Always Fraser Read online

  Always Fraser

  A. K. Steel

  Always Fraser

  Copyright ©2021 by A. K. Steel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in either electronic, paper hard copy, photocopying, recorded, or any other form of reproduction without the written permission of the author. No part of this book either in part or whole may be reproduced into or stored in a retrieval system or distributed without the written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and owners of products referred to in this fiction which have been used without permission. The publication and use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Published by A.K. Steel

  Edited by Contagious Edits

  Blurb by Contagious Edits

  Cover Design by Opium House Creatives

  Contents

  About the Book

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Book

  Finding Mr Right is one thing... but making a relationship work is another matter entirely.

  Fraser Davis has everything going for him. He's successful, driven, and attractive. And doesn't have any trouble finding women willing to warm his bed. Long-term relationships? Not for him. No woman will ever be able to compare to Elena, the one who walked away.

  Elena Walker has spent years trying to get over her teen crush, her brother's best friend, Fraser. But when life throws him back in her path, she'll have to come to grips with knowing that her feelings run deeper than she'd like to admit. Family drama, childhood pacts, and past mistakes, not to mention an endless supply of trust issues. Nothing about this is going to be easy.

  Moving on is not an option. For Elena, it has always been Fraser.

  Always Fraser is a steamy, angst-filled romance that will leave you breathless.

  Prologue

  Elena

  I run through the door to the Dragon's den. Coffee in hand, notepad tucked under my arm. The escaped tresses of my hair dripping down my face. I try to flick them behind my ears with my free hand, but it's no use. I'm a total drowned mess. I'm normally annoyingly punctual to the point that I’m early. It's a pet hate of mine when people are late, but the universe is not on my side today. I’m ten minutes late which earns me a filthy look from the Dragon herself. It's really not my fault because Sydney is experiencing a summer storm with torrential rain. The forecaster said we’re expecting more rain today than the whole of December, and of course, it's the day the battery in my Getz decides to cark it! I didn't have time to call the repair guy and get it fixed, so it was the bus for me, and because of the weather, of course the bus was late.

  I take my seat next to Janie and she offers a sympathetic smile. These meetings are never fun and I’m already off to a bad start. The Dragon is still on her phone, but I can only imagine what's to come. First thing Monday morning is our weekly meeting with our boss, Bridget. I think it’s supposed to be some sort of a pep talk, to get us motivated, but it’s more like a roasting. Her office is sterile and cold, just like her. It’s hard to believe she’s an interior designer, or was before she landed the gig on TV and started ordering the rest of us to do everything for her.

  The Dragon hangs up her mobile, throwing it down on her desk. She takes a deep breath and stares us down. “That was the network. Our ratings are terrible! If we keep this up, the network won't give us another season and we will all be out of a job! Elena, you and Janie need to pick up your game. Our next project has to shine, it needs to be off-the-charts chic. Something people haven’t seen before. Do I make myself clear?”

  “We did everything you asked of us for the last job. Maybe if you let me go with some of my own ideas, we could change things up a little,” I stress with a quivering voice. Shit, why do I let her get to me?

  “I don’t want your excuses! Go above and beyond this time or you'll be the first to go, Elena.”

  “What do you want us to do differently that will make it more modern and fresh? After all, this is your project, and you don’t like the ideas I bring to you.”

  “Please bore someone else with your silly questions, I have a hair appointment.”

  She waves us off out of her office.

  I slump back to my desk, my familiar space in this office full of grey cubicles. It's only 9:45am on a Monday and I already feel totally defeated. I don’t even know where to start.

  The woman's a total narcissistic bitch. She wants control over everything but won't lift a finger to do any of the actual work, leaving us unable to come up with any innovative ideas ourselves, but still having to do all the work to make it happen.

  I have been working for the home renovation reality TV show “Project Reno” since I finished my interior styling course nearly five years ago. I used to love this job. It was an amazing opportunity for someone fresh out of study. Most of the other girls I graduated with still haven’t found work in our industry and I'm travelling around Australia, redesigning and fixing up people's homes. It's a great job for a stylist.

  Our last host was fantastic to work with. We coordinated every project together and our trips away were always a blast. I couldn’t believe my luck. I had hit the career jackpot!

  Then last year our host announced she was pregnant and taking two years off. That was when Bridget started (aka the Dragon by the rest of our team). It's been downhill ever since. She's demanding, unorganised, and won't lift a pretty manicured finger to help with anything. I can't even count the number of times I’ve had to work through the night to play catch-up because of her. She's all about having the perfect face for TV. While the rest of us do all the work, she claims to have done it as the face of the show.

