Your Little Secret by Kirsty-Anne Still, Bethan Cooper

and it still looks perfect.” He allowed his head to lean forward, heaving a little on every ebb of emotion that thrashed through his pulsing veins. He spoke as he slowly raised his head to face her, “No one compares to you. I’ll admit London is full of beautiful women, but there is something missing from them all.”
    “The Yorkshire accent,” she joked, giving a coarse, almost fake laugh.
    Connor chuckled gently but shook his head. “That’s not it. They’re just simply not you.”
    “If we’re like this a week in, what are we going to be like by week ten?” she asked, her eyes watering again, becoming painful with the sudden on and off set of tears. “I don’t want to feel like this for twenty weeks, Connor. It’ll break me.”
    “It’ll break me too, but you know we’re worth this bit of heartache. You know we need to struggle a little to make this more enduring,” his words flowed out like water; he was bleeding his heart and soul to her, trying to keep her hanging onto this relationship. “I just need to know that you are willing to just stay strong, Amber. I need you to see that we’re worth it because I know one thing for sure,” he trailed off, his gaze locking hers tightly.
    “What’s that?” she asked, gulping a little as she feared the next line that would escape Connor’s lips.
    Connor’s lips spread into a massive teeth baring grin, “I love you so much I can see forever with you, Amber Watson.”
    Amber’s eyes went wide at that comment – he saw forever with her?

Chapter Five
     
    Amber found it only took one week to make or break a relationship that once meant the whole world to you. Being alone every day, coming home to an empty house was not only cold, but freezing, only solidified the feeling. She had survived the past week, sleeping, eating, drinking, thinking, working and continuing the process repetitively.
    Sitting on her sofa, Amber was merely staring at a blank television screen, her eyes skimming across the mountain of takeout cartons she had been surviving on all week, and she felt the hot tears course down her cheeks against her cold distressed skin. Connor had been gone for a week now and yet the memories were still burnt into her memory as if they had just happened. They had made love in their bed after his declaration of love, but with it being her birthday in three days, she wasn't sure if he could get back. The phone calls were longer, but he had only kept that up for three days. However, she hadn't spoken to him in four days, not even through text and she couldn’t stop her mind from casting aspersions. Sniffing and wiping away her tears, she pulled out a book and began to bury herself in the building romance in Fifty Shades of Grey. That's how she saw it, as a romance. It wasn’t a BDSM, violent, pretentious story, but a love, a romance that was never meant to come together. Watching someone fall in love with another who was never meant to be their other half was quite refreshing to her. Closing the novel at chapter 17, she stood up and wandered into her kitchen. She couldn’t stop her own romantic failures from preventing her to enjoy the romance in the book.
    The moon shone through her window brightly and she turned on her kettle to make a steaming cup of tea. Her emotions were blank now and she could feel the emptiness beginning to take over. She had even lost Ethan in the last week. The stir fry he left was still untouched and probably mouldy in her fridge, along with the wine and DVD. Finally deciding now was a good time to throw it out, she opened the fridge to see the DVD still in the Asda bag and pulled it out. She went for the bin when she noticed the DVD he had brought her. 'The Notebook' sat staring at her, the film she had teased him over and he had pushed himself to buy it so they could watch it.
    Feeling another overwhelming feeling wash over her, she dialled Ethan's number. The rings came, one after another until she heard his Yorkshire