Only and Forever (Bergman Brothers, #7)

by Chloe Liese

We are, to be sure, a miracle every way. —Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

I keep quiet about my loneliness. I hold tight to what I’m holding out for—an epic romance, a grand, once-in-a-lifetime connection with someone who turns my world upside down, who makes me feel that glorious thrill romance novels capture. I know good things take time, and love doesn’t always knock on our door when we want it but instead when it’s ready. So I’m trying to be patient.

I don’t think any of them understand what it is to want romantic love the way I want it—to walk around with this aching, gnawing want that feels like a sickness spreading through me the longer it goes untreated.

Generally, I’m not a fan of quiet. It makes me uneasy. It leaves me with my noisy, chaotic thoughts and an overwhelming sense of loneliness. But right now, I don’t mind it so much. This kind of quiet feels . . . alive, like that moment’s breath in a song between the final notes of a beautiful verse and the beginning of an epic chorus, full of promise and possibility.

“I’m no love expert, but I think I just might be an expert on loving you. Because you were meant for me, Tallulah, and I was meant for you. Your heart was meant to be with mine; I believe that.” Clasping her hand where it rests over my pounding heart, I tell her, “And my heart was meant to be with yours. It is yours. It always has been.” Bending, I kiss her, gentle and reverent, forehead to forehead. “My heart has been, and always will be, only and forever yours.”