Read Online Trusting Stone by Alexa Sinclaire - Free Book Online Page A

Enzo had been a whirlwind of romantic gestures, one after another, as well as lots of fantastic sex . She’d been sure to regale Eden with every detail in her emails.
    “Mara? You okay?”
    “Eden!”
    She pulled the phone away from her ear. Mara was screaming.
    “You’re never going to guess where I am!”
    “What’s going on, Mar?”
    “I’m in N.Y.C.!”
    “What?” Eden couldn’t believe it. Why was she here? She was supposed to be in Madrid, planning her wedding.
    “I’ll explain everything. Are you free now? Give me your address, I’ll swing by.”
    “I’ll text you, but you have a lot of explaining to do!” She couldn’t believe she was going to see her best friend.
    When Eden opened the door, Mara practically knocked her over with her hug. She was a hurricane and she swept around Eden, switching from Spanish to English trying to explain.
    “God, Mar, I don’t speak Spanish, help me out here! What is going on?”
    “Okay, sit down, though. This is big.” Mara was as glamorous as ever. In the final weeks of exams, she had seen a whole new side to her friend—fun, sassy, and wild. That was the girl sitting in front of her now.  “I said yes to Enzo, I told you that in the emails, si? Well, he was really nervous because after I said yes, he had another big announcement. He’d been given a huge promotion, but it meant relocating to…New York!”
    “What?” Eden couldn’t believe it. Mara would be living in the same city as her!
    “He was so worried I’d say no, but I couldn’t wait for us to move. I wanted to tell you, but I also really wanted to surprise you. Your emails were a tad glum, Eden. I mean, you’re in goddamn New York City and you’re moping around. So now that I’m here, we’re going to let loose, okay?”
    “Oh, don’t get me wrong, Mar, I love it here. I’m just not settled yet. But frankly , you being here suddenly makes this all so much better!” Eden hugged her.
    “Okay, so let’s go. I’m taking you to lunch!”
    “Don’t you have things to do? I mean, don’t you need to settle in? And I’ve already had lunch.”
    Mara laughed. “Honey, I may not have given you an accurate portrait of my life with Enzo. He’s got money to burn and he wants me to burn it. I’m a lady of leisure now, Eden, and I plan to live up to his expectations of what that means.” Mara winked at her. “So perk up, I’m taking you out. Screw lunch.”
    Eden smiled, she loved how direct Mara was. Despite all her social training, Mara managed to shove all that aside and just say what she thought.
    ****
    Sitting across from Eden, sipping ice tea, Mara rambled on excitedly about her move. While Enzo’s salary gave Mara a practically unlimited spending budget, he worked hard and wanted to keep it like that.
    “It was either my career or Enzo. And I chose Enzo. I’m not going to cry about it now.”
    “But your degree, Mara? You worked so hard to just give it all up. It was your dream to start your own fashion consulting company.” Eden knew that Mara was proud of her degree in business studies, and she had regaled Eden for hours about her plans to merge her two passions of business and fashion together.
    “I didn’t give up a dream, I just got another one—Enzo. I know it sounds old fashioned, but I always knew how Enzo was. I made this decision on my own, Eden. No one pushed me into it. And I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing anything. I’m just choosing a different path. I held out as long as I could in Edinburgh, but as soon as I moved back and saw him and our old life, it just made sense. I’d been fighting something, and one day I woke up and realized that I didn’t even know what I was fighting against. I guess I wanted to feel that I hadn’t been pressured into it. I mean, I couldn’t have picked a better guy as far as my parents are concerned!”
                Eden grimaced. She knew the pressure Mara’s parents had put on her to marry Enzo. “I can