Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Anything for Love
    Anything for Love
    Anything for Love
    Ebook78 pages41 minutes

    Anything for Love

    By Julie Harris

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    ‘Happily ever after’ only belongs in fairy tales, at least that’s what Molly has finally realized, even if it’s a little too late.

    She can see it now—how blind she was to the signs, seeing only what she wanted to see, ignoring the warning bells, turning her back on her friends. She thought they were jealous because Tim came into her life; became her focus, her reason for being.

    Yes, Tim was everything she thought she always wanted. Molly did not realize her wants were born of desperation. Her wants were not needs.

    And now Tim has her where he wants her, dependent, socially atrophied, without a friend.


    The misogynist with the dreadful secrets has won his power game.


    Or so he thinks.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJulie Harris
    Release dateSep 15, 2014
    ISBN9781502219848
    Anything for Love

    Read more from Julie Harris

    Related to Anything for Love

    Related ebooks

    Suspense Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Taxidermist

      Dec 2, 2021

      Taxidermist
      7 min read

    • Article

      Notes on Etiquette

      Mar 1, 2019

      Notes on Etiquette
      10 min read

    • Article

      Ongoingness

      Apr 21, 2022

      Ongoingness
      8 min read

    • Article

      How Dementia Saved Mum & Me

      Mar 31, 2021

      How Dementia Saved Mum & Me
      5 min read

    • Article

      Australia Reads At Home

      May 18, 2020

      Australia Reads At Home
      7 min read

    • Article

      Riccardo

      Jun 14, 2022

      My understanding of my family’s religion was that we didn’t have to go to church if we didn’t want to and that our belief in God was tenuous at best. I grasped the seventh principle, “the interconnected web of all existence,” and I understood the hum

      14 min read

    • Article

      A Shot At Happiness

      Oct 17, 2021

      A Shot At Happiness
      6 min read

    • Article

      Suspicious Minds

      Apr 7, 2022

      Suspicious Minds
      5 min read

    • Article

      Why We Love The Hype Housers

      May 4, 2020

      The Hype House are kinda like a box of Cadbury Favourites… and not just because they’re super sweet and can be a bit messy sometimes, too. There are so many different flavours. And while you may have your go-to fave, you may also find yourself cravin

      3 min read

    • Article

      Caught Out

      Oct 2, 2022

      Caught Out
      9 min read

    • Article

      Working Like A Charm

      Jun 1, 2022

      Working Like A Charm
      3 min read

    • Article

      Seeing RED

      Mar 31, 2021

      Seeing RED
      6 min read

    • Article

      Aisling Bea: ‘A Lot Of Top Female Comedians Have Absent Or Dead Fathers – Look Into That, Scientists’

      Jul 2, 2021

      “I remember listening to someone talking about depression on the radio, and God love them, but it was so depressing,” says Aisling Bea, horizontal on her sofa in north London. “I was like, ‘God, that could really ruin your day.’” So she hatched a pla

      7 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 21, 2020

      One critic described The Lightness as the love child of Donna Tartt and Tana French, and that’s a pretty good description. Sixteen-year-old Olivia has run away to The Levitation Center, a remote retreat and the last place her father had been to befo

      5 min read

    • Article

      What are FRIENDS FOR?

      May 4, 2022

      What are FRIENDS FOR?
      6 min read

    • Article

      Jessie Buckley

      Feb 1, 2024

      Jessie Buckley
      14 min read

    • Article

      Daisy’s Day In The Sun

      Jul 12, 2022

      Daisy’s Day In The Sun
      8 min read

    • Article

      Ann Beattie

      Sep 15, 2017

      I’d started to visit Olivia more often because it was obvious she was lonely. The ALS lady who’d been moved to Hopkins had been Aunt Olivia’s closest friend, leaving aside Merton Hillstead, who actually went home. Even the friendly paperboy who somet

      23 min read

    • Article

      Thought Leader

      Nov 7, 2022

      Thought Leader
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Anything for Love

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Anything for Love - Julie Harris

      One

      ––––––––

      For a short time life with Tim was good, but ‘good’ is too subjective a word to use. The signs were there all along—sometimes in flashing neon—but Molly was too blind to see. He’d been the second love of her life. He’d been kind. He had a lovely smile. And there was something almost dangerous about him, too.

