EpilogueTwo weeks later.Devin King and Mira Evans stood in front of their respective families, both looking as fretful and tense as each other. Each member of the family watches and waits with the curiosity of their news.“Well…” Noah Evans— Mira’s dad urges. His brown eyes were darting from his daughter to his best friend’s son standing before him.“I’m pregnant.” Mira blurts out suddenly. Devin groans low behind her when everyone in the room, save for Ayla, goes stock-still.“Why do you keep doing that?” He utters to her quietly behind his hand. Mira shrugs helplessly and turns her attention back to everyone in the room gaping at her.“Come again?” Her father questions, his dark brows fusing together. “Did I just hear you correctly? Did you just say you’re pregnant, or am I having some sort of stroke right now?”“You’re not having a stroke, Daddy; I’m pregnant,” Mira says, chewing on her bottom lip.“Who is the father?” Kate, Mira’s mother, qu
Two months later. Thursday afternoon, a livid Mira storms into Devin’s office. “Devin King!” Devin frowns and looks up at her, confused and a little scared, while she stomps over to his desk. “What are you full naming me for? What have I done now?” “Did you tell your dad I was moving to Singapore with you before the baby is born?” Mira questions furiously. Devin blinks and opens his mouth to speak while Mira places her hands at her waist and glares at him, waiting for a response. “I may have mentioned it.” “Oh, you did, did you? I didn’t realise agreeing to marry you would come with the consequence of you making decisions on my behalf!” Mira snaps hotly. Devin raises a brow and stands from his desk. “Mira, for God sake, I’ve been trying to have this conversation with you for two weeks straight, but you keep evading it.” Devin grouses, walking around his desk and stepping closer to his angry fiancée. “My dad asked me what our plans are if we’re going back to Singapore in a couple
April 8th, 2000,On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in April, the sun was beaming in London while five-year-old Mira Evans—dressed in her Tinkerbell costume—rode her pink and blue Tinkerbell bicycle, decked out with pretty flowers and pink tassels, up and down her street. Her long, mousy brown hair pulled up into pigtails, swinging as she rode along her road, humming to herself.A mover’s truck pulling up on the opposite side of the road caught her attention, and her pedalling slowed as she observed the people jumping out and moving boxes into the house opposite her own. Momentarily distracted, she hadn’t realised she was steering into a tree and went crashing into it before toppling off her bike and hitting the floor with a thud.Mira sits up and looks down at her scraped knee and pouts when she sees the blood seeping through her torn tights. Her large, almond-shaped, meltingly soft amber eyes glisten with tears at the sting of her wound. “Ouchie.” She hisses, blowing on it softly, w
MiraNine years later.“Mimi!”I groan when I hear my older sister’s voice shrieking my name from somewhere in the house. I bury my face under my pillow and sigh, drifting off to sleep again until my bedroom door swings open, and Ayla stands in the doorway. “Mimi!” She shouts and stomps into my bedroom.“What.” I sigh, my voice muffled from under the pillow. I whine when she yanks the duvet from over me, grabs my leg, and pulls me out of the confines of my warm, comfortable bed.“Ayla! I’m not done sleeping.” I complain, fisting the bedsheet and swinging my unrestricted leg to free my other leg clamped between my sister's hands, but I fail miserably when the bedsheet peels off, and I’m sliding off the bed. I give the sheet a nasty look as I fall off the bed with a thud.“Must I wake you up like this every damn morning?” Ayla complains, placing her hands on her hips and glaring down at me.“You tell me? Must you?” I glower back
DevinMira Evans—My Tinks, my almost, my first everything.They say you never forget your first. Whoever said that was right. It’s been nearly ten years since I last saw or spoke to her, but my heart still flutters like crazy at the thought of her, just like it did when we first kissed.Over the years, I often thought about jumping on a plane and flying to London to see her, but I could never bring myself to do it after the way we left things…the way I left things with her. One day I was happy and had everything I wanted, and the next, I was flying across the world to start a whole new life, leaving her behind.You’re not supposed to find your soul mate at five years old, but I did. Mira was my other half until I was ripped away from her. I waited months for her to call or email or even write to me, but she didn’t. I picked the phone up a million times to call her, just to hear her voice, but I lost my nerve every single ti
MiraThis can NOT be happening!I tear my eyes away from Dev and watch my father and traitor of a sister walk off. Furious, I go to follow them but come flying back when Devin doesn’t move with me. I hiss when the metal bites into my wrist. “This is ridiculous!” I gripe, holding up my hand and pointing to the handcuff around my wrist. “Why are you just standing there, Devin?”Devin frowns, “What do you want me to do?” “Helping me find a way to take these off would be a good start.” I quip, and Devin chuckles and shakes his head.“There’s no way out of these without the keys, Tinks.” He states and shrugs indifferently while I gawk at him incredulously. “Looks like we’re stuck together for a while.”I narrow my eyes while I look up at him. “You’re just loving this, aren’t you?” When he just grins back at me, flashing those pearly whites and dimples, I feel my anger triple.“Any time spent with you is a good time, sweet chee
MiraWe head to the cafeteria to have lunch, and when I tell you, I have never had such a hard time eating in my life. We sat there, elbowing each other because I eat with my left hand, and he eats with his right which are the hands that are bound together. Every time I bring the piece of chicken to my mouth, Devin lifts his hand to eat his burger, and I miss my mouth, resulting in the chicken flying off the fork and falling on my lap. “Devin!” I snap frustrated after the third attempt.Devin jumps and looks at me, along with the employees eating in the cafeteria at my outburst. “What?” He mumbles with a mouth full of his beef burger. I glare at him, practically seething, and honestly, if I were a cartoon character, you’d see steam coming out of my ears right about now.“What?” I slap his shoulder. “Are you kidding me?” I fume, gesturing to the chicken piece sitting on my lap, ruining my beige vintage
DevinNo one has ever gotten under my skin and affected me more than this wickedly beautiful five-foot-five girl standing before me. She frustrates me in ways I can’t even begin to explain. Have I mentioned that she’s insufferably stubborn? When Uncle Noah asked what happened between us to get us to this state, I saw the look deep in her eyes. It wasn’t that we ‘grew up or grew apart’ no—her mind went to the same place mine did. To the moment, we went from being friends to so much more. The night I made her mine, and I became hers.We never spoke about it after it happened, much like our first kiss under the tree at our favourite spot. We have too many moments left unspoken, and it’s no surprise that it’s caused such a rift between us. Is it even worth rehashing old memories and reopening old wounds? Are we ten years too late to resolve them now? What if I want to?I let my eyes wander over to Mira while she reads a document