Unrequited

Chapter One

"Unrequited love does not die; it's only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded." Elle Newmark

Chapter One

Alex Pryce was the kind of woman you wouldn’t look twice at. Her looks were ordinary, her disposition was quiet and her intelligence average.

She was okay with that. It had taken her some time, but finally she had accepted who she was. Even if sometimes she might always wish to be just a little bit… well, more, there was no point fighting the truth.

Her dreams were also small. Manageable, she called it. She already had a job she loved, and she hoped to be able to continue with that, or something very similar, until she retired or died, which ever came first. She hoped to always earn enough to be comfortable. Big houses, flash cars and private jets were very nice, she acknowledged, but she didn’t need those things to be happy, and she wasn’t one of those women who was into designer clothes or thousand pound handbags and shoes. What was the point? You couldn’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, after all. Her brother used to say that her attempts at ‘tarting herself up’ was ‘like putting lipstick on a pig’, so she never tried too hard to be or look like something she wasn’t.

Finally, and this was her biggest dream, she hoped to find a man who, if not blind to her faults, could at least love her despite them. It was asking a lot, she knew, but it wasn’t like she was holding out for a prince or a hunk. Just a nice, steady sort of guy would do.

Unfortunately, all the while she was in love with her brothers best friend, her chances of falling in love with a man like that were slim to none. As much as she tried not to, every man she met was measured against Tom and without fail, they were found wanting.

Of course, Tom was so far out of her league that it wasn’t funny, but she couldn’t seem to exorcise him from her heart and until she did, she feared that she simply didn’t have enough room to love anyone else.

After what happened in July, for a brief moment she had thought that perhaps he might be the one, that maybe he felt something for her to.

When it became clear that he didn’t, she hoped that the crushing pain she felt might also cool her ardour but as he smiled that carefree, easy going smile of his, she knew that she was still as in love with him as ever.

The bright smile she pasted on her face actually hurt but she managed to keep it in place as he kissed her cheek.

“You look lovely, as ever, Alex.”

See? He always found a way to compliment her and even if it was a lie, it was very sweet of him to try. Disliking him was going to be impossible.

“You too,” she managed to say, her voice only slightly choked.

Tom moved onto her brother, Sean, and hugged him.

“Good to have you back, man,” Sean said.

“I can't tell you how nice it is to be back,” Tom replied. “And thank you both for taking me in this Christmas.”

“Well, we couldn’t let you eat Christmas dinner all alone, could we?” Sean grinned. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”

Alex closed the door behind them, allowing her artificial smile to fade away. Her cheeks ached and she didn’t know how she was going to endure almost two weeks with him around.

She made her way to the kitchen and turned the kettle on, more for something to do than because she wanted a drink.

Being in his presence was both wonderful and agony at the same time, and she didn’t understand it. Surely one emotion, the dominant one, should cancel the other out, right? Life would be so much easier if she could just hate him, but it seemed she was as useless at that as she was at everything else in her life.