead girlfriend’s baby sister.

  “Thanks, Sebastian… I mean, Dean Miller,” she smirks. “See you around.”

  “Take care, Lily,” I call after her as she disappears from my office.

  The door closes behind her, and I slump back down into my leather chair. Why does it feel like I just got hit by a bus? Motherfucker. My jaw aches with the tension inside of it. I wasn’t even aware I was clenching it.

  All the walls I’ve
so carefully built around me for the past ten years are suddenly cracking, leaving huge empty spaces to let light, sand, water, and most of all, feelings in.

  That damn woman. Why does she have to look so much like my soulmate, the one I was supposed to be with for the rest of my life? Is this God’s way of saying fuck you? I’ve tried my hardest to be a good man. No, I haven’t been perfect, but I’ve been damn near close to it. Did he send Lily to me just to torment me?

  Thrusting my fingers into my hair, I hold my head in my hands. This is crazy talk, and I need to shut the fuck up. Lily isn’t Amy. She’s not. End of story.

  It takes me about thirty minutes to compose myself enough to get up and finally exit the room. The hunger I felt earlier is long forgotten. The emptiness in my stomach is now replaced with an assortment of feeling, none of them good.

  I’m worried about what Lily is going to stir up inside me, how my heart is going to handle seeing my soulmate’s lookalike walking around campus. I only saw her for a few minutes, and it took me half an hour to recover from it.

  Is this going to be a recurring thing? How it’s going to be every time I see her on campus? I decide that the answer is no. I can’t let her distract me like this.

  Once again, I tell myself that she is not Amy.

  Not Amy. She’s not Amy. I need to remember it, burn it into my fucking skull.

  On the drive home, I let the words run rampant in my mind over and over again.

  She is not Amy. It’s not her. Amy is gone.

  The same chant replays, like a bad pop song, caught on repeat inside my head.

  By the time I walk into my place, I must have said the words in my head over a hundred times, but the ache in my heart still remains. In my head, I know it’s not her, it’s Lily, her baby sister… but my body responds to her, just as it did to Amy.

  To my body, there is no difference. My heart yearns for me to be near her, and it’s earth-shattering to my brain. In the ten years since Amy’s death, I’ve been with a handful of women, but none to which my body reacted like it did when I saw Lily today.

  Stop this. Make the ache in your chest disappear.

  Heading straight for the kitchen, I get out a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler from the cabinet. Generally, I don’t make it a habit to drink on school nights, but I don’t give a fuck right now. I have to stop this before it gets out of control.

  My hands shake as I pour myself a glassful before taking it and the bottle to the living room. Settling down onto the couch, I start to sip on the amber liquid, welcoming the burn in my throat and the warmth in my stomach that it brings.

  I can’t remember the last time I got drunk. I prefer to keep a clear mind, but it doesn’t matter today. Everything inside my head is fucked now, her presence ruining everything. I down the glass in two gulps and pour myself a second one right away. I can still feel her eyes on me, and my skin burns. Wrong. It’s wrong. I take another gulp.

  Briefly, I consider calling Rem over to talk but decide against it. He doesn’t need to see me like this. No one needs to see me like this. I’m a mess, a fucking complete and utter mess. So instead of doing what I preach most and reach out for help, I sit by myself like a loser in my living room and get drunk. The world around me is spinning, maintaining the same speed but everything inside of me has stopped, the air, my heartbeat, it’s all unmoving.

  Don’t break. Do. Not. Break. I grip the glass in my hands tighter. Tight enough to shatter it. Tight enough to break me. It’s been years since I wanted to use anger as an outlet to my pain. Years since… the memory pulls me under, the memory rushes in before I can stop it and just like that I’m back there, being the old me.

  I slam my bare fists into the walls of my room over and over again. The anger inside me so great, I don’t know any other way to let it out. It’s like a volcano of rage, erupting, spewing from deep inside me.

  The rest of my room is already destroyed. I tore it apart when I got home from the hospital. The same hospital where she took her last breath. The doctors said they did all they could… but it wasn’t enough. They did all they could? A cruel smile appears on my lips. If they did all they could, she would be here, right in front of me.

  The skin over my knuckles is gone, blood drips from my hands and paints the walls. My hands should hurt, but I don’t feel the pain… not there at least. My body is too overwhelmed with a different kind of pain, a pain a thousand times worse than any physical pain.

