Brides and Betrayal (Reconciled and Redeemed Book 1) Read online

  “I wasn’t going to make any excuses.” She looked away from his eyes, unable to handle the hate she saw there. It scraped at her soul, eradicating the spots where his love had one inhabited. “I can understand that you don’t want anything to do with me, but this child is yours.”

  “Prove it.” Hunter fairly hissed the words. “Let’s get a paternity test.”

  She placed a hand over her belly, thinking that this poor child was going to have an awful beginning. He must have taken her silence for hesitation.

  “I can see you don’t want to do that. Is it because you aren’t certain?”

  Holly lifted her chin in defiance, but it crumbled before his icy stare. “I will get the test. I will set it up on Monday.”

  She grabbed the handle to her last suitcase, but stopped before she left. Her voice was soft, humble as she spoke. “I know you won’t believe me when I say there was no love...no feelings behind what I did with Seth. I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me.” Despite her best effort to not cry, tears hung on the tips of her lashes. Blinking them away, she added, “But I understand, regardless of why I did it, my actions were enough to destroy our marriage.”

  For the first time since she had arrived, Hunter’s face registered something besides hate, but only briefly. As Holly replayed the scene in her mind over the next few weeks, she began to doubt whether she had ever really seen that brief flicker of tender emotion.

  Hope was a dim candle burning in the corner of a dark room where she sat daily, waiting for the light to spread her way. When the paternity test came back, she was sure he would relent, or at least soften a little. After he read the results, he merely looked at her and said, “Well, it looks like we will have to add custody into the divorce proceedings.”

  Like a cold breeze, his words snuffed out that lone flame that had been burning. Hope was gone, and fear had taken up residence. “You aren’t going to try and take the baby...?”

  Again, she thought she saw a flicker of emotion. “No, Holly.” His voice had lost a small bit of its edge. “But I am not going to pretend everything is okay for the sake of our child. I will not take you back.”

  The finality of his words slammed into her heart.

  He didn’t look at her as he continued. “My lawyers said that if we don’t contest it, things can go relatively quickly.”

  For a brief moment, Holly thought about fighting it. Would the judge delay if she said she wanted to work things out? Would he force them to go to counseling? Maybe Hunter would have a change of heart...

  One look into his cold eyes, and she knew there was no point. Over the past week, her life had become this cold and empty waiting room where she lingered pointlessly for good news to be delivered. She might as well end it now. Why drag it out? Just let the pain begin.

  “Okay,” she choked back a sob. With that, she left.

  Eight years destroyed with a stroke of my pen. Holly looked at Hunter across the conference table, but his head was turned. A muscle worked in his jaw, but she thought she saw a glimmer of tears in his dark blue eyes.

  She hesitated on the second H in Holly Ann Harrison. When I complete the last hump on the n, it is over.

  Holly’s eyes fell on the words “irretrievably broken” on the papers. That was how they labeled their marriage, despite her heart’s desire to say it was otherwise.

  Fight! Her heart screamed. Tell him you love him. Tell him you are sorry. Tell him you can’t live without him. With a deep breath, she signed her name and put her pen down, knowing that words or actions would do nothing to repair the rift she had torn in their marriage. Holly looked up at her husband...ex-husband, she corrected herself.

  Hunter finally looked at her, and she pleaded silently with him from across the table. But there was no forgiveness in the firm set of his jaw or the cold darkness of his eyes.

  Holly stood on legs that trembled, and she wasn’t sure she could even make it out of the office.

  But somehow she did. She managed to walk past the receptionist happily chatting on the phone. With a trembling finger she pushed the button to summon the elevator, which arrived too quickly, spilling out a laughing couple. As Holly stepped in the elevator, she turned to see the man place his hand on the small of the woman’s back. Before she could squelch it, the image of Hunter’s gentle touches surface in her mind.

  She hesitated, but somehow found the strength to press the L1 that would take her down to the garage, where she would have no choice but to get in her car and drive out of Hunter’s life forever.

  Holly leaned against the walls of the elevator as the doors slid closed, fearful she would crumble under the weight of her guilt, her shame, and her stupidity. You don’t know what you have until it is gone was a harsh refrain that had played continually in her mind these past eight weeks. With sigh, she realized it was never going to go away.

  A hand reached in just before the doors closed, and Hunter pushed his way in.

  His eyes met hers briefly then rested on her stomach as the elevator lurched into motion.

  She debated as the illuminated display showed they had gone from the twelfth to the eleventh floor. She had ten more floors and then it was over.

  “Hunter,” she began, but he shot her an angry glare that made her question saying anything else. But the thought of his walking out of her life forever hurt too much to squelch her words.

  “I know ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t enough to make it all go away, but I truly am sorry for what I did. If I could go back...”

  “You can’t!” He bit the words out between clenched teeth. The muscle in his jaw was working again as he stared up at the display. They were on the fourth floor.

  Hunter turned toward Holly, and the pain she saw in his eyes made her suck in her breath. “Holly, I know you are sorry.” His nostrils flared with suppressed tears. “But I can’t get the picture of you two out of my head.”

