AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The Grayson Group bought STS.”
As I stare at her in horror, my legs grow weak. My vision tweaks to a pinpoint. My mouth turns into the Mojave Desert at noon. I have received the worst possible news in the entire galaxy… the solar system…the universe. “The Grayson... the Grayson Group... STS.”
That errant driver may have failed to make me hurl, but the news that RoycefuckingGrayson will be my boss’s, boss’s, boss causes the contents of my stomach to run up my throat and out of my mouth to splash into the potted plant.
Chapter Two
TWO YEARS AGO
Left in the Lurch
Genesis
Twoyearsago…
Pastor Davis looks up from his notes. His expression twists in confusion. “Uh, Genesis... where is the groom?”
“I’m back here.”
The collective gasp from our wedding guests rises and bounces off the wooden rafters of the church. Tearing my gaze from the shocked expressions of our family and friends, I pin it on two people who had my trust.
Near the entrance of the church, my husband-to-be comforts a crying woman. A woman who I thought was my friend. A woman who’d shed a river of tears after I asked her to become my bridesmaid.
Matthew bends his head of brown curls and kisses the top of Pamela’s hair. She graces him with a watery smile.
With her slender build, perfectly coiffed auburn hair, and china-blue eyes, I have to admit she makes a believable damsel in distress. I also have to acknowledge Matt and I never looked so good together. With our matching coloring and height, we are too similar for a storybook hero and heroine.
The perfect picture they make brings tears to my eyes, blurring the sea of faces. Humiliation rises like wildfire throughout my body and explodes like confetti under the Belgian lace of my great-grandmother’s veil.
“Matthew...” my voice cracks like an egg thrown at a block of concrete. “What are you doing? We’re supposed to get married...”
I trail off as Matt’s forehead creases, and the lips I kissed a thousand times tighten at the corners. “I’m leaving you, Genesis.”
I don’t know what is worse. His words and the heartache they bring, or the wrenching pain that roils my insides as his softened gaze drops to the woman in his arms. He slides a thumb over Pam’s pale cheek and there’s no mistaking the love in his eyes as he touches his lips to her smiling mouth...
My loud moan startles me from my nap.
I sit up, rubbing at my weeping eyes as I try to dispel the images of my dream and the anguish Matt’s betrayal caused. With a shuddery sigh, I prop a pillow against the headboard, turning it around to avoid the wet spot. I then lean back into the cushion, damning myself for a fool.
I’ve got to get over this. Two years is long enough!
This morning, I woke up on what should have been my wedding day, blinking like a bad movie actress, wondering where I was. It took me more than a minute to recognize my hotel room and to remember I had come to New Orleans for a software conference.
I had also forgotten to set the alarm on my phone. Springing out of bed like a wind-up toy, I raced to the bathroom. There was no time for self-pity, with the first seminar starting in under an hour. Within twenty minutes, I’d dressed in my uniform of t-shirt and jeans, braided my hair into a bun, and dropped a gallon of eye drops into each eye.
Once I reached the sidewalk, I pointed my feet in the conference’s direction, popped in my earbuds, and clicked on my playlist of inspirational podcasts. With words of encouragement and positivity playing in my ears, I put distance between my past and my present.
That lasted until my last seminar finished at four in the afternoon. I took off, avoiding the mixer and dinner afterwards to walk the French Quarter. Alone.
For an hour, I traipsed the broken sidewalks, taking pictures with my phone for my portfolio as my self-pity crept in like a cat from the rain.
By the time I sat down to coffee and beignets at Café du Monde, the tears I’d held back for most of the day threatened to fall.
I managed to make it back to my hotel room without breaking down. Then I started to look at the pictures I took.
It is my fondest wish to be a photographer full time. There is something about capturing a moment in time and memorializing it into a piece of art. Although I love my job, photography speaks to me in a way that computer code doesn’t.
I tend to stay away from folks, privacy and all that, but I just had to take a picture of a woman and a man swinging a girl with blond pigtails by the arms. I can still hear her squeals of enjoyment and laughter...
