Читать книгу Bare Devotion - Geri Krotow - Страница 10

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.

“I’m not saying that, Sonja. It’s just—”

“Exactly what you did, Sonja. You left me at the altar.” Henry spoke from the other side of the entryway.

Sonja jerked, her stomach heaved, and she grabbed the high counter surrounding Alesia’s desk. She lifted her chin and braced herself for the censure, the reproach, the curiosity she expected in Henry’s expression. Son of a bayou bitch, it was as if she hadn’t already faced him down a couple of hours ago.

When their eyes met he looked every bit the easygoing charmer who he’d become with her. Startled, she threw him her best glare. He hadn’t reverted back to the tight-ass, born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-his-mouth lawyer he’d been when she’d joined the firm five years ago. Just as in their destroyed home, he gave off a different energy. The familiar sensual heat didn’t radiate from his eyes. A twinge of sorrow hit her in the middle of her rib cage and caught her off guard. A reminder of how easy it had been to fall for Henry.

She’d been hired by his father almost four years ago. She’d watched his interest in her flicker on and off for three months before he’d read her mind, somehow seen her daydreams, and finally asked her out. And taken her to bed, the devout attention to detail he was known for in the courtroom turned on completely for her, to her, making her feel things and do things she’d never thought of. Or at least, never thought of doing sober, in broad daylight, like the time he’d taken one of his brother’s boats out into the bayou and bent her over the wheelhouse rail, taking her with raw need and heat. It had been worth the mosquito bites.

She shook her head, needing the physical motion to release the memory. “Good morning.” The two words were all that separated her from giving in to her desire to run or stay and stand her ground like the strong woman she’d thought she was. The woman who’d never have let Henry’s parents talk to her the way they did, who’d have paid heed to the warning signs that a marriage to Henry Boudreaux was never going to work. The woman who would have seen the evidence in front of her that there was a major trust issue going on.

“Sonja.” Henry graced her with one more scorching appraisal before turning to Alesia with a warm smile. “We’ll need lunch catered for the McNeely account, main conference room. Sonja, Rick, and I will sit in, and there are six attending from their team.”

Sonya’s head buzzed with the drone of Henry and Alesia’s conversation. She walked off to her office, unable to pretend that each time she had to deal with Henry was anything less than it was.

Cataclysmic.

* * * *

Henry had expected a huge surge of exultation at her shocked expression. It was what he’d intended to do. Shake her out of her professional composure, throw her off her damned too-sexy heels and let her know that she hadn’t affected him at all. He didn’t care if he’d made her throw up just hours ago. And he was grateful she’d fled their vows. The marriage had been a bad idea from the start. Living together had worked; why had they pushed it to the altar?

Why did you push it to the altar?

He stifled a groan.

“Do you want me to get the usual mix of wraps or something more local for lunch?” Alesia’s attention was completely on him, and he’d barely heard her request.

He wanted to give in to his snide alter ego, the energy that had kept him moving forward through the hell that had become his life since Sonja left him a jilted groom only a little over three weeks ago.

“You decide. Your judgment is impeccable.” He flashed Alesia the grin that had opened doors for him all across Southern Louisiana, throughout the New Orleans courts, even without his family name.

The grin that had initially drawn Sonja to him three and a half years ago, if what she’d told him was the truth. If she’d fallen for him at first sight, as she’d said. If her heart had really skipped a beat and she’d gotten the hiccups because her soul had “recognized” him. They’d been in this same office, Sonja sitting opposite his father as the senior Boudreaux interviewed her. She’d been sipping on a cola and showed zero signs of nervousness. And the way her eyes had sized him up had made him hard on the spot. Her expression had been priceless when that loud hiccup erupted from her mouth, her sexy as sin lips puffing, and all he’d been able to think about was how badly he needed to touch her, kiss her, have her.

