Page 1 of Emma and the Elf Next Door

PROLOGUE

Emma

I know I shouldn’t be here right now. Oliver, my newlyex-boyfriend, had been very clear when he broke up with me that we were done. But we were together for almost a year, and even though Ithinkhe may be in love with someone else, I need to give it one more chance.

My obsessive nature won’t let me leave this alone, just yet.

I pace up and down his driveway, my heart sinking when I see him drive up and find he’s not alone. He’s with Lilly, the woman I’m pretty sure he’s loved for most of his life. She locks eyes with me, whispers something to Oliver and then promptly gets out of his car and into hers.

In a cloud of misery, I watch Oliver watch Lilly go with a sinking feeling in my stomach, knowing he’s desperate to chase after her.

“What are you doing here?” he asks me, his tone harsh.

“I came to give you another chance,” I tell him, feeling as desperate as I sound. I look to where his ‘friend’ Lilly had just driven off and feel stupid for coming here. For trying to win him back. “But clearly you don’t want a chance with me. Despite usbeing together so long, you took no time to get over me. Are you in love with her?” I dread his response but need to know the answer to get some sort of closure.

The entire time I was with Oliver, I’d had a sense he was harbouring feelings for his sister’s best friend. I’d just hoped I was wrong.

Oliver walks away from me and I follow. He owes me an answer. It’s the least he can do.

“Just tell me. I’m right, aren’t I? As soon as we broke up, you went to her?”

“Yes,” he says, lobbing a dagger straight into my heart. “I went to her hoping she would finally give me a chance.”

My eyes fill with tears at his admission.What’s so wrong with me that he couldn’t love me the way he loves her?

“So that’s it? You two are together now?” I continue to hurt myself by asking these questions.

“I thought we were getting there.” He looks longingly in the direction where Lilly had driven away. “Now I’m not so sure. I may have blown it before it even began.”

I take a minute to digest this. The man I thought I loved is standing in front of me, heartbroken over another woman. A part of me wants to scream and rage at him, but a bigger, better part wants to…help him. He’s not a bad guy; he’s just an idiot in love with someone as clueless as him.

“You really love her, don’t you?” Now I’m just torturing myself.

He nods and my eyes sting with more unshed tears. Ten months we’d been together and he’d never said those words to me.

Maybe I’m unlovable?

“I’ve always had strong feelings for Lilly, ever since we were kids growing up together. I never thought we could work though. So, she’s kind of existed as an unattainable fantasy for me. She’sthe person people gravitate towards, the one who has all the fun and creates all the mess, and I’m just the person who cleans up that mess. Who wants to be with that person?”

Wow. Ouch.

I give him a small smile and put my hand up, letting him know thatIwanted to be with that person. ThatI’dbeen in this relationship trying to make it work.

“I don’t mean anything by that,” he rushes to reassure me. “And when you and I were together, I wasn’t thinking about Lilly. You have to believe that.”

I don’t. Ireallydon’t.

I stay silent, not trusting myself to form words. He takes this as the opportunity to kick me when I’m down.

“I just never thought she would want to be with someone like me,” he says, now with tears in his eyes. “She put me firmly in the friend zone for all these years, and it worked for us. And if I’m being honest, the feelings she inspires in me? They scare me sometimes. I feel out of control, and out of my depth, and…” He trails off, lost in his self-pitying thoughts.

“And you wanted to avoid that by being with someone who doesn’t inspire such big emotions?”

Geeze, Oliver sucks.

He winces again, perhaps realising he’s being a jerk.

“I wanted to be with someone similar to me,” he adds, in an attempt to gloss over the fact that he’d never had ‘big emotions’ for me. “You’re so polished and smart and…organised.”

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