  He turned back toward the elevator doors. She reached out to touch his arm, but he pulled it away before she could ever make contact. Her eyes closed with the finality of the elevator bouncing to a stop. The doors chimed their arrival, and they both stepped out of the elevator and into the parking garage.

  Standing just outside the elevator, she watched as Hunter walked toward his car. He didn’t even look back at her as he walked away – out of her life forever. Holly hurried to her own car, trying hard to suppress her tears.

  She had almost reached her car when a hand reached out and twirled her around. Hunter stood over her, his face a mess of tumultuous emotions. The tears that she had been holding back made their way down her cheeks, twin rivulets of regret and guilt at what she had done to this wonderful man standing before her.

  She reached up to lay her hand on his cheek. He stiffened at her touch but didn’t pull away. He closed his eyes as if savoring her touch, but his jaw was clenched. When he opened his eyes, she saw a brief flicker of the love they had once shared. Love he had lavished on her, that she had taken for granted. The emotion flickered but then died with his next words.

  “Holly, I want to forgive you, but I close my eyes and I see you two kissing. I go to sleep at night and I’m tortured with dreams of you moaning in his arms.” Hunter pulled her hand from his face. “And when you touch me, I am haunted by the images of you touching him - touching him like you should have been touching me.” He took a step back from her. The finality of the movement sang from every part of him - like the closing of the casket at a funeral, their marriage was about to end. She turned her head from the pain she saw in his eyes, but she still heard it reverberating in his voice. “I want to forgive you, Holly, but the problem is, I just can’t forget.”

  A sob tore through her heart, shredding it along the way as it escaped from her throat. Hunter turned on his heels and walked away from her, free from the shame and disgrace that now took up permanent residence in her heart.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Do you have a death wish?” Hunter growled as he opened the door to fin
d Seth standing on his doorstep. It had been two weeks since he signed the divorce papers, but it had a month since he’d slept well.

  Seth held up his hands in supplication. “We need to talk.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Well, I have something to say to you.”

  Pushed past his limit, Hunter reared back and let his fist fly until it connected squarely with Seth’s jaw. The man staggered backward a little, shaking his head as if to clear it.

  “I deserve that.” Seth admitted.

  “Save your ‘I’m sorry’. I’ve heard enough of them from Holly.”

  Hunter turned to walk away, but Seth came through the door with him. “I wasn’t about to offer you an apology. I came here to tell you that you are making a big mistake.”

  Turning back to the man, Hunter gripped Seth’s shirt and slammed him up against the wall. “The biggest mistake I’ve made was letting you slither into my home.”

  Seth swung at Hunter, sending him off balance enough for Seth to break free from his grasp. “You are such an idiot if you think she ever wanted me. She always wanted you.”

  “But that didn’t stop you from sleeping with her.”

  Guilt lowered the indignation in Seth’s voice. “I never meant to...” Seth shook his head. “Look, I am sorry for what happened. If I had known how everything would have turned out, I would have never...” Seth shook his head again. “The point is, I am not here for your forgiveness.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To beg you to forgive your wife.”

  “Did she put you up to this so the two of you can move on together?”

  Seth shook his head in confusion. “Holly and I aren’t...” He wiped a hand down his face and whispered, “She is more self-destructive than I thought if she let you believe she had feelings for me.”

  “You sleep with her once and now you think you are the expert on my wife.”

  “I came here to tell you that you need to learn how to forgive her. My wife died right after she confessed her adultery to me. I didn’t have a chance to forgive her. I didn’t have a chance to undo the angry and hurtful things I said to her.”

  Some of the words seeped through to Hunter’s enraged mind, but not enough to keep him from swinging at Seth again. But the man was expecting it, and he dodged the blow.

  “She loves you...”

  This time Hunter’s swing didn’t miss. “Don’t think you can come over here after ruining my marriage and offer me advice. And we don’t share anything in common.” Leaving the man standing in the hallway, he started to walk away but turned around.

  “I take that back - I guess we have my wife in common. But you can have her.”

  “All she ever wanted was you to love her for her. She’s had a rough life, and she needed you to love her, not make her feel unworthy and unwanted.” Seth just shook his head and turned to leave.

  “I guess you had no problem taking up my slack!”

  Seth slammed the door on his retreating back, and Hunter stood staring at the door. His chest was heaving with the force of the anger that was surging through him. On the nearby table was their wedding picture. Seeing it just made his anger boil over. For a moment, he stared down at it - entranced by the way Holly was looking at him. With a growl, he threw it across the room until it shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Just then, the door opened up and he thought he was going to have to go another round with Seth. With his anger boiling over, a part of him wanted to. But he knew no amount of slamming his fist into Seth’s face was going to change the fact that she had chosen to replace him with Seth.

  “What is going on here?” Grace, his younger sister cried from the open doorway.

  “What are you doing just barging in here without knocking? I almost hit you.”

  “I saw that man leaving all bruised and bloodied.”

  Hunter just grunted. His sister connected the dots. “Is that who Holly...?”

