The Seduction Vow

by Bonnie Dee

  The Seduction Vow

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  The Seduction Vow

  By Bonnie Dee

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Bonnie Dee on Smashwords

  The Virginity Vow, Copyright © 2014 by Bonnie Dee

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

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  Chapter One

  Graciela E. Ramirez … cordially invited … celebrate the union of two souls …

  The script flowed in elegant copperplate loops over the cream parchment. A date, a good friend she’d all but lost touch with over the past couple of years, an event she must attend, and two words that struck like lead slugs into her heart: plus one.

  If she’d received the invitation early last week, the words wouldn’t have made her almost nauseated. But now, all her dreams and plans for the future, all the years and emotions she’d invested in Joey Coronado, all the fruitless waiting she’d done exploded around her. It was like being at the center of a minefield. There was no place she could step that was safe. It hurt to move or breathe. Every thought, no matter how trivial, circled back to the one certainty that had filled her mind since last Tuesday.

  I am going to die alone and unloved.

  Graci tossed the wedding invitation onto her desk and clicked Replay on the stereo remote. A song of sorrow and loss filled her apartment, and she sobbed along with the mournful melody as she unwrapped another chocolate kiss. Just two more. That was all she would allow herself. Two more chocolates and two more plays of that miserable song.

  Pathetic. Even in the midst of her sorrow, she knew Joey didn’t deserve a single one of her tears. He’d done the unforgivable—cheated on her—and he’d apparently been doing it for some time.

  “I’m sorry, Graci. I feel terrible,” he’d said as he stood in the front hall with his bags already packed in his car. “You’re so amazing. You were my first love. I wish we could have made it work. I always thought you’d be the mother of my children. But after Tessa exploded into my life, my feelings for you and the future we planned paled in comparison.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” was all she’d been able to say over and over, as if saying it would stop the train wreck.

  Joey had reached out and tried to take her hand, but she’d snatched it away.

  “Graci, come on. You know we haven’t been really close for some time. It used to be hard to keep that promise to wait till marriage before we had sex.”

  So this was about the sex. Joey had always sworn waiting wasn’t a problem. They’d done plenty of other things but agreed to save the final act for their wedding night.

  “But toward the end, I didn’t even think of you that way,” he continued. “We were like roommates sharing the house. I would have broken it off sooner except I dreaded hurting you like I’m doing right now.”

  “This isn’t happening,” Graci said for variety.

  “There’s no spark between us anymore. Maybe there never really was. I think I might have committed to you because you were the right type of woman for me to marry. College was over, and I thought it was time to get serious and settle down. But Tessa…” He exhaled deeply, and his eyes glowed in a way Graci hadn’t seen them do in a long time. “Tessa makes me feel…vibrant. When I’m with her, I don’t feel stifled or dull or half-alive. Do you understand?”

  Oh hell yes, she understood. She was dull and stifling. While she thought they were living a comfortable, harmonious life, Joey had been dying of boredom.

  Graci popped the chocolate kiss into her mouth and let it melt on her tongue.

  Probably part of the blame was hers, but he still shouldn’t have packed everything up and had one foot out the door before talking to her. Maybe if he’d expressed himself at some point during their nearly two-year engagement, their relationship could have been salvaged.

  In hindsight, she could see that moving in together last year had been a last-ditch effort to save an already failing relationship. Living together was meant to bring them closer, but they’d never quite been on the same page at the same time. Better one of them realized their relationship was a mistake before it was too late.

  That was her mother’s voice, calm and sensible, echoing in her mind. When Graci finally called to tell her the engagement was off, she thought it was exactly the sort of thing her mother might say. But Graci hadn’t made that call yet. The wound was too raw. She needed a little more time to grieve before she pulled herself together and carried on.

  Her phone chimed, and she picked it up to read an incoming text from Tara. Whaaaat? Did you get the same mail I did today? Bree’s really going thru with it. Call me.

  Graci tapped the phone with one chewed fingernail, which had been so beautifully manicured just last Monday. She hadn’t even told Tara about her breakup—her closest friend and the only one of the old group she’d stayed close to. In the week since the split, other than going to work, she’d simply sat in the half-empty apartment, listening to depressing music and eating until she felt sick.

  With Joey gone, she couldn’t afford this place. She’d have to get a roommate, a smaller apartment, or, God forbid, move back in with her parents, the ultimate proof of failure. No. Not the ultimate. Being a twenty-five-year-old virgin was a pretty epic fail in many people’s opinion.

  If she had a good reason for it, like religious beliefs, it would be understandable, but though she’d been raised Catholic, Graci wasn’t overly religious. Nor was she afraid of sex or frigid. Would this disaster with Joey have been avoided if she’d simply agreed to sex? He’d never really pushed, and he’d claimed he was on board about delaying the act, but perhaps Tessa wasn’t the first woman who’d “exploded into his life.” Maybe all along Joey had found other women to “make him feel alive.”

