Bare Devotion. Geri Krotow

destroyed his belief in forever.

      Sonja’s lips parted, and he knew she was trying to keep her breathing steady. The same way he was trying to keep his hard-on from running the show.

      “Theeeere you are, Henry!” A high-pitched Southern drawl pierced through the sensory curtain that always seemed to drape over them when they were together and made their sexual chemistry more than sex. A heavier curtain dropped down in Sonja’s gaze, smothering the heat in her eyes and revealing only her hardened distrust of him. For what she thought she knew about him, and the woman who’d crashed their wedding. Deidre Jones walked into their shared home as if she owned the place. Could his life get any shittier?

      He stepped back and looked at the woman who had hoped to strike the death knell to his marriage to Sonja. As much as he wanted to blame her, if he and Sonja had been better connected, communicating more, not even a narcissistic witch like Deidre would have made a blip on the screen of their future. “What the hell are you doing here, Deidre?”

      The petite blonde gave him her full-wattage smile, the one he’d been stupid enough to fall for back in college. “I was in the neighborhood checking out my parents’ villa and saw your car in the driveway.” She pointedly looked between the two of them. “This isn’t a bad time, is it?”

      “It’s a perfect time.” Sonja picked up her bag and headed for the stairs. “I’ll be upstairs putting together a few things.”

      Henry shoved his fingers through his hair. It was a sad replacement for what he wanted to do—shove his fist through the drywall that was going to have to be stripped back when the renovation started. How sad was he that he only felt it was okay to punch a hole in an already damaged wall? Sonja was right. He not only had a stick up his ass—it was up his whole damn life.

      “Henry. Talk to me.” Hell. He’d paused too long. The icy cold hand on his forearm wasn’t Sonja’s, and wasn’t welcome. He shook free of her grasp.

      “Again. What the hell are you doing here?”

      Deidre blinked, her ridiculously long eyelashes reminding him of tarantula legs. “I told you, I was—”

      “No, not what you said, Deidre. Why are you breaking the restraining order?”

      Chapter 2

      Henry glared at the woman who’d destroyed so much of his life during college and right after, and had returned to lay waste to his wedding to the one woman for him. The woman he needed to be upstairs with. “Why, Deidre?”

      “That’s years old, Henry. Isn’t it expired by now? And you know yourself, your parents invited me to your wedding. I’m so glad I was there to help you through the rough patch.” Her brow rose in an over-the-top, practiced way. If he hadn’t caught her rehearsing her expressions in the mirror that one morning over a decade ago, he’d have never believed how deeply self-centered a person could be.

      “You know I had it renewed last week. You need to leave. Now. And I’m reminding you to stay away from me. Come near me again and I’ll report your restraint violation. We do not have a relationship.”

      “But your parents disagree. They were happy to see me.” Deidre picked at some imaginary thread on her sundress, and he tried to have a flash of compassion for her. He wondered if it’d be easier if she were mentally ill and not the hard-boiled narcissist she was. Would he have been able to overlook her destructive manner?

      “You tricked them into inviting you. For your sake I never told them what a lying, manipulative person you are. I regret that now.”

      Her head jerked up, and she stared at him.

      “I didn’t need them to invite me. I would have come to the ceremony no matter what. I knew that once you saw me again you’d realize that we—” She halted, readjusting her hunt. Classic Deidre. If she channeled her intelligence into something more fruitful than making every man’s life who’d ever dumped her into a living hell, she’d be unstoppable.

      “There are more natural ways to handle things, you know. Like what’s between us, still.” She said “things” as if she were talking about the weather and not her severely messed up moral compass. Fuck.

      “There is nothing between us, Deidre, except a restraining order.” He pulled out his phone, intent on calling the police. “Please leave, Deidre.”

      She picked up the designer bag she’d dropped on the kitchen counter, and he briefly wondered how she afforded it, when it had to be difficult for her to hold a job down. Not his problem anymore, and he’d proved once that all he did was enable her, prevent her from hitting the bottom of whatever the hell was wrong with her. Which his parents had unwittingly done by inviting her behind his, and Sonja’s, back. Not that their motives were anything but selfish and destructive.

      “I’ll call you, Henry.” She gave him a little wave. To an uninformed observer, Deidre looked like any other thirty-something single, dressed nice for work, if a little skinny. Her power of self-control about everything, including her diet, was as impressive as frightening.

      “Please don’t, Deidre. Goodbye.” He closed the door behind her and threw the deadbolt. As soon as he saw her drive away he went and locked the back French doors. Deidre had been a master of unwelcome entry when they’d first broken up, and he doubted she’d lost that skill.

      For the millionth time since the wedding day, he asked himself how his past had come calling in the cruelest manner at the exact moment he thought he was going to begin the happiest part of his life.

      * * * *

      Upstairs, Sonja allowed her fury to fuel her packing. Thankfully the upstairs didn’t smell as mildewy as the main floor, and she’d stored her suitcases in her closet. She blindly grabbed whatever outfits looked like they’d be comfortable, eschewing her favorite skintight sheath dresses and higher heels. She found no reason to linger or wallow in her self-pity as long as Miss Let-Me-Fuck-Your-Jilted-Groom was in the house. With Henry.

      “Son of a bitch!” Her hands shook, and she grasped the side of her largest piece of luggage, willing herself to not break down. Hadn’t she shed enough tears? Crying over her stupidity that led her to believe Henry was in love with her and not using her to help him prove to himself he was different from the boy who’d people-pleased his parents was one thing. Sobbing over the vacuous perfect Southern belle who all but pulled kneepads out of her huge leather designer bag? No. Not happening.

      The back of her neck burned, and she whirled around. Henry stood a couple of feet into the room, his hair uncharacteristically sticking up, which was difficult with the usual short crew he kept.

      “Leave me be.” She opened the nearest dresser drawer and grabbed handfuls of underwear.

      “No. Not until you hear me out.”

      “Hear you out? I think I’ve seen all I need to.”

      “God damn it, Sonja. You’re the one who left me. We already know your side of the story. Let me tell you mine.”

      She went into the master bathroom and began to clear the vanity of her cosmetics. Her fingers touched the edge of the bottle of her favorite perfume, and the perky designer shape seemed to mock the woman she was only two weeks ago.

      “Say what you have to say. I’m listening, but I don’t have time to stop packing, Henry.”

      He stood on the tiled bathroom floor, watching her as if he didn’t know what to expect next. Good.

      “I did not invite Deidre to the wedding. That was my parents’ doing. With help from Deidre.”

      “Really? And you’re telling me that such a well-bred Southern belle like her decided to show up without having received a formal invitation?”

      Red crept up Henry’s neck to his much longer hairline. “I, ah, I think my parents sent her a real invite, but she would have showed up anyway, from what she just told me.”

      Confused, Sonja paused. “You