  Another grunt from Hunter provided confirmation.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  She returned moments later to find him standing in the same place, amid the shattered glass of the frame, the photograph in his hand.

  “Come on, let’s go in here.” They sat down on the sofa in the living room and she turned to tend to the cut over his eye.

  He was trying to calm his temper, but all he could think about was everything Seth had said to him. He looked down at the photo now filled with scratches.

  “This reminds me of when you were little and mom had to clean up your face every time you got into a fight at school.”

  He scoffed, “She was the reason I was getting in fights. I just didn’t know that the person whose honor I was defending didn't have any honor worth defending.”

  Grace cleaned the cut over his eye, causing him to wince.

  “Dad thought so.”

  “Dad was a fool.” She dabbed his cut again, and he sucked in his breath at the sharp pain.

  Grace stared down at him for a few moments before gathering up the bloodied towels. “And I bet you are going to make sure you are not as foolish as him, right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You know, he wasn’t really the blind fool you make him out to be. He just loved mom enough to forgive her.”

  She was about to turn and leave when he finally admitted, “I don’t love Holly.” She must have heard the brokenness in his voice, because she set her things down and grabbed his hand in her own.

  She stared at their hands for a moment, contemplating her words. “Then why aren’t you over what happened?”

  Get over it! His mind rebelled at the idea. Grace made it sound like some trivial matter he was clinging to like a petulant child who didn’t get his wish.

  “I understand she hurt you, but you are letting this anger and judgment fester inside you. I know Holly well enough to know that she was sorry for her mistake.”

  “Mistake!” Hunter roared. “It’s not like she left the cap off the toothpaste! She was unfaithful. She let another man touch her, kiss her...” His words trailed off as bile rose in his throat at the pictures that surfaced in his mind. “She defiled everything about our love.”

  Grace stood staring at him for a moment, then smiled. “You still love her.”

  “Don’t be absurd!”

  “Yes, you do. It is hidden between all of your visceral exclamations, but it is there.”

  He stared down at his little sister, her blonde brow arched in defiance. He swiped a hand down his face in frustration. “Fine, I do still love her. I never stopped loving her. But I can’t just blindly forgive what she did. I’m not Dad.”

  Hunter closed his eyes, blocking out the pity on his sister’s face. He wished he could block out her words just as easily.

  “When a person is truly repentant, God forgives them.”

  Hunter wished for a soft reply, but what burst from his lips was born out of the pain that resided in his heart. "I know she was sorry for what she did, but ‘sorry’ doesn't erase the images playing over and over in my mind.”

  Grace placed her hand on his arm. “Hunter, don’t you know that forgiveness isn’t condoning what she did?”

  He looked down at his baby sister, and he knew she meant well. But a surge of anger renewed in his heart as he thought of forgiving her. She had ruined their marriage, she had defiled their love, and she had betrayed him. Because of her sin, his child would never know the warmth of a home that both of his parents lived in.

  With an angry sigh, Hunter growled. “I know God forgives - but I am not God."

  Invitations on a Budget

  Holly typed the words, shuffled her paperwork around on her desk, and tried to focus on this week’s blog post for their website. She tried to blame it on the pain searing her lower back and the aching cramps that had started this morning, making it impossible to get comfortable.

  Holly picked up the letter from Hunter’s lawyer, detailing his prefer
red arrangements for the baby. She was supposed to sign if she agreed to his plan - one that curtailed their interaction to a minimum. Once the baby was born and Holly was ready to go back to work, they would agree on a daycare provider. On his weekends, she would drop the baby off at the daycare on Friday, and he would pick the child up; the reverse would happen on Monday. Holly tossed the paper on her desk, not wanting to read the end again, which held a small missive, “Let me know if Heather Ann Harrison is acceptable for the child’s name.”

  She had sent Hunter a copy of the sonogram, and let him know that they were having a girl. His response had been this letter.

  She had hoped...

  She stood, trying to knead the pain from her lower back. Hoped what? Her inner tormentor asked. Hoped that the baby might be a way back into his heart?

  “I think these brides are crazy from their happiness!” Anya stormed into Holly’s office carrying the scent of her flowery perfume and a hint of spices from the recipe she had been perfecting all week. From her thick accent, her dark, wild curls, and her long flowing dresses, Anya reeked of everything exotic.

  Holly laughed at her friend’s assessment of the women they served. “You can’t blame them. They are about to embark on their most joyous day.”

  Anya rolled her eyes. “I don’t ever want to have a big wedding. I’ll put on a pretty dress, stand up with my man in church, and then have a quiet dinner with close friends and family.”

  “Hunter and I had a big wedding.” A wistful smile softened the lines around her blue eyes. “It was fun, but, I admit, it was crazy. I was glad when we were able to escape everyone and head off on our honeymoon.”

  Anya crossed her arms at the mention of Hunter, but she refrained from adding her thoughts. Holly decided to keep it that way and she changed the subject.

  “So I take it we have a new client?”

  “Yes, three weeks from now.” Holly followed her friend out the door to the showroom, as Anya’s words floated back to her. “She wants empire waist, chiffon, ivory - not white.”