  For the last few months, I’ve been fantasising about starting up my own interior styling business. I’ve been squirreling away any extra pay I have left at the end of the week, hoping that maybe in 12 months I’ll have enough to go out on my own. If I have to do all the work, I might as well be getting the credit for it.

  I get to work examining our design brief and sketching up the drafts for our next project. It’s a four-bedroom, one-bathroom house in the country. The house looks quite quaint from the outside, but it’s majorly run down. Our team will have to work our magic on the interior and exterior to get it ready for sale. It's going to need a paint job throughout and a new kitchen and bathroom, then furnishings to style. Not a massive job for us, but still big enough that I need to be organised. Luckily, I have three weeks to plan and prepare for it.

  Janie, my design assistant pops her head around my cubical, and she looks worried. "Elly."

  "Yes, Jani
e? What are you hiding?”

  She dumps a massive pile of tile samples on my desk. “The Dragon wants you to ring around and find the best price for one of these samples for the Roberts’ reno. We're on a tight budget and it needs to be ordered by 3pm today. They have moved our next show forward to next week. I'm so sorry, Elly, I will help however I can."

  I glance at my watch. It’s 1pm now. Shit, there is no way we’re going to get this all done. I’m sure she could have had me ring around this morning when I asked what was on for today. As if she just found out now that they moved the job. But of course, this morning she was more interested in starting the day ripping into us for our bad ratings.

  “Thanks, Janie,” I grumble, feeling defeated already.

  She offers me a sympathetic smile before returning to her desk in the cubicle next to mine. Her long strawberry blonde ponytail bouncing as she walks. Janie's still young, she came to us fresh out of design school at the beginning of the year. But she has an amazing work ethic. I don't know what I would do without her. Her bubbly, enthusiastic personality gets me through the never-ending demands we have thrown our way.

  My phone buzzes and Jessie's name lights up the screen.

  “Hey, babe,” I answer excitedly. I needed to hear his voice; he will change this shitty mood I'm in.

  “Hey, Elly, just checking what time you're going to be home for dinner. I can get it started if you like?”

  “Think you're going to have to eat without me. We have a job that’s been moved forward to next week now. I’m really behind. I have no idea what time I’ll be home.”

  “Don’t worry about it, baby. It's your job, it's important. What days will you be away?”

  “It’s the whole week, Sunday till Sunday. Shit, I just remembered we have our anniversary next week and you said you had something special planned. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, we can do something for that the following week, I can move things around. I’ll have something for you to heat up when you get home. Oh, and the car repair guy has dropped in to check out what was wrong with your car. You just needed a new battery, so it's back up and running now.”

  "Thanks, I don't know what I'd do without you!" The smile returns to my face, knowing no matter how shitty my day is, I have him to go home to tonight.

  “See you later. Love you.”

  “Love you too. I’ll message when I’m leaving.”

  I don’t know what I would do without him. He’s such a thoughtful man. Always calling to check on me. I met Jessie the first week that I moved to Sydney to study. It started as a one-night stand. I was trying to get over someone else. I guess you could say, he was my rebound. But I'm not really the kind of girl who does the whole one-night-stand thing, not well, anyway... so within weeks we were dating. We have been inseparable ever since. Next week is our sixth anniversary.

  A year ago, he proposed and we're getting married in three months. I’m so excited for the wedding. It’s going to be on the beach in my hometown, Byron Bay, and I’m actually taking a month off work. I don’t know what I’m more excited about, the wedding or the time away from this dungeon! Stop daydreaming about the wedding, Elly, we have a list of suppliers to start ringing.

  I hang up the phone from the last tile supplier and take a deep breath. “I need coffee if I’m going to get through this afternoon—you want one?” I call out to Janie.

  “Sure, thanks, Elly,” she answers, not stopping to look up from her computer.

  I retreat to the break room and make two cups of coffee, inhaling the aroma as I take my first sip. God it smells good. Life is better again. Okay, Elena, you’ve got this. Smash out the rest of today's jobs as quickly as possible and get home to your man.

  I hustle over to Janie’s desk with her coffee and renewed determination to smash this job out. She's not at her desk so I leave her coffee and turn to see her walking back from the Dragon's den, struggling with a pile of magazines and fabric samples.

  “What next?” I groan.

  “She needs to see you in her office now.”

  What now? I walk into her office, not knowing what to expect, because you can never tell with her. She looks up at me from the magazine she's looking through.

  “I’ve decided the tile sample you picked is all wrong for the look we're going for. Start again and find me something better,” she scoffs with a wave of her hand. She hasn't even bothered to look up from her magazine.