  She is gone… dead… she left a hole inside me so deep that I know there is nothing to fix it. No one will ever be able to fill that space again.

  She left a void that will forever leave me empty and alone.

  Drink, after drink, I try to drown the memories I’ve been trying to forget for so many years. Amy, my sweet, Amy. God, how I miss you. I look around this room, and all I can think about every day is how empty it is. How pathetically alone I am because I refuse to move on with my life.

  I should be married and starting a family right now, not drowning myself in a bottle of fucking whiskey, all alone.

  Loser. You’re a loser, Sebastian Miller.

  Raising my glass, I drink like it’s a celebratory event. My thoughts shift and swirl like shit being flushed down a toilet.

  “Lily…” I say her name out loud just to see if it burns as badly on the outside as it does on the inside. Nothing. Slamming the glass down on the table, I force my shaking hands away from the whiskey bottle and into my hair. Even as angry, and hurt, and burning with sadness as I am over Lily reappearing in my life, I’m concerned for her. Riddled with worry.

  Is she alone? Why is she here? How is she doing? What’s her life been like the last ten years? The questions stack up, higher and higher, threatening to topple over.

  Is she suffering like me? Does she hate herself for not being in the car that night, like I hate myself? When she moved away with her grandparents, I never once stopped to check on her, to consider what she might be going through. I’m not really sure why. Maybe I figured she still had someone to hold onto, to make sure she pieced herself back together again. I had no one, at least, not anyone that would really understand.

  She didn’t just lose her sister, but her entire family all in one swoop. Where I had lost the love of my life, she lost it all.

  Ha. Pathetic. Here I was whining over something as superficial as lost love when the person who should really be hurting was smiling as if the world hadn’t done her wrong. Hadn’t taken everything from her.

  Selfish asshole. I was going through my own shit, yes, but she was just a kid. This is dumb, ridiculous. Why the fuck do I even care? The past is the past. It’s not like I can go back and change what I did, or what happened.

  Nothing can, because if I could, I would find a way for Amy to be here with me.

  Fuck, I need to get out of my head. Stop thinking about her. About all of it. It was easier when I pretended that part of my life never happened. I thought I was over this, over Amy but one look at Lily and the flood gates opened.

  Lily was a reminder of everything I had lost, and everything I would never have.

  There was no moving on from someone you loved, someone you never got the chance to say goodbye to. All there was, was learning to deal with the absence that they left in your heart.

  Nothing will bring Amy back. It’s now a reminder I’ll have to repeat again to myself often.

  But Lily… she is still here and as badly as her presence made me feel it also brought me a sliver of excitement, a zing of pleasure so foreign I nearly forgot what it felt like to be even a little joyful. I feel like an even bigger ass thinking about it. I shouldn’t feel this way about anyone, especially not about Amy’s sister.

  Betrayal. I know the feeling all too well. It burns through me like a hot knife slicing through butter. Every time I would fuck another woman, look at another woman, it would sneak up on me and sink its razor teeth into my back. It was always there, in the back of my mind, eating away at my subconscious. Gnawin
g on me.

  I was good, but I wasn’t good enough to get Amy back.

  I wasn’t good enough to let go of her memory, and now I was thinking about her sister and how much they looked alike. Making a fist, I slammed it against the side of my head over and over again. The fucking thing inside my head had better start working or else…

  Finally, the whiskey I all but guzzled down starts to work and my brain slows, a fog settling over my thoughts, and lifting the elephant sitting on my chest just enough for me to suck in a full breath. Everything inside of me screams for me to leave Lily alone to forget about her. To forget about Amy.

  Forget, forget, forget.

  She’s happy, going to college, finding her way. She has her whole life in front of her, a promising, happy life. If she hasn’t already, she’ll find love and a life worth living for.

  Falling back against the couch, I tilt my head back and stare up at the ceiling. I don’t know where the thought comes from, but something inside my head says…

  Do what Amy would want you to do. Be there, but only if you need to be.

  The voice inside my head calms me enough for me to rationalize with myself. Yes, I’ll only be there if I need to be. Only help if I’m needed.

  A little of the guilt in my gut fades away, but I still feel it deeply, like a crater of an asteroid impact it remains, the gaping hole refusing to ever heal. Lily already left her mark on me, and it’s going to take an epic amount of effort to forget that she fucking exists again.

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