Full Disclosure by Betty Smith

Official Description:

When his high school love becomes a White House Press Secretary, BBC reporter, Edward Cullen, pursues Bella Swan once again. Heartbreak, time & their jobs are between them, but they have a bond forged from grief & comfort. A love story in 2 parts. B/EPOV

Currently Betty Smith is in the process of writing one of the absolute best stories I have read had the privilege to read. Full Disclosure is a complex, drama driven, true to life love story.

Okay, so I feel the need to explain myself with the earlier explanation. I love complicated love stories, as real love stories are always complicated. We are all damaged in some way – be it a bad marriage, crappy childhood, horrible breakup, or maybe you had the Brady Bunch family and you were just always lonely and haven’t experienced much of life. So to me, a great story portrays how life isn’t always cookie cutter and that it’s about overcoming adversities or heartbreak and putting yourself out there for the hope of something better. Full Disclosure does that in spades. In it, Betty Smith weaves a wonderful web taking place in two different time frames in Edward and Bella’s life from two different point of views.

We begin in January 2009 in the prologue from Edward’s point of view, describing how he’s manipulating his job situation to place himself back in Bella’s life, which makes you believe that something happened in the past — to cause heartbreak, loss, pain for both of them. Don’t worry, I’m told there is a wonderful HEA for both of them in the end here.

In the prologue, we begin in the future, where we know there is some downtime between our lovers, so you are left with this feeling of dread but having no clue what actually happened to split them up even before they get together:

Prologue: I knew her. I looked around the room and saw all the men who wanted to know her – James Laurent being one of them. Obviously checking her out, he stared at her lean legs. Did he see her scar I wondered?

Her scars. I knew her scars. I would never forget about them. Scars from the accident covered her body. I still could picture many of them, and my mouth remembered kissing the brownish purplish lines, wishing I could make all of her pain disappear. I wondered what they might look like now. Were they just faded ghost lines criss-crossing her torso? Maybe she could forget it all now.

Bella stopped for the briefest moment and peered over her shoulder, wrenching my heart again with another indifferent stare. But this time, she nodded her head, acknowledging me, and ever so slightly she bit her lip, just like she always had when she was anxious. At once, she turned back around, quickly exiting the room. Is she happy to see me? Or upset with me? I couldn’t tell, but I didn’t care. Bella still felt something, and that alone was enough.

Then in Chapter 2, we are brought back to the beginning to truly start our story:

Standing up, I stared straight at him. “Please just leave me alone.” I started to turn around, and my voice broke altogether. “I’ll walk myself the rest of the way.”

Then, I felt his arm on mine. “Please Bella. Don’t go. I’m so sorry …” I jerked my arm away as he turned his head to the side and ran a hand through his hair. He questioned himself in a frustrated voice, “God, I’ve made a mess of things. What have I been doing?”

“I have no idea.” I was about to walk away again when he placed a hand on my shoulder, which forced me to look at him.

“Bella, please. I really do fancy you – a great deal. I’ve wanted to be your friend since I moved here. I like being with you … so much. And you … you seem happier when we talk. You actually smile, and when you smile, you’re even more beau…”
Shrugging his hand off of my shoulder, I cut him off; I was irate. “So I’m a pity project for you? The ‘make Bella happy’ project.”

“No! Not at all. Please believe me. I care for you, but I haven’t known if you’re …”
“Care for me?” Thank God I was drunk because I could say what I wanted. “Right. I’m sure you think about how you care for me when you’re fucking Tanya.”

What I LOVE about this Bella is she’s ballsy without being a bitch! She isn’t going to take something lying down. She won’t allow some guy to treat her less than she believes she deserves. She’s confident, headstrong, and assertive. Now she is still a teenage girl with issues of her own, but she refuses to allow her insecurities to be seen on the outside.

Jasper takes on an ‘interesting’ role in this story. He is the cousin of our dear Edward, and when Edward is a fool, Jasper sweeps in while on vacation in Forks and takes a fancy to our Bella – and he doesn’t hestitate in showing his feelings. It does not take him hardly anytime at all to decipher Edward’s feelings and makes sure Bella is aware of that:

Chapter 3: Taking my face in his hands, he kissed me before saying, “You look after yourself, princess.”

I gave him one more peck, and we simultaneously turned away from one another. But just as I unlocked my door, I heard his voice call out from a few feet away.

“And Bella.”

“Yeah.”

With a look and voice of sincerity, he asked, “I don’t think you should give up on my numbnuts cousin just yet. Alright?”

I rolled my eyes in jest. “Right. Goodbye, Jasper.”

This story really understands how slowly some things move. Especially when it comes to hurt feelings as a teenager:

Chapter 8: That was when I figured it out – Edward wanted to protect me. Sure, he liked me the way high school guys liked girls. Yet there was something else in the way he acted around me. It was like he felt some sort of special ownership over me. As my realization sunk in, I smiled right back at him and squeezed his hand. The last thing I wanted to do was discourage the feeling.