She’d said it was love at first sight for her. That Henry was it. He let out a grunt of frustration. He’d never forgive himself for his own fucking stupidity. Nothing she’d said or done had been the truth, it turned out.

He closed the door to his office and crashed down hard on the leather sofa. And immediately bounced back up, unable to be in such close proximity to the very place he’d last made love to Sonja. They’d been working late to get ahead on their cases, knowing that they’d be in Tahiti for ten days after the wedding. Thinking about her in a teeny bikini, or better, nothing, had made him harder than the oak desk he leaned against, his hands wrapping around the edge. She’d let him go down on her as she lay across his quickly cleared desk, and with no one in the office, Sonja’s cries had wrapped around him as they both came in a rush of lust. Combined with love, or so he’d thought.

A true love didn’t abandon you at the altar, though.

His phone buzzed, and he gratefully grabbed for the distraction.

“Hey, Gus.”

“Henry. You back at work?” His brother’s long drawl was indicative of a happy man. Brandon “Gus” Boudreaux should be happy—he’d met the love of his life when Sonja’s maid of honor had showed up for the pre-wedding festivities.

Poppy and Brandon had been all but inseparable ever since, and Henry believed his little brother when he told him he knew Poppy was “the one.” Henry had thought Sonja was the one for him. Familiar pain squeezed just above his stomach.

“Bro, you still there?” Brandon sounded worried.

“Fuck. Yes, I’m here.”

“A little early for you to be cussing, big brother. Let me guess, Sonja’s back at work today. Am I right?”

“Yes.” Through clenched teeth.

“Maybe it’s a good day for you to take a breather. You’ve been working since what, last week?”

“Yeah. I can’t take off—we have a big client meeting today.”

“You, or you and Sonja?”

“Both of us.”

A long whistle. “Sorry, Henry. That sucks moose cock.”

He laughed despite his existential struggles. “Yeah. Yeah it does, man.”

“Whatever you do, keep your chin up and don’t let her see you suffer. Unless you want her back.”

“Hell no. Never.”

“Sounds a little too quick on the draw, Henry. You still haven’t hashed out what happened at the wedding.”

“There’s nothing to hash out. And frankly, it started long before then.” He walked around his desk and lowered himself into the chair, forcing his gaze out the window at the Spanish-moss-draped oak that sheltered the office from the hot Louisiana sun. “It’s over. My only regret is that I didn’t stop it sooner.”

“Bullshit, brother.” Brandon knew him too well, even with their several-year estrangement. Funny how the wedding-that-wasn’t had helped bridge their pride. “How about you join me and Poppy for dinner?”

“Ah, thanks, Gus. I’m the worst kind of company right now. Can I take a rain check?”

“Sure. Always.” He heard the sound of Brandon’s breath, then a swish as he imagined his brother opening his sliding screen door and walking out onto his expansive deck that overlooked the water. “But don’t think you have to call ahead or wait until you feel better. Come over whenever you want.”

“Thanks, bro.” He disconnected and stared at his cell phone. His estrangement from Brandon had been repaired by the same event that had broken his engagement and ended his marriage to the woman he knew he’d never get out of his blood. And as much as he appreciated his brother’s concern, Brandon was seeing Poppy, Sonja’s best friend. Henry didn’t put it past either Poppy or Brandon to try to fix things by surprising him with Sonja being at dinner.

They meant well, but were clueless. His and Sonja’s hurts ran deeper than a nice dinner and bottle of wine could mend.

* * * *

Sonja bit into the almond croissant with the hunger that had plagued her every day of the past few weeks. Like clockwork, her appetite returned late morning after the morning nausea passed. She knew the exact night she’d conceived the baby. Her body had felt “different” after the lovemaking session with Henry that had lasted the better part of a late winter night after they’d won a particularly challenging case. At first she hadn’t been able to pinpoint it and blamed her exhaustion on prenuptial jitters. The week before the wedding, her breasts swelled, her nipples became sensitive to the shower spray, and she’d felt as though her period was about to start at any moment. But of course it hadn’t. She’d known two days before the wedding for sure. Thank God she’d only shared it with Poppy. If Henry had known, she didn’t think she’d have been able to walk away from marrying him as she had.