  God, now she felt worse than ever, and she truly deserved another chocolate kiss.

  Sex. The root of all her problems. She didn’t know exactly what had held her back from it, other than waiting for a wedding day she’d always believed was right around the corner.

  And now Bree’s wedding was coming. There was no way she wanted to attend that event still a virgin. Her friends would expect it of straitlaced, by-the-rules Graci, the one most likely to preplan every detail of her life.

  She needed t
o burst out of the prudish role they’d cast her in and surprise them. Surprise herself.

  Of course, she could simply not mention that she and Joey hadn’t consummated their relationship, but it was nearly impossible to keep secrets from these women. No secret too dark, no judging ever had been their youthful motto, when the biggest confession any of them had to share was Bree’s announcement that she’d let Kenny Wise feel her up—underneath the bra.

  But, despite the part of the pledge about no judging, judgment percolated under the surface. Two years ago, when her relationship with Joey grew more serious, Corinne and Bree had held an intervention of sorts. That was why she’d stopped hanging with Corinne, though they lived in the same city. Tara was the one friend who’d really stood by her, even though she wasn’t a Joey fan either.

  Now that her friends’ assessment of Joey had proved true, it would be hard to swallow her pride and try to rebuild her friendships.

  Before she went to Bree’s wedding, several months away, she would completely overhaul her life. She would make a list of things she’d never tried before and then do them. Crazy, bold, un-Graci-like things like hang gliding or singing karaoke. She would change her style and her hair and definitely her apartment. She would throw off “sparks” like an arc welder.

  And she would lose her virginity at last. Just toss that useless thing out the window with some random stranger. Virginity had become an albatross she needed to shed. She would take the plunge, end the big mystery, and move on with her life.

  ****

  “Graci, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?” Tara pulled her into yet another hug, as if she could squeeze the sadness out of her. “I’ll stay at your place a few nights if you don’t want to be alone. I can’t believe you spent an entire week moping and never called me.”

  “It’s all right. I’m all right. Really,” Graci repeated for the tenth time since she’d announced her news over a pancake breakfast at Dizzie’s Diner, where Tara worked.

  When she heard the news, Tara had exclaimed so loudly, heads had turned, then she’d come around the table and dragged Graci into the first of several hugs before scooting onto the bench beside her.

  “I needed some time alone to process. But I’m better now,” Graci said. “I have a list.”

  “Ah, a Graci list. Of course.” Tara threw up her hands in a typically extravagant gesture, almost knocking over the coffeepot on the table. “A breakup isn’t something you simply get over in X amount of days. You and Joe were together for three years. More if you count that first year when you were on-again, off-again.”

  “Thank you. I’m aware,” Graci said dryly.

  “And even though this is probably for the best, that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Remember when I broke up with Abram? We were together only three weeks, but it tore my heart out.” She clapped her hands to her chest. “Pain is pain. You have to let it wash over you and sweep you away. You have to feel it.”

  “Which I did, and now I’m finished. I’m going to plunge back into life and not let this…this setback incapacitate me.”

  “Well, good for you!”

  Graci smiled at her friend, who was so sincere yet so dramatic it was sometimes hard to take her seriously. Tara was a sporadically working actress, larger than life, a simmering ball of energy, a star in waiting. She always commanded the stage of life.

  Tara pushed back the mass of braids that curtained one side of her face, a multitude of bracelets clattering on her arm. “Here’s what we’re going to do, have a girls’ night, and then, when you’re feeling ready, you and I are going clubbing. We’ll find you a transition guy, someone to remind you how beautiful and sexy and desirable you are.”

  Tara threw an arm around her shoulders, and Graci inhaled the familiar scent of her perfume, something spicy, exotic, and intrinsically Tara. Her friend’s perfect white teeth gleamed against dark skin, and Graci couldn’t help but smile too. Tara’s vibrancy could lift anyone’s mood.

  “Look at you.” Tara tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “That gorgeous black hair, those dark brown eyes, that beautiful smile. Some guy is going to fall hard for you, Graciela. The perfect guy, who will be everything you need him to be. But in the meantime, you’re gonna shop around.”

  “Yes, I am. But first thing on my list is a makeover. Next time you see me, all of this”—Graci tugged on a handful of her long wavy hair—“will be gone. I’m trying something new.”

  Tara’s eyes widened. “Really? How short? You’ve never done more than trimmed your hair since I’ve known you. How will I recognize you?”

  Graci winked. “I’ll still know our secret sign.” She gave the crossed fingers to the eyebrow salute she and Tara had invented when they were ten.