Eventually Bella gives him a second chance, and what happens is a beautiful first love story. There is this looming sadness as Edward and Bella both know their time in Forks is short, because Edward’s family will have to relocate back to England by the end of that year. They both decide that they can’t ignore what is happening between them – they will have their time together and deal with the consequences later.

Eventually there comes a time when Bella knows what she and Edward have will end:

Chapter 13: They were both shocked, but Angela exclaimed incredulously, “Bella, he’s your boyfriend! You would just let him leave and never see him again? That would be horrible for both of you.”

Rosalie looked at it even more simplistically. “Bella! You would really, really hurt him. He loves you.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but how much? We’re supposed to have a long distance relationship? For how many years? Everybody knows those things don’t last.”
In that instance, quoting Renee made sense. She knew a hell of a lot more about failed relationships than me.

Angela offered, “But, you could be friends. Listen, you know I haven’t always liked the guy, but even I can tell how much he cares for you. You care for him. You’re good friends. Why would you throw that away?”

Rosalie agreed, “Even if you’re not together-together, don’t you want to at least give it a shot? Otherwise, you’ll never know.”

“I know the odds, and the odds aren’t with us.” I looked at my best girlfriends’ pleading faces and decided to tell them the truth. “And besides, I can’t bear to think of him with another girl. And I know him – I know he would be. I’d die of jealously. I wouldn’t be a friend. I’d be a pesky, jealous old girlfriend while he was off with some new girl.”

Rosalie sympathized, “Oh Bella. I’d feel the exact same way. I’d hate the bitch, but is that really worse than not speaking to him?”

Angela tried reason. “Of course, both of you would date other people, but not talking to him ever again would be incredibly painful.”

I set my jaw and bit my lip before declaring, “I think I know something about pain – more than both of you. I know what I can handle.”

Bella had been so hurt by the loss of her sister in a tragic accident that she cannot allow herself that kind of pain in losing Edward. So if she cuts herself off completely, then she is in control and it won’t hurt as much – or so she thinks.

This Edward makes a lot of ‘bloody’ mistakes; he screws up with Bella more than once. I absolutely LOVED this, because he’s 17 years old. How many teenage boys get it right the first time they fall in love? Let’s face it how many 30-year-old men do? There was a shocking twist in Chapter 14 that I won’t spoil for anyone, because I loved the reaction I had to it…but trust me when I say it’s explosive and will change your opinion on these two. Let me just say it’s not one person who screws up here…they both make life changing mistakes.

The author makes this WONDERFUL comment in Chapter 15 that I just adored. You realize that Edward and Bella’s time is running short. They both know it and are fighting against it with all their might.. In Chapter 15, Edward poses the question to Bella about what if? What if a different time in their life they were both single – what if?

Chapter 15: What he described seemed unimaginable. I couldn’t really comprehend what it would be like to be 35. And the idea that he would ever be single was ridiculous. But I played along. I tried to think about what it would be like if he called me when I was that old. Of course, if I was still single or even just casually dating someone, I’d be elated.

What if I was married though? Lying in bed with him at that moment, with his arms around me, it seemed impossible that I’d find anyone who measured at all up to him – who I loved equally. But what if I was older and lonely? Or what if I wanted kids – would I settle? I was a practical person; I knew I’d happily take what I could get. But would it then wreck my world to have Edward Cullen burst into it? Without a doubt, I knew it would.

By Chapter 18, we are back to the prologue, and Edward has tried to develop a friendship with Bella just to have her in any way he can. Of course, Bella resists:

Emboldened by the conversation, I pulled her closer to me. It was close enough that I felt her heart, beating double time.

At once she pulled back. She was fearful and swallowed hard. “I have a boyfriend.”
“I know.” Silence and reality loomed. Looking for a way out, I offered, “But surely, we could be friends again.”

Her head snapped up. “We were neverjust friends.”

With those few words, all the feelings I had for her 15 years ago surfaced. I felt them all once more. I tried to work through what was then and what was now. “No … we weren’t, but we could give it a try.”

The lemons are perfectly timed and placed and all kinds of yummy! One of my biggest pet peeves is lemons for the sake of lemons…for me they should be a part of the storytelling and move the story forward in some way, but so many authors get that wrong. Miss Betty understands the balance, and you will become enraptured with this story after less than a chapter – guaranteed!

Full Disclosure is a work-in-progress, but the updates are every two weeks and are good, meaty, lengthy chapters. If you are looking for a new must read story with a great romance and the ‘Will they get together?’ ‘Will they stay together’ ‘Will they find a way this time to make it work?’ Trust me and run to readFull Disclosure! Right now, it’s my ‘absolute favorite read – drop what you are doing to read update!’

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