Bare Devotion. Geri Krotow

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СКАЧАТЬ be moldy, too.” She wiped her hands on her skirt and lifted up her makeup bag. “See you at the office.”

      He got to his feet, feeling awkward and unkempt next to her polished finesse. Even in what he knew she considered her worst-fitting suit, Sonja was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known.

      “Wait—we aren’t done here, Sonja.”

      The look she threw him was a potent combination of certainty, hate, and sadness. Definitely no regret.

      “I’d say we are, Henry.”

      He watched her take her larger suitcase off the bed and pull it through the door and into the hallway. As the thump thump thump of her dragging it down the steps echoed in the hot, damp house, he couldn’t ignore the weight that pummeled his chest. Desperate for a distraction, he walked back into the bathroom, pacing, opening and closing the vanity drawers. She’d taken all of her stuff. Every last bit.

      Except for the bottle of perfume he gave her last Christmas. Her favorite scent. He couldn’t stop himself from grabbing it and pulling off the cap, holding the sprayer to his nose. As he inhaled, memories flashed across his mind. Sheer torment. Sonja the day he met her in law school, Sonja taking on the most hostile client and winning, Sonja standing up to his racist parents. Sonja turning to him as the sun rose, her hands finding his cock as easily as her mouth. Sonja groaning with pleasure as he feasted on her pussy. Sonja laughing with him as they dragged a Christmas tree into the river house. This house, the house that represented their commitment to each other. Sonja in her wedding dress, bringing tears to his eyes.

      Sonja telling him in the cathedral garden that they’d made a mistake, that marriage to him wasn’t possible for her, not when he’d not been completely honest with her. She hadn’t given him a fucking chance to explain.

      There was nothing to explain. She’d been right—they’d made a mistake.

      Henry lifted the fancy bottle as if it were a grenade and aimed for the large bathtub. Before he let go of it, his arm dropped and he hung his head. If he smashed the bottle, the entire house would smell like Sonja, even after the storm repair and cleanup. He’d never survive if he didn’t start erasing every last memory.

      He carefully placed the bottle in one of the matching hardwood bathroom cupboards and shut the door.

      Chapter 3

      An hour later, Sonja moved slow and easy down Charles Street, her pace matching the weight of the humidity that wrapped around her as only New Orleans in late spring knew how. Jasmine scented her path as the long vines climbed up the storefront buildings, and she caught a whiff of fresh ground coffee from her favorite café. A scent that had called to her like pollen to a bee only weeks earlier. Before different scents affected her stomach, before nausea tainted the edges of every morning. Every afternoon and evening, too, depending on how her hormones wanted to behave.

      The local NOLA scenery soothed her as nothing else could after seeing Henry in their home two hours ago. Their house. Her former home.

      And Deidre, that sorry excuse for a bitch. Sonja wanted to blame her for everything related to the failed wedding. It would be too easy to focus her sorrow and disappointment on a single person. But Deidre was a whole lot of the uglier side of Southern tradition and not a little bit narcissistic, wrapped up into a hot sticky praline. Sonja couldn’t muster anything but disgust toward Deidre, but more at herself. No one else had forced her to run out on her groom. Sure, Deidre had shown up at their wedding ready to win Henry back, and it was as clear as a September sky over Lake Pontchartrain that in Deidre’s universe Henry would drop everything and return to her. People like Deidre didn’t see that they were borderline delusional—it was always all about them. The way Deidre had “popped in” to their—the river house. Stalking Henry, feeling it out to see what she needed to do to convince Henry it had been her all along. Pushing aside Sonja like overgrown Spanish moss. But Deidre probably didn’t even know why she was so obsessed with Henry. If it wasn’t Henry, it’d be someone else. Another sexy man that caught her eye.

      Sonja wasn’t a psychiatrist, but she felt in her gut that Deidre wasn’t mentally ill, just batshit mean. Deidre was a catalyst to her decision to jilt Henry, but she hadn’t been the reason. Her reason to back out of their wedding at the last minute was far deeper, and more basic.

      Like Henry had said, he hadn’t been totally upfront about how rough his relationship with Deidre was. And unbeknownst to him, she’d never revealed the burden she’d been unwilling to carry. The burden of making Henry completely break from his family and legal legacy for her. It wouldn’t have even been his decision—his parents would have cut him off without a further word. Which made their appearance at the rehearsal dinner and wedding all the more damning. They’d come as a reminder to her, to make sure she knew what she was doing by knocking over the dominoes with her “I do.”

      “Hey, watch it!” The yell coincided with a harsh blare as a delivery truck roared around her, making her skirt flutter around her calves. She blinked and realized she’d stepped off the curb a few seconds before the green light.

      Sonja had been doing a lot of this lately—drifting off into the last few months with Henry, replaying each conversation and interaction with his parents. It was wearing her out from the inside. She promised herself to focus on today. To let go of the past and put her energy toward her singular problem, or rather, surprise. She was going to be a mother. The fact that it was also the most miraculous thing to happen to her made it all the more complicated.

      She’d have to tell Henry soon. He had a right to know that his ex-fiancée and runaway bride was pregnant. It’d be on her time, though. Especially after he hadn’t allowed her to get a word in edgewise this morning, when she would have told him outright. She reminded herself that she no longer had any obligation to tell him anything until she was ready. Even that he was a baby daddy.

      She pushed the office door open and stepped into the firm’s lobby, still too early for clients, but Alesia, bless her, had her usual warm smile on the ready along with the pile of mail from the past three weeks that Sonya had been out of the office.

      “Good morning, Sonja.” Whoa. Alesia’s usual chipper countenance had been replaced by a grim shadow of herself.

      “Hi, Alesia.” Sonja heaved her leather tote onto the tall counter and sifted through the envelopes. “How have you been?”

      “Oh, same old same old.” Alesia didn’t meet her eyes. Hell. Better get it out there and squash the hot mess now.

      “Look, I know that recent events have been unusual, but my breakup from Henry is purely personal. It won’t affect my work here, or your office environment. I think you know me well enough to know I keep work professional.”

      “It’s not you, Sonja, or the job.” Alesia fidgeted with her skirt, part of a silky cream fit and flare dress with tiny rosebuds embroidered on a vine along the side and bodice. And then she raised her gaze from the stack of case files, and her liquid brown eyes swam with tears as she looked straight in Sonja’s. “It’s Henry. You look, um, fine. He’s not been feeling himself since you, I mean, since, since—”

      “Since I left him at the altar. Is that what you mean to say?” Calm, detached, the way she’d practiced. The way she’d wanted to be back at the house. Deidre wasn’t the only one with her sights on Henry. And why shouldn’t he have women falling at his feet? He was successful, kind, loving, and newly single.

      She ignored the twist of regret. Ending their marriage before it began, while brutal, had been her best option.

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