Almost Forever: An emotional debut perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes

He takes another deep breath and, without a word, he stands. His eyes are as clear as spring water and I can see his emotions floating under the surface. When I take the hand he’s offering me, he smiles and pulls me gently out of our bed, and into his arms.

Being crushed against his wet skin makes me shiver. He stares at me when I lift my arms and wrap them softly around his neck. He places his hands on my lower back and holds me even closer, when I boost myself up on my tiptoes.

‘I love you,’ he says, before pressing his lips softly on mine and when a shiver runs down my spine I regret not having joined him in the shower. Our eyes are locked, our lips only inches apart, and my belly fills with longing.

‘I want to marry you tonight, Paul. I don’t want to wait another minute, not another second. I want our forever to start.’

‘I want exactly the same thing, Fran. Always have, always will,’ he answers softly and my breath hitches inside my chest. I close the distance between us and when he kisses me again, in that perfect moment, I feel as if our forever is really just around the corner, waiting for us.

‘Not long now – only ten hours on a transatlantic flight,’ he jokes, ‘and a quick limo ride to The Grove and then you’ll be my wife.’

‘The bed is still warm and cosy. We have aeons before the flight,’ I whisper, teasing him with my lips and a flirtatious look. ‘What time is it?’ I ask him, wondering if we should just get a jump-start on our honeymoon.

A smile is tugging at the corners of his mouth. ‘It’s almost forever, my love. Are you ready for it?’ he asks and when I nod, taking a deep breath and trying to contain my excitement, he lifts me up, and spins me around the room, kissing me as I float. The echoes of my giggles reverberate into my heart, filling me with joy.

If I had known this was going to be the last time I’d be in his arms with my eyes locked deeply with his, I would have never, ever, let him go.

Chapter One (#ulink_1fa4e729-eafe-5d85-814a-19fd2efa7a23)

My back is curved, my elbows are digging uncomfortably into my thighs, and my head is burrowed into my hands. Loose strands of hair are covering my face, while my eyes are staring into a world that’s now opaque with crippling fear.

I quiver at the noise of the ambulance sirens that still echo inside my ears, inside my head, and I shiver at the chill that has descended inside me, dimming the clarity of my memories.

I cannot remember how I got to the hospital. I think someone drove me here, but I’m not quite sure who it was. I recall the journey through the traffic, the sound of my sobbing filling my thoughts with scared confusion. I remember my voice shaking when I asked after Paul at the reception desk. I puffed while running up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, the sound of my shoes reverberating all around me. All that rushing, just to be asked to sit, to be told to wait.

I’ve been sitting and waiting for what feels like an eternity already. Grinding my teeth, I keep asking myself questions that I have no answers to. Worse still is the fact that no one else seems to have any either, which is both upsetting and frustrating.

The police are not sure about what happened to Paul, the doctors are not sure about his prognosis and I’m not sure I’ll be able to survive, if he dies.

Then suddenly, in the silence of my despair, I hear her calling my name.

Her voice echoes inside my head, resounding through the ringing in my ears, distant and foreign. The fact that I’ve known that voice for twenty years bears no significance in the dark place I am in. Her steps are hurried as she walks towards me but I don’t have the strength to look up. She calls my name again. Her tone is urgent, preoccupied, but I don’t seem to find the energy to get up, to look at her, so I remain exactly as I am. Motionless.

I hear her approaching.

‘Fran?’ she calls again, softly, but it’s only when she eventually places her open palms on my shoulders and shakes me gently that I manage the strength to lift my head and look in her direction. She seems to be enveloped by a hazy glow. My eyes are tired and sore from crying. I can sense that they’re puffy, and because of the stinging sensation in them, it takes more than a few seconds to focus on her face. She is standing in front of me, only a few inches away. I stare at Georgie, my best friend since pre-school, and I feel a sudden sense of relief.

‘Georgie …’ Her name is a whisper of relief that comes out of my dry lips like a prayer.

‘I’m here,’ she murmurs, wrapping her arms around me when I press my face against her shoulder and take a deep breath. Even such a small movement demands an enormous effort on my part. My back tenses as it shifts upright.

As soon as the oxygen fills my lungs, the tears inundate my eyes and the sobs come all at once. They are uncontrollable fits, fuelled by a raw fear that slashes through me with each breath I take. Georgie lets me purge, stroking my back, murmuring soothing words in my ears. I cling on to them, on to her, as if someone else’s hope will keep me afloat.

‘This is one of the best hospitals in the country, Fran, possibly in the world, and they are just going to do the impossible to make Paul better,’ she says and those words become a mantra looped into my murky brain, as their ripple washes away some of the panic inside my chest.

They’ll make him better.

They’ll make him better.

I keep repeating it to myself until the crying stops, and my breathing returns to normal. I’m not sure how long it takes to calm down because it feels as if I’ve somehow lost the ability to estimate the passing of time, and I can’t tell how long it is before I dry my tears with the tissue Georgie has put in my hand. How long before I get hold of my raging emotions and shake myself from the apathy that has seeped into my veins.

‘Do you know what happened?’ Georgie asks tentatively, and I feel as if she’s been waiting until I’ve regained some control before posing this difficult question.

