by Amy Olle
Her breathing hitched and her lips parted, drawing his gaze to her lush mouth. His fingers traced the curve of her cheek. Then his touch trailed lower, down the side of her neck to the elegant line of her collarbone.
“Isobel…” He pressed the length of his body against hers and dipped his head. “Let me take you home.”
The column of her throat worked when she swallowed. “I have to go back.”
He bristled. “I told you, your date is over.”
“It’s not a date.” His disbelief must’ve shown on his face because she restated the words. “It’s not. But…”
Just then, his questing fingertips stroked the crease on the inside of her ring finger. A scowl dragged at his features and a cold, revolting rage unfurled inside him.
“Where is your wedding ring?”
She blinked rapidly. “Wh-what?”
“Your. Wedding. Ring.” He hated the tremor in his voice, but he couldn’t suppress it any more than he could banish the anger and betrayal from his heart. “Where the fuck is it? Why aren’t you wearing it?”
“Oh, uh, I…” With a frown, she disentangled their hands.
“Did you lose it? I swear to God, Isobel, if you—”
Her trembling fingers fumbled with the top button of her blouse and then yanked apart the flimsy fabric. A silver chain gleamed in the dim lighting, and there, nestled between her ample breasts, rested the small circlet of her wedding band. Over her heart.
Air leaked from him and he dropped his forehead against hers. He caressed the cold metal sphere. Beneath his touch, the smooth caramel skin of her chest rose and fell with each rapid, ragged breath she hauled into her lungs. When he skimmed the swell of one soft breast, a soft gasp escaped her.
Just like that, the flare of passion that once ruled their relationship ignited.
He swooped down to claim her mouth, devouring her with greedy nips and licks. He’d been starving so long, the hunger overcame him. It controlled him, compelling him to taste more, take more. Too ravenous and desperate to savor her flavor, he feasted on her with a wild recklessness that threatened to consume him.
“Isobel.” Her name was a plea.
She made a sound like a broken sob, and he pulled back to peer down into her face.
Her eyes, the color of the summer sky before a refreshing rain, held the mystery of a thousand unspoken desires. His cock jumped, and he scraped the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip.
“Shea, what are we doing?” The quiet sadness in her voice wrenched his heart.
He knew what she was asking him, but he didn’t like the answers available to him. “It’s just a kiss.”
Glassy moisture glistened in her eyes.
“We’re… we’re working on it.”
“We’ve been working on it for two years.” A despairing wail crept into her tone. “We can’t even talk without fighting.”
“Then let’s not fight. Isobel… please…” He dipped his head and nuzzled the side of her neck.
“It’s not that easy. We can’t fix this, Shea. If we could, we would’ve done so by now.”
His mouth on her throat, he tasted the bitter vileness of her words. Slowly, he lifted his head. “What are you saying?”
“I’m so tired,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s time we… let go.”
The world tipped beneath his feet as all the agony and anger amassed in the past several years surged, slicing and slashing at him.
“No.” With the denial, he gripped her arms.
“Shea—”
“We took vows, Isobel.”
“Because we loved each other,” she said. “But whatever we once felt, it’s gone now.”
“No.” He squeezed his eyes shut and his mouth brushed her temple. “Never.”
“Then it’s too changed to be of any use to us now.”
“Stop this.” His hold on her tightened. “Please, just stop.”
“Two years, Shea.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “For two years we’ve been…”
Living like ghosts. Dying inside.
She didn’t have to say the words. He knew. Lord, did he know.
“Maybe it’s time we move on.”
His world closed in on him. Hauling her tight against his chest, he buried his face in the sweet-smelling curtain of her hair. “Please, Isobel… I can’t… I can’t give you what you’re asking.”
He’d built his life around this woman. How could he go on without her? How could she ask him to? In his arms, she lifted her face up to his. A mere whisper of a breath separated their mouths.
Behind them, someone cleared their throat.
Shea turned his head to find Cooper Spence holding up a packet of trifold papers.
“I’ll, uh, just leave these with you, then?”
Slowly, Shea dropped his arms and twisted toward the smaller man.
Cooper shrank back and his panicked gaze darted to Isobel. “I’ll finish reviewing your application and call you when a decision has been made.”
“Thank you, Cooper.” She reached for the papers but Shea intercepted the packet. “Good night,” she called cheerily to the loan officer’s retreating back.
Then she fixed Shea with a dark scowl.
He held up the papers. “What’s this?”
“Nothing.” She made a grab at the documents, but he jerked his arm back and held them from her reach.
“Why don’t you want to tell me?” He started to unfold the papers.
“Because it’s none of your business.” She slipped out from between him and the wall and snatched the documents from his hand.
“Wait, did that say business loan?”
“It doesn’t concern you, Shea.”
“As long as we’re still married, it very much concerns me.”
In her rush to get away, she slammed to a stop. A sickening sense of foreboding snaked through him as she turned by slow increments to face him squarely.
“You’re right.” Her expression crumpled. “I’ll file for divorce this week.”
He gasped with pain from the hole she punctured through his heart. Anger rushed in to fill the void.
“We’re not throwing away eighteen years of marriage because you’ve decided you’re done with me. That’s not how this is going to work.”
On a sob, she twisted away from him.