The memory of leaving her soul mate at the altar made the pastry feel heavy in her stomach, and she paused, closing her eyes and breathing in and out slowly to ward off a wave of nausea. Anytime she remembered their wedding day she felt sick all over again.

“Is it that good?”

Her eyes flew open at the sexy baritone that only a few weeks ago had coaxed an orgasm out of her as he spoke dirty words into her ear while he moved over her, inside her, again and again. They might not have been completely candid with each other about a lot of things, but their sex life had always been honest.

“It’s delicious.” She put the croissant down on a napkin, next to her stack of files. Henry’s gaze dared her to look away, and she never backed down from anyone, so she stared back.

A quick flash of disgust shadowed his face before Henry looked away and sat in the seat opposite her, reaching over for his files. Usually they sat together, ready to work until whenever it took to get the day’s items checked off. It wasn’t going to get easy, ever, to know he thought so little of her. Knowing she deserved it for something he didn’t even know about yet—the baby—made it worse.

“I imagine you need time to go over these.” A deft verbal pitch to see how she’d react. Would she go high, admit she should have been back in the office last week, or go low and blame him for her staying away, or ignore it?

“Alesia sent me the files last week. I’ve read through them all.”

He had to be playing her—Alesia told Henry everything. He’d know she’d had copies to analyze. Their round-trip tickets to Tahiti had gone unused, so it wasn’t as if she’d been out of the country and unable to do any work.

“Any concerns?” He kept his face low, focused on the paperwork, but she saw the blood vessel just above his collar pulsing in rhythm to his heartbeat. Whenever Henry was agitated that was his tell.

“No, nothing to speak of.” Her voice was low and throaty, and she wished she’d tendered her resignation. It would be so much easier, especially now when every damned hormone in her body was setting off emotions she didn’t even know she was capable of. But a deft noncompete clause she’d signed when his father had hired her prevented her from going out on her own just yet. She couldn’t afford it. And now the house needed to be renovated.

Brilliant blue eyes watched her with their usual alertness. “You sure about that, Sonja? You’re acting like something’s not sitting right with you.”

“It’s just this.” She motioned very slightly between them, using her finger. “Awkward with a capital A, am I right? We didn’t talk about it as much as we probably should have this morning.” Of course, dearest Deidre’s appearance had shut down any chance of the conversation they needed to have in private.

The curiosity in his eyes turned to frosted crystal. “Let’s get it out on the table, then.” He splayed both hands on the dark polished surface, and she wondered if he’d forgotten about the time they’d both arrived to work early, too early. They’d ended up here, naked, in under five minutes. Did he see her naked body as she’d knelt on all fours, waiting for him to take her? She shook her head, blinked.

“Sonja, you okay?”

“Fine. You were going to say?”

“Whatever we shared was wiped out when you decided to walk out on our relationship without the least bit of warning. You’ve never given me a chance to explain my side of things.”

“Wait a min—”

“No, hold up.” He shot down her attempt to interrupt him with a flick of his hand. “You made your choice. And you’ve decided to continue on at this firm. I’m guessing that’s so that you can make your share of the money to fix the house, right?” He waited for her slight nod. “We both need to raise the funds to get the house rehabbed well enough to sell. Fine, I get it. But don’t think for one minute that there is anything other than our working relationship at stake. We’ve always enjoyed that, correct? And I’m willing to work with you, until the day you decide to leave the firm. Because, let’s face it, I’m not going anywhere. This is my family firm. You, you’ll go out on your own or take a better offer elsewhere. That’s okay. Until then I expect the best you have to offer, and for you to kindly refrain from referring to what we shared on a personal level. It’s over.”