‘No,’ I answer her, shaking my head. Frustration fills up my throat. My voice sounds hoarse because of it. ‘The police … they think he may have walked into a robbery, but they’re not sure. He was beaten, stabbed,’ I say, telling her the little information that I know. My heart sinks at the reality that Paul is fighting for survival, on our wedding day. ‘Today was supposed to be the happiest day of my life,’ I whisper to Georgie, who nods in understanding.

I can see her eyes are filled with sorrow but there is nothing she can say to soothe my pain. We both know that; she just moves on to a different topic.

‘I spoke with Harry,’ she says, taking my hand. ‘He’s on his way. Albert is with him. They left as soon as you called and they were near St Albans when I talked to him. It won’t be much longer now.’ I nod looking down at the floor. I can hear Georgie still talking about something but my mind has drifted off. My heart goes out to Albert.

He is Paul’s father and I’ve known him since childhood, but since his wife died last year, he’s not the man he was. Josephine’s passing broke him and I’m dreading to think what this unexpected blow will do to him. Josephine, Paul’s mum, was ill for a long time – for as long as I can remember – but all the way through we never stopped looking for a cure. We didn’t give up hope, not even when she deteriorated significantly last year.

Albert retired so he could spend every minute she had left with her, convinced that his love, his affection, and his constant presence at her side would perform a miracle. When Josephine eventually died, the doctors agreed that it had been astonishing for her to survive that long given the poor state of her lungs. Still, she outlived even the most optimistic prognosis by ten years.

‘It was a miracle,’ Albert said in his eulogy to his beloved wife. ‘Amor Vincit Omnia – Love Conquers All,’ he added with a broken voice and a shattered heart. I grab on to those words in this moment of despair, and hold them tightly as they are the only glimpse of hope I can see right now. If only Harry were here with me, he would know exactly what to do.

Harry is Paul’s younger brother. He often spends the weekend with his father in Cambridge, in their family mansion, and that was where he was driving back to London from.

I used to live in Cambridge too, in a three-bed mid-terrace on a busy road, but the FitzRoys’ mansion was the home I really grew up in. I feel a painful twinge in my heart when all the beautiful memories I have of that house come flowing back like a swollen river flooding its bank. I can’t stop them, and I’m suddenly swallowed by the past. While the reality of what just happened to Paul blurs away, I’m back in a hot summer morning, a few weeks before my eighth birthday. That was the day I met Harry and Paul, and Josephine, and my life entwined with the FitzRoys’ forever.

***

The FitzRoys’ estate was just off the main road, less than a mile from my house. Century-old trees and tall Buxus hedges hid the house from view, so – even if I walked by it countless times – I had no idea how their mansion really looked, at least until the day I walked right in.

Everyone knew of them. Still, never in a million years had I thought I would ever get to meet them. We didn’t have any friends in common, we went to different schools and, indisputably, they would never come to play in the small park on the wrong side of the road.

The FitzRoys were appropriately active in the community, and even if their kids went to one of the renowned private schools in the centre of town, they supported the PTA of the local school, they sponsored the local under-elevens football team, and generously donated to the church fête. Once they even helped a talented local artist with a scholarship for the Accademia di Belle Arti, in Milan. Still, it was a series of coincidences that led me straight to the FitzRoys, a twist of fate that would change my life.

My sister Becca was leaving in September for Leicester University, and with only a couple of hundred pounds to her name, she had been trying – desperately and without success – to get a summer job and some extra cash. No one seemed to have anything to offer, until, out of the blue, the perfect opportunity landed right in her lap.

The FitzRoys’ nanny, Sara, broke her foot while skipping rope and had to keep her leg in a cast for a few weeks, so Becca was asked if she wanted to help Sara with the kids, until she was – literally – back on her feet.

‘They are going to pay me to play, watch movies, and sit in the garden. It sounds like the best job ever!’ Becca told me as soon as she put down the phone, after accepting the offer, without even questioning how they knew she was looking to temp.

She had to start immediately, and I was allowed to accompany her given that she hadn’t had time to organise for someone to step in and look after me.

Some may call it destiny, others coincidence, either way, all the stars aligned in that one magical, fortunate moment, which defined the rest of my childhood and then, the rest of my life.

I was incredibly nervous at the idea of meeting such a prominent family. I felt a little queasy as we walked down the road, so I looked up at Becca to check if she was nervous too. She smiled at me, relaxed and confident, and I envied her assertiveness.

She looked great with her short hair and her new big round sunglasses. They were a knock-off copy of a fancy Armani pair but she wore them like they were the real thing; so they looked like the real thing. She was a little bossy but she also had charisma and exuded conviction in all her actions. I admired her for her fortitude.

She was eighteen – ten years older than me – and since our parents divorced she had been everything to me, and I loved her even more because of that. It scared me that she’d be leaving for university in a few months and I would be left alone with a father who only had time for his students and his studies.

I was biting my nails, an unconscious habit, as we approached the FitzRoys’ house. When we turned onto the white gravel driveway, Becca squeezed my hand that she had been holding all the way and whispered with a smile, ‘You’ll be all right, Fran.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ I repeated to myself as I lifted my gaze. That’s when I stumbled at the surprise of the impressive house that appeared in front of me, in all its majestic beauty. I had never seen a private home this impressive and magnificent before. Three storeys high, with at least a dozen windows, probably more, it was framed by tall trees at the back and flowered bushes at the front. It belonged in a fairy tale.

‘Wow,’ I mumbled.