      Maybe it was the danger that drew her close?

      Maybe it was a rebound and she needed to prove to herself that she was worthy?

      Maybe her hormones were playing silly games?

      After all, the experts say that females aren’t attracted to ‘nice’ while they are fertile. That had to be the reason her mother married a monster in the first place. Mother ended up living a life of hell and so did her children. He was dangerous. He wasn’t nice.

      Nice comes later when common sense overrides the physical. Why does the good always come too late? Nice guys do exist but when a female is young, she only wants ‘nice’ as a friend. Not as the father of her children. Not as a lover. It’s an evolutionary thing.

      Thinking back, there hadn’t been one room in his apartment that wasn’t christened by their frantic love-making. At the start, just one glance from his dark eyes was all it took. But back then, she’d do anything if it meant she wasn’t living a solitary life.

      Molly could not bear to be on her own.

      After six weeks he asked her to marry him. The little voice inside said, wait a while. Don’t rush. But she ignored it. So they waited in line at a wedding chapel and came out married. It was like a conveyor belt in a fast food joint. She was happy though—being married meant she never had to be alone again.

      Molly didn’t like being alone. Being alone meant she had too much time to think. And when she thought she always traveled back to her past where she spent most of her time in a fetal curl in the bottom of her closet, hoping Daddy wouldn’t find her hiding place.

      Yes, she’d rather die than be alone. That’s what she told herself anyway. But the rot set in sooner than later, and her words, I’d rather die, became, eventually, an anticipated reality.

      They say you create what you fear the most.

      Molly only had one friend remaining. Lisa. Lisa, the closely-guarded secret. They had lunch once a week, on a Wednesday, before the grocery shop. Tim had seen to the vanquishing of everyone else, and fairly quickly, too, once she’d signed on the dotted line in that wedding chapel. No one called these days. No one invited her to parties, or to coffee, and Tim didn’t like her dancing so she let that slide, at first making lame excuses to the girls how, no, sorry, she couldn’t perform on Saturday night because ...

      Because ...

      Because ...

      Because by the time she ran out of excuses it was too late to confide in anyone. Except Lisa. The Molly her friends once loved had disappeared behind the mire of Tim’s obsessively protective shadow, never to be seen or heard from again.

      Except for Lisa. Lisa, who hated anything male. But boy, could she dance!

      Belly dance, she often said, was originally a dance of women, for women.

      Molly only danced in private now, and only when Tim was at work. Her audience these days was the cat with his bored expression. Her costumes still hung in her special closet—the jangly belts and Kuchi headpieces, the slinky velvet beladi dresses, coin-covered bras and harem pants... Gypsy skirts, necklaces, earrings, bracelets and bells... Oh, those bells.

      She rarely ventured into that room. It was too heartbreaking, plus it wasn’t worth the trouble. She felt guilty if she dressed up, put on the Turkish drumming CD and danced.

      Last time she did that, Tim came home unexpectedly. All she could do was stand there, hoping he wouldn’t be ‘disappointed’. She knew what his ‘disappointment’ felt like. Sometimes it took more than a week for the bruises to fade. How many times had Lisa offered to kill him? Personally? No charge?

      Tim came in the door and propped, shocked. ‘What the? What’s all this?’

      ‘I just ... I ...’

      Tim shook his head. ‘I told you how I feel about this.’

      ‘Honey, I...’

      ‘Do not ‘honey’ me. You know how I feel about it. It’s ... degrading!’

      ‘Belly dance is not degrading!’

      It was out before she realized it. She couldn’t see for two days afterwards. But this was how he’d met her! She was with the troupe, dancing at a 40th birthday party. She was halfway through her sword dance solo—using a real sword—when their gazes had locked. She’d danced on, star struck. Everyone else at that party dissolved into the mists.

      Molly sighed. If only she hadn’t seen him—tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, devilishly handsome.

      Alas, she had, and it was infatuation at first glance. At the time she thought it was love.

      And now that she bore his name, dance was taboo. He told her to get rid of the jingly crap. Sell it all on ebay.

      But Molly could not do that. So now the remnants of a past passion—her only passion—lay gathering dust in the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1