A wealthy business owner teams up with a bumbling investigator to uncover the reason his girlfriend died four years earlier. Will he get the answers he seeks? Or will his obsessive pursuit of the truth lead to his own demise?
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It was raining. Cole had just visited the cemetery and Lisa's apartment, and now he was running through the parking lot of the hospital, a closed umbrella in his hand.
She was standing under the awning when he called out to her. She rolled her eyes and looked away.
"Lisa, stop!" Cole lunged forward, catching the sleeve of her sweater. "I need to talk to you."
"Do not call me Lisa," she shushed. "Why are you here? Didn't you read my letter?"
He opened his umbrella and pulled her along with him to his car. "Did you think I'd let you go after reading that letter? You were my first love."
"And yet, you still slept with Mina," she reminded him.
"I told you she must've gotten me drunk. You were the one I fell in love with. Not Mina."
"Cole, you said you fell in love with Mina the day she fell off that stupid merry-go-round. That wasn't me. It was her. She's the one you loved!"
"No, I said that was the day I realized it. If I'm being honest with myself, I'm pretty sure I fell in love with you the day you sang horribly in front of a bunch of strangers."
"You're lying," she argued, pulling her arm out of his grasp. "Don't you see? I'll never trust that I'm the one you love. Mina was evil, but men adored her. You're all a bunch of idiots."
"I didn't love her."
"You're lying to yourself. Besides, what we had was years ago. I don't want to start a relationship based on old feelings."
"You had my baby," he reminded her.
She rubbed her chest. "What difference does that make? Do you feel bad for me now?"
"No, my heart breaks knowing you went through that alone. I would've been there for you," Cole said. "Lisa, I—"
"Don't call me that," she hissed, looking around. "Technically, Lisa died four years ago. I'm Mina now. As much as I hate it, I'm Mina."
Cole nodded. "If you need help to unravel all your lies, I'll help you. I'll help you go back to being Lisa."
"I don't need your help."
"Stop being stubborn because you do. Besides, if you and I get married, it won't be with you using a false identity."
"I'm not marrying you!" she shouted, catching the attention of some nearby strangers. A woman under an umbrella laughed while making her way to the hospital's entrance.
"You are. Maybe not soon, but you and I belong together. And before you say it's because of the past—it isn't. I told you I liked you. I'm attracted to you. Being around you makes me happy. You're also great in bed."
"Cole!"
He grinned. "I want to keep seeing you. I don't care who you were in the past. I want to see where this goes because I know it'll go the distance. We'll go the distance."
"I wish you would give me some distance," she muttered.
"You don't," he argued. "You care about me too, or you wouldn't have written that letter. You could've just ghosted me and left me in the dark. You wanted me to know who you were. You needed me to know our history. In that letter, you admitted you still loved me.
"That's in the past."
"It doesn't have to be," Cole pleaded. "We can start over. I've been attracted to you since the day you tried hitting me on the head with that frying pan."
"You're a weirdo."
He shrugged.
She looked away, biting her bottom lip. He pulled her close, placing one arm around her shoulders.
"Can we start over?" he whispered in her ear. "This time, we won't let anyone interfere with our relationship. Not your family or mine."
She looked up at him with watery eyes. "If we're going to start over, you'll have to ask me out properly for our first date."
His mouth turned up in a wide smile. "Of course." He kissed the corner of her mouth before whispering, "I love you, let's start dating."
THE END
AUTHOR'S NOTE: OMG this story was supposed to be my version of a drama, but I've been sick, there were holidays, Nano was tough, and I decided to change it to a novella. Thank you if you got this far! If you liked the idea of a drama story, you could read Calista. It's one of my older and longer stories. It's got humor, murder, secret identities, etc...
THANK YOU for reading! Follow me on Wattpad if you want updates for when I post new stories or bring back more of my archived stories.
-Sandra
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