Bare Devotion. Geri Krotow

blond hair, big amber eyes that were offset by her porcelain skin, making her look a little like a Celtic witch. Today it only made Sonja want to curl up under the covers. There was too much to process.

      “I knew Henry well, yes. But he did change, in some ways. I don’t know, it’s like the minute we moved into the big house it all went to shit. That’s about the time we started the wedding planning, too.” The disappearance of the long talks they’d have on the small porch of the cottage they’d lived in as their house was built the first time. It was on the property they’d bought for the river house, and they’d converted it into a functioning guesthouse. How had they gone from that intimacy to her jilting him? She was awash with emotions too heavy to number. Nothing she wanted to talk to Poppy or anyone about, not yet, maybe not ever. “I’ve got to get back to the office.” She fished around in her designer bag for change.

      “Have you decided what you’re going to do for a place to live?” Poppy tilted her head. “I mean, if it was up to me you could have the downtown apartment as long as you need it, but Bianca has already rented it out again.”

      “As she should have.” Although Sonja desperately wished she’d been able to secure the efficiency, she truly couldn’t afford it. She was lucky Poppy had been able to let her stay there, gratis.

      “It’s got to be hard, being so close to him after all of this. Are the sparks still there?” Poppy slipped in the kind of quiet, unassuming yet jarring, thought provocation she’d been good at since they’d met as freshman in college.

      Sonja placed four quarters on the table and sighed. “Yes.”

      * * * *

      Henry helped himself to his second bourbon after work. He stood at the tiny kitchen counter in the cottage they’d lived in for six months while the house was built. The riverfront property was hauntingly quiet since their breakup. That was about to change when the contractors came in to do the flood repair and restoration. The guesthouse had become his home again, as it was untouched by the flood. At night though, he still found himself wandering around through the ravaged house, facing the memories of what he and Sonja had shared. Wondering how he fucked up so royally.

      He carried his drink with him as he walked across the property to the main house, through to the expansive back deck. As he took the wooden steps down to the short pier, he recalled how, only a few weeks ago, his brother had pulled up in one of his eclectic boats and offered the entire wedding party a ride into NOLA to celebrate the upcoming nuptials.

      The bite of the liquor hit his tongue, and he savored the burn as he swallowed his drug of choice. Bourbon had been his nectar and he its lovelorn bee as he nursed his aching heart. He grunted out a bitter laugh at the moving water, the current evident in the small eddies that formed around the bank and large tree trunks that floated along as easily as a fiberglass kayak.

      How stupid he’d been, to think he’d be lucky in love. To fall for Sonja’s act. He’d believed her, thought she’d really fallen in love with him, too. But then she’d changed, right before his eyes. All of the wedding planning replayed much uglier in his memory as he walked himself through each stage of their relationship.

      He’d fucked up, yes, forcing Sonja’s hand on the wedding. He saw that now. She’d wanted something much more casual, laid-back. Something her family would be comfortable with instead of the over-the-top event he wanted to announce how much he loved her. By the time Deidre showed up as an “extra” guest invited by his parents, it was too late.

      Even his family didn’t know about the crazy ex in his back pocket. They knew Deidre and knew they’d been engaged, briefly. But they didn’t know how batshit crazy she was. Some of it through no fault of her own—Deidre was a spoiled rich girl from way back. Her parents had appeased her every whim, and when she’d met him, she assumed he would, too. When he told her they were done, she’d gone insane with jealousy, rage. She sharpened her stalking skills over the next couple of years, ending in him seeking a restraining order against her.

      He’d told Sonja about his short engagement in the early days of their relationship, because he didn’t want Sonja to think he was ever holding anything back from her. But he’d held back the crazy stalking parts. The dark memories of feeling he’d never be able to have a normal life again. It’d been a source of pride for him to not tell his parents the full Deidre story—he’d needed to handle it on his own. And part of him had been ashamed that he hadn’t seen her coming a country mile away. He’d been a kid back then, comparatively, but there was nothing he’d do differently, looking at it from ten years out. The restraining order had been a step toward his maturity and a way to set a healthy boundary.

      Regret gnawed at him. Maybe he should have told Sonja all of it. Every last ugly bit. But shouldn’t the woman who loved you accept you completely, no matter what you told her? Or didn’t tell her? And while he was certainly guilty of not sharing the entire Deidre past with her, how was it that an ex ended up axing their big day?

      There was something else, something she wasn’t telling him. He thought maybe his parents had said something to her, made her think twice. But even if they had, it underscored the sad state of their bond if she didn’t come to him with her concerns.

      It wasn’t just the wedding, or the day, or the fact that he’d kept some of his past from Sonja. He’d not fought harder to keep the initial connection they shared alive. He swirled the bourbon in his glass. Working for relationships wasn’t his strong suit—he’d proven that with his parents, hadn’t he? Instead of fighting them like Brandon and Jena had, he’d ignored what needed to be done. A tug of recrimination forced him from his pity party. His parents—had he been too willing to overlook their worst character defects because he’d been so desperate to throw the huge society wedding he felt Sonja deserved?

      Christ, Sonja was the love of his life. If she wasn’t, this wouldn’t be so hard. But he could never, ever let her see it. The last thing he ever wanted from the woman who’d jilted him at the altar was pity. Compassion was pushing it, too. And if he didn’t have much else, he did still have some fucking pride left.

      It’d taken being jilted for him to realize what he’d always feared. He wasn’t worthy of Sonja, never had been. The fact that he’d started to believe he was, to the point he’d been slayed by her wedding escape, made him question his sanity.

      He wanted nothing from Sonja but for her to go away and let the good memories somehow remain intact, unsoiled by the ugly anger, resentment, and bitterness his runaway bride had left in her wake.

      God damn his conscience.