This Was Meant To Be

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Blurb:

A BWWM, billionaire, contemporary romance story.

Part 1 in the ‘That Forbidden Love’ series.

Leigh Wells is right on track to hit all her career goals.

She’s been working hard as a paralegal, racking up the kind of experience she needs to get into law school.

Just as everything starts to fall into place, her boyfriend Carl drops a bombshell—he wants them to drop everything and travel on his own.

Leigh lays it on the line: he can wait, or he can go alone.

His answer devastates her.

With her heart in pieces, Leigh turns to her best friend Harrison for support.

He’s been like a brother to her since he moved in with her family at age 10 after his parents died.

But as they lean on each other more than ever, Leigh realizes her feelings for Harrison are shifting…

Now, she’s torn between her long-standing friendship and the romantic possibilities.

Can Leigh and Harrison switch gears from friends to something more without crashing and burning?

Or might they actually find that they’re perfect for each other, in a way they never expected?

Discover now in this black woman white man romance novel by Ellie Etienne.

Chapter 1

“Carl, honey, you know I can’t just do that. We’ve talked about this already. I mean, a year is just unrealistic.”

Carl pouted.

Leigh sighed. It wasn’t hard to feel like she was being unreasonable. According to Carl, she definitely was being unreasonable.

“I’m sorry, Carl. But you know it’s just not practical for me. Not right now.”

Carl sighed, and it was that long suffering sigh that always made Leigh’s palm itch. She knew she was being unreasonable. Did he have to make such a big deal about it?

“We’ve been planning this for years, Leigh. We were supposed to do this by the time we’re twenty-eight. Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but my twenty-eighth birthday was a couple of months ago. Frankly, Leigh, I was hoping that this would be my birthday gift.”

Leigh shifted uncomfortably. The truth was that she had come dangerously close to forgetting his birthday altogether.

They’d been together ever since college – about six years now, realized Leigh with a jolt. They’d gotten together on her twenty-first birthday, so it had been over six years.

Maybe they’d started taking each other for granted a bit too much. Maybe what their relationship needed was for them to take some time off and travel together, as Carl wanted.

But the idea of taking a year off just to travel… They’d talked about it forever, of course, and Leigh did want to travel. But she couldn’t sacrifice so much of what she had worked for, just for a year of freedom and new experiences. She needed something to come home to after that year, too, didn’t she?

But Carl didn’t seem to understand that. Carl had always been far more spontaneous than she was – far more willing to live in the moment. Leigh always needed a plan, then a Plan B, and preferably Plans C and D, too.

Leigh tried again.

“I know, and I’m sorry, Carl. But I can’t do this now. I can’t take a year off right now. You know how hard I’ve worked to start getting assigned cases that matter, assisting lawyers who get the interesting cases. I’ve just started being specifically requested by Coleman. He’s the best attorney at the firm! I can’t just give up everything I’ve worked for. I’ll have to start from scratch again when we come back.”

Carl got up restlessly and started pacing.

Leigh wished he wouldn’t. It made her feel as if she was in a cage with a prowling beast.

Carl was tall and lean, with wiry strength in him. Leigh had been attracted to that strength, those nearly liquid gold eyes, that olive skin – really, everything about Carl was attractive. When he paced the room like this, he was feline in his grace.

“But if you don’t do it now, when will you be able to do it?”

That was yet another question Leigh couldn’t really answer. Lately, it had begun to seem as if there were a lot of such questions.

She was a paralegal, and she meant to go to law school and get her law degree, as soon as she was ready for it. She had been studying for the LSAT diligently, and the biggest reason why she hadn’t taken it yet was her job.

She was very good at it. She felt she was learning more at her job than she would at a law school. When she did go to law school, she wanted to graduate at least in the top ten percent, and she wanted to go to an Ivy League school.

Those were all non-negotiable conditions, and being a paralegal, working with the best legal minds in the country, gave her valuable resources. It also gave her contacts. Contacts were almost as important as being good.

No, they were often more important.

She knew that, and she had worked hard to build a network. She wasn’t going to give it up to go backpacking in Cambodia, though backpacking in Cambodia did sound like a lot of fun.

But she couldn’t.

“I don’t know,” said Leigh quietly, and she heard him sigh again.

That sighing was beginning to seriously annoy her.

“Carl, I’m sorry. I could take a few weeks off soon, but there’s absolutely no way I can take an entire year off. Look, you know it’s unfair to ask that. You don’t even need to work!”

She could’ve bit her tongue, but there it was. It was out.

It was true, of course. Carl didn’t have to work. He was a Banford-Miller. The Banford-Millers played at careers because they owned so much land that they didn’t need careers. But Carl had never used his name to get ahead. He had worked hard as a programmer, and he was justifiably proud of that.

He had never used the money behind his name, either. Leigh knew that that was one of the reasons why he was so keen on this plan – he had never gone on any of the international vacations that his family took for granted, not since he was old enough to really remember anything.

This had been a point of pride for him, to do it on his own and see the world on his own terms. He had wanted experiences that his rich family would never have.

Not that he and his family were estranged or anything. They just saw him as the eccentric one, and when you’ve been in high society for almost as long as high society had existed, eccentricities weren’t a problem. They added character, if anything.

“Do you really think so, Leigh?”

The question was asked softly, but Leigh heard the roiling emotions behind it. She couldn’t blame him for that. She had seriously overstepped, and she had been cruel to do it.

She tried to make up for it.

“No, of course not. I know your career is important to you. All I meant is that if you come back and many of your contacts aren’t useful anymore, you don’t need to worry about supporting yourself while you start from scratch. You don’t have to go back to counting and pinching pennies. I would have to, Carl.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Your parents would support you as happily as mine would support me. No, don’t tell me it’s not the same, Leigh. It’s the same thing. Besides, if I have money, then so do you. You know that, Leigh.”

Leigh felt everything inside her soften. The Wellses might not have as much money as the Banford-Millers, but they weren’t exactly destitute. She knew that she had the choice of not taking a loan when she went to law school, and that was a privilege she didn’t take lightly.

She also knew that Carl’s offers were genuine. Six years together meant they trusted each other. They had assumed, two years ago, that moving in together was the logical next step. Of course, it would soon lead to an engagement, and marriage, then a family. They’d even begun talking about it, in vague terms.

They had recognized each other six years ago, and no matter what, that hadn’t changed.