  “The second thing I’m going to do is call Corinne,” Graci said. “Although if she tells me ‘I told you so,’ I may scream.”

  Tara shook her head. “She wouldn’t. That’s not her way. All this time, she’s wanted to be friends with you again.”

  “But she wouldn’t while Joey was in the picture,” Graci finished the thought.

  “No. She couldn’t because you weren’t ready to forgive her or the others.”

  “Well, to be honest, Adya never said anything against Joey. It was only Corinne and Bree. But none of that matters now. The point is, I have fences to mend, and that’s the second thing on my to-do list.”

  “It’ll be great to have all of you make up in time for Bree’s wedding,” Tara said. “I still can’t believe that’s happening. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cancels at the last minute. The woman’s incapable of commitment.”

  “Maybe she’s changed. I can’t say I really know her anymore. We’ve only exchanged Christmas cards.” Graci gazed at the torn sugar packets littering the table. “We’ve all grown up. None of us are the same people we used to be.”

  Tara nodded. “True. There was a time none of us would consider having a wedding in which the others weren’t bridesmaids. We have grown apart, and not just because Bree and Adya live so far away. It’ll be good to all be together again. We’ll throw Bree a big blowout bachelorette party.” She laughed. “Still, you have to admit it’s amazing that out of all of us, Bree would be the first to get married.”

  “Yes, it is.” Memories of Bree flashed through Graci’s mind. In every one of them, her friend was laughing. Bree was like Tara in many ways—dynamic, a hugely magnetic presence. All that personality was packaged in a tall, blonde, blue-eyed Amazon.

  As a teen, sometimes Graci had felt like a shadow beside Bree and Tara, and to a lesser extent Corinne and Adya, who each had her own special style. Graci wasn’t at all noticeable. She was a rule follower and a list maker. Case in point, she’d chosen accounting as a profession and was happy working with numbers. There was no room for error, no deceit in simple math. The figures must add up.

  Tara moved around to her side of the booth and dug into her pancakes. “Corinne is back from Korea, so she’s in range if you want to call or text her.”

  “How did her trip go?”

  As an adoptee, Corinne had always been curious about her heritage. There was a time when she would’ve been in touch with Graci every step of her journey to find her roots. But that had changed after the Joey intervention. Now Graci could see that every point Corinne and Bree had made was true, but when a woman is in love, she doesn’t want to hear her friends suggest her boyfriend is a dick or a douche bag.

  “Good, I guess,” Tara said. “But you know that girl was raised whiter than white bread, and she said she didn’t feel the sense of connection she hoped to feel.”

  Tara gestured with her fork, which dripped with syrup. “It sounds like she could use a girls’ night as much as you. The three of us are going to get together as soon as you two make up.”

  “I’m going to be busy this week. I’ve got to line up another apartment, but after that, any night is fine.”

  “You’re going to move? That’s good. You need a comple
te change. I wish we could live together, but I just locked into my lease for another year and my place is too small to share.”

  Graci smiled. Much as she loved Tara, she couldn’t think of a worse match for sharing space. They’d be like The Odd Couple with Graci’s neatness and Tara’s messiness.

  “I’m ready for a change. Even rocks eventually move from their spot. An earthquake comes, and they tumble down a hill.” Graci referred to the old nickname her friends used to call her. She’d been The Rock, because they could count on her to remain unchanged. She was never quite sure if it was an insult or not.

  Bree had once told Graci she was the anchor of the group. But being an anchor wasn’t particularly exciting. Maybe if she’d had a little more of Tara’s or Adya’s creative natures or Bree’s and Corinne’s social game, Joey wouldn’t have lost interest. She’d bored him to death. Damn, she bored herself to death.

  It was definitely time for a change.

  Chapter Two

  As she entered Shaughnessey’s, Graci’s pulse raced as if she were about to give a speech to a room full of people or maybe face a guillotine instead of walking into a bar. Wasn’t going out in the evening supposed to be fun?

  Her head felt weirdly light, like it might float away, except it wasn’t a fever coming on. She pushed her hand through her hair, which was now cut in a bob, a little shorter in back, longer in front so it framed her face. The loss of all that weight still felt strange after a couple of days.

  Her long black hair had been a part of the old Graciela, but she was a new woman tonight. She’d bought new clothes, a shorter skirt, and higher shoes than she’d ever worn. Even her underwear was sexier.

  More importantly, she’d called her mom and told her about the breakup, then steeled her nerve and called Corinne. If there was so much as a glimmer of smugness in Corinne’s acceptance of the news, Graci never heard it.

  “I am so sorry. I know how much you loved him. Anything I can do for you, just let me know. I’m here for you, Graci.”