  “But it was from your shortlist?” I protest, now getting really agitated with her.

  “Yes, and I have now decided it's wrong." She looks up at me, her icy gaze chilling me to the core. "Go find me something better, Elena.” She dismisses me again with that flick of the hand.

  I have to bite my tongue. So many thoughts come to mind. All the things I want to say to her right now. I want to rip into her. Tell her to shove her job where the sun don't shine. But that's just a fun scene I play over in my head. I haven't got the guts. So, I turn and walk out of her office, head down, shoulders slumped, defeated.

  I start again with the list of suppliers from earlier, trying to come up with something different.

  An hour's past and I’m happy with my progress. These new samples that have just arrived in my inbox are going to be perfect. One of them is fresh from the designer, not even been released in the shops yet. So our show will be first to use it in the country. Can't get any fresher than that!

  Janie stands in front of my desk, just back from the Dragon's den, looking like she's about to burst into tears.

  “What's wrong, Janie? Has she started breathing fire?"

  “It's going to be a late night, Elly. She wants the whole job planned today because she's going to be out of the office tomorrow with beauty appointments in preparation for the show,” Janie whimpers, dumping all the magazines and samples on my desk.

  “What do you mean? We have all week!”

  “She wants it done today so she doesn't have to stress this week. She said her viewers can tell from her face when she's stressed, and she wants to look perfect for the show.”

  For the first time in five years, I see red. I’ve had enough. I can't deal with this bitch anymore. I push out from my desk like a raging bull. Ready to fight to the death. The matador has been waving a red flag all day, tormenting me... and I've hit my limit.

  “I’m done with this!” I get up and storm into her office. Janie grabs my arm as I stomp past her.

  “Don’t do anything you're going to regret, Elly. We’ll get it all done, we always do.” Her eyes plead with me to calm down, but it's too late. I can't hear reason anymore.

  “I can't work with her for another day. She's not going to do a thing for this project, then next week, once the show airs, she’ll be on social media telling everyone how wonderful she is,” I almost yell as I pull out of Janie’s grip.

  “It’s your funeral,” she calls as I storm off.

  I push open the heavy door to the Dragon’s den and storm in. She’s at her desk, filing her nails. Are you fucking kidding me!

  “What is it, Elena? I’m very busy.”

  “Yeah, it looks like it!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she hisses at me.

  “You're in here doing your nails, while Janie and I do all the work. I’m not staying back tonight to get this job done. So you can have your beauty appointments tomorrow. Do them after work like the rest of us have to.”

  “Do you think you have a choice, my dear? I’m your boss and I can do what I like. You can either fall into place and do as you are told... or leave. There are plenty of other girls lining up to take your place. You're nothing special, you know.” Her expression unfazed by my anger. Surely she can see the steam coming from my ears. My body is tense and I can feel how hot my face is. Did she really just say I'm replaceable? She would be screwed without me.

  My mouth is moving before I have time to filter the words from my brain. “Good luck finding someone with my experience at such shor
t notice. I’m done,” I yell. I turn and storm off. I've got to get out of this place before my tears start flowing.

  “You walk out that door and you're done in this industry. I'll drag your name through the mud.”

  I keep walking. I'm not giving her the satisfaction of seeing how upset I am. I'm walking out of here with my head held high and some dignity.

  I pack up my desk quickly, shoving the few personal items I have in my bag. Janie’s by my side.

  “What did you do, Elly?”

  “I quit. I'm sorry if it leaves you with all the work, but I can’t work with her anymore.” A tear escapes down my cheek as regret kicks in. I swipe it away; I'm not crying here.

  Janie wraps her arms around me. “It's going to be okay, Elly. I’m sure you’ve got a plan, haven’t you?”

  I shake my head. “Nope, no plan. I wasn’t expecting to do that!" I hug her back. "See you, Janie, good luck with the Dragon.” I grab my bag, the potted plant, and the photo of my family from last Christmas, the only personal items I had here. I hold my head up high and power walk straight for the elevator. I can't believe I just did that. Jessie’s going to kill me. With the wedding in just three months, we need all the money we can get. Fuck, Elena, why did you do that!

  My heart is racing as I stand looking at the front door to our apartment. I’m soaking wet. I waited for the bus for half an hour in the pouring rain, after calling Jessie non-stop to come save me. His phone must be on silent or something. He didn’t answer. How am I going to tell him how stupid I’ve just been? I check my watch. It’s 4pm so he should be home at this time in the afternoon. He works from home, designing websites. There’s no avoiding it, I have to tell him now.