Sonja stared at the man who’d hung the moon for her and only saw the stamp of Boudreaux on his expression. The same look his father had when she’d told him to take the money and referral he’d offered her to quit when she and Henry announced their engagement and shove them up his tight white racist ass. He’d never fire her, not as a black woman in his otherwise very white, very male firm. And regardless of his racist views, Sonja brought in a lot of business for their firm that they’d otherwise never catch. She’d expected Henry’s father to give her a hard time, but not so much Henry.

She’d been a fool.

“Our professional relationship never had anything to do with our personal life. Why should it now?”

Henry didn’t respond but instead glared at her. He may as well have thrown a machete at her for how his silent gesture pained her.

The door clicked open, and Alesia entered with trays of lunch food, followed by two clients and Rick, the firm’s other NOLA attorney.

As she and Henry stood to greet them she eyed her almost-husband. Her ex-fiancé. The man who’d broken her heart.

Henry was tall and professional-looking, whether dressed in a classic suit as he was now or in cargo shorts and a T-shirt. He’d been born to inherit his father’s firm, a lawyer’s mind part of his gene pool. And until their wedding weekend, she hadn’t seen that he’d also inherited the insatiable need to make everything appear perfect. Hence the pristine wedding they’d almost gone through with. Henry wasn’t a people-pleaser though, especially not to his parents. He’d bucked their sensibilities and desires by choosing to marry her, a black woman from a bayou family. Henry had never seen her as anything other than the woman he’d decided to marry. She believed that.

What Henry had refused to see, however, was that his father was never going to leave the firm to Henry as long as Sonja was his wife. The firm was going to be dissolved and all of his father’s money locked up in trust funds for future grandchildren, be it theirs or his siblings’. Sonja didn’t care about the financials for her, but she cared for Henry. He deserved more, and his constant state of denial with his parents drove her nuts. Henry’s younger brother, Gus, had formed his own life with his shipbuilding business in New Orleans, and Henry’s sister, Jena, was very much her own person.

Henry’s younger sister was a social worker who thrived on her job in New Orleans, but she was also in the U.S. Navy reserves and often traveled overseas. Jena had missed the un-wedding because she was somewhere in South America doing who knew what kind of operations for the government. She hadn’t gone to law school; neither had Henry’s younger brother, Brandon, always “Gus” to Henry.

It wasn’t about the money, which was significant, but about family legacy. Henry was the man to change it, to turn the law firm into a contemporary, relevant part of the community, serving diverse clients and causes. He saw that corporate law didn’t have to mean serving the same good ol’ boys his father had.

But Henry would never have the chance to improve upon his family legacy if she were around...unless he’d taken her up on her suggestion that they start his own family firm. She remembered offering her opinion after work last Christmastime. He’d looked at her like she had horns growing out of her head, so she’d dropped it. Thought Henry would come around to seeing he needed to start his own legacy. She’d been wrong. Henry was too loyal to the Boudreaux legacy. His father might be a jerk, but one of his great-grandfathers had worked to rebuild a free South after the Civil War. Henry wanted that to be his legacy.

The younger siblings had gotten the hell away from the family dynasty. But not Henry. Henry needed to be part of his father’s legacy in a way the other two didn’t. Because Sonja saw this, saw the need in the man she loved so desperately, she’d had no choice but to back out of their marriage. She’d do anything for Henry’s happiness, and Henry would never be happy without knowing he’d made a difference in what his father had begun.

He’d never forgive her for leaving him the way she did, and that was all right. Sonja didn’t want Henry’s forgiveness. She’d wanted his love, understanding, and trust, but her expectations had been too much.

Henry didn’t have it to give. And just as well—she hadn’t been completely honest with him. All of the discussions she’d had with his parents, no matter how acrimonious, should have been relayed to him.

And as she watched him, the one man she’d ever pinned all her hopes on, she had to face the cold hard truth. She was as unworthy of trust as Henry.