The Promise

Chapter Three

The distant sound of a cell phone ringing slowly brought Isabella out of the fog of sleep. Confused, she felt around the nightstand for her phone, bringing it up close to her face to see who could be calling her at this time of the morning. She also had no idea what time of the morning it was, but she figured it had to be early since the sun was just peeking through the window. Her eyes focused when she realized it was Tom calling and she hurried to answer it.

"Thomas? Is everything all right?" She asked, worried about why he would be calling so early.

"Oh, I'm so sorry for calling you at such an hour, but I wanted to catch you before you saw it," he said, his voice a bit heavy with sleep himself. She noted to herself how sexy his voice sounded first thing in the morning.

"Saw what?" She asked, rubbing the sleep from her face.

"The picture of us from last night. A celebrity gossip blog apparently got a hold of it and plastered it on the front page of their website. I'm so sorry, I truly wasn't expecting it to become news."

Tom continued to apologize, and Isabella idly thought that he was probably running his hand through his hair at this moment. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she pulled her laptop up onto the bed and went to the blogs site to see what he was talking about. The photo was of their first kiss and it was large and right there for all of the world to see. Her mouth dropped open in shock and she scrolled past it to see what they had written about them. It was a brief article speculating on who this mysterious woman was and mentioning that they heard he was dining with a lady friend. There were already comments on the post, ranging from "Who is this nobody with Tom?" to "OMG I am so happy for them!" There were also a few comments in there talking about how Tom should be with Taylor and "that girl" is not good looking enough to be with him. That made her roll her eyes so hard it almost hurt. Some of it was just downright hurtful. These people didn't know her from Eve. Scrolling through, she almost forgot that Tom was still on the phone attached to her ear.

"Isabella? Are you still there? Please say something."

His voice was full of worry and a little bit of desperation like he was expecting her to tell him off and hang up on him.

"What? Oh, I'm sorry, yes I'm here. I was just reading. Sounds like there are still a lot of "Hiddleswifters" still clinging to hope," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"I'm so sorry. I know how cruel people can be. I can talk to Luke and see if he can get them to take the picture down."

"No, no. It's ok," she said, not really all that upset about the picture being out there the more she looked at it. "I knew from the get-go that you are a celebrity and that people like to take your picture. I get it."

"I know, but that's not your life. It was an intimate moment that was made public. I understand if you're upset."

"Surprisingly I'm actually not that bothered. A little in shock, I guess, but I'm ok with it. Please don't apologize. It was a very special moment and now we have a picture to commemorate it, right?"

She spoke encouragingly to him, assuring him that she wasn't worried about it. Briefly, she worried that someone at home might see it and call with questions, but thankfully nobody she knew went to gossip blogs like these besides Lana.

He sighed in relief and decided to change the subject to more pleasant things.

"So, what do you have planned for today?"

"Well, I plan on going back to sleep for a while longer once we get off the phone, but after that, I have some work to do on my laptop, a few new client calls to make. I'm not super mobile right now, but I need to get things done if I want to make money. How about you?"