“Goddammit, Isobel, if you think I’m going to let you walk away from us, you’re wrong. I won’t allow it.” Desperation tore at his insides. “You are my wife. Till death do us part. For better or worse, and believe me, things can get much, much worse before this is all over.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and when she looked at him over her shoulder, a stream of silent tears stained her cheeks. “No. No more fighting, Shea. It’s too late for us.”
Chapter Three
Bright sunlight banished all trace of the previous night’s storm, but a glum cloud hung over Isobel’s head as she arrived at the Ever After Boutique.
Half bridal salon and half trendy women’s clothing store, the boutique claimed two storefronts along the row of the last-century brick buildings lining Main Street. Nestled between the bookstore and the coffee shop, and across the street from Lucky’s Irish Pub, Isobel had started working at the boutique eighteen years earlier when she was pregnant with Finn and awaiting her eighteenth birthday so she and Shea could marry.
Now Isobel handled most of the responsibilities managing the store, and the store’s owner Celeste only bothered coming in on Saturdays, their busiest day of the week, so Isobel could focus on her chief job duty of handling the wedding and prom dress alterations.
She switched on the overhead lights and powered up the cash register at the front of the store. When she was about to unlock the doors, Celeste appeared from the back room.
“Good morning,” Isobel called out to her.
“Is it?” Celeste hoisted her frail frame onto the stool behind the sales counter.
Biting back a sardonic smile at the typical sour
reply from her boss, Isobel flipped the lock on the front door and turned over the sign in the window to announce that the store was officially open for business.
Never a particularly cheerful person, Celeste had grown downright cantankerous since the death of her husband some years ago. She was now in her mid-sixties, and Isobel feared her boss would retire. What would happen to the store? Would Celeste be able to find a seller who wanted to run a bridal store? Or would she, or the new owner, close it down?
Whatever she decided to do, Isobel dreaded the uncertainty and upheaval the change might bring to her own life.
Several large cardboard boxes awaited her in the stockroom, so she left Celeste with the monthly accounting ledger and headed to the back to unpack the shipment that had arrived the previous day. At one time, a batch of new dresses would have stirred a delightful hum of anticipation in her. She’d have rushed to touch the luxurious fabrics and the feminine designs would have set off a flood of creativity that might’ve stayed with her for days.
Now new arrivals struck a bittersweet chord, and the chore of finding the perfect bride for each gown often left her feeling shattered and hollow. It hurt, knowing what happened after the happily ever after.
She used a boxcutter to carefully slice the packing tape, then flipped open the box top and dug out a plastic-wrapped gown. Hanging the dress on a garment rack, she unzipped the protective covering and inspected the gown, fondling the delicate fabric of the silk chiffon sheath she’d picked out of the catalogue.
The next gown managed to pull an appreciative sound from her. A heavily beaded drop-waist organza ballgown, the dress exuded fairy-tale princess more than any other gown in the store. Isobel leaned close to examine the intricate beadwork. Before long, inspiration had struck, filling her mind with a throng of ideas for a new dress. She fought the urge to reach for her sketchbook and draft a quick design.
While she’d only made a handful of dresses so far, she hoped to be able to add to her personal inventory soon. It’d started as an impossible dream, unattainable for someone like her, a high school dropout and teen mom. Then she’d watched Shea start his own business, turning Lucky’s into the island’s most popular destination after the public beach, and the impossible dream became merely improbable.
With her secret held tightly to her chest, she’d scraped together enough money to buy a bolt of the most incredible fabric she’d ever seen. With it, she made a dress. A vintage-style satin sheath with a sweetheart neckline and cap sleeves, the gown had a 1940s silhouette but with a sexier cut.
Isobel sold that dress to her sister-in-law, Mina. Two months later, another sister-in-law, Emily, bought the only other wedding dress Isobel had ever made, and as a guest at both of their weddings, Isobel had had a front row seat to her gowns’ big days.
Of course, the brides were beautiful, but more important than that, she could see that they had felt beautiful. She’d overheard one guest gushing about the vintage-inspired style of Mina’s gown while another guest had loved Emily’s over-the-top ballgown and compared the trendy champagne-colored dress to one she’d seen at an upscale bridal salon in New York City. Even Celeste had commented on the skill of Isobel’s stitching and the superb quality of the fabrics she’d chosen.
Her improbable dream sprouted wings.
With the money made from the sale of those two dresses, Isobel bought more fabric and beading. Her next gown sold in a week, and she turned the profit from that dress into two more. When the second of those two dresses sold, her dream spread roots.
That’s when, recalling Shea’s path to success, she worked up the courage to contact Cooper, and despite her husband’s brutish interference last night, she held out hope that Cooper would approve her loan application. She wanted it with a desperation she couldn’t explain, though she suspected it might have something to do with the fact that her dream was the only thing she cared about that had nothing to do with him.
The memory of Shea’s expression when she’d told him she wanted a divorce notched a fresh gash in her chest. She’d grown accustomed to seeing anger and annoyance on his handsome features, but the wounded devastation had been unexpected.
Her vision blurred and the modified A-line gown she’d just unpacked from the box became a fuzzy ivory blob before her.
Divorce. Her heart retched at the word. It was a disgusting word, really. A series of harmless letters arranged into something so offensive. So pivotal. So final.
So painful.
That stupid arrangement of letters that didn’t begin to capture the slow torture of a crumbling marriage. Of a dying friendship, or a bankrupt love affair. Seven letters, each one containing a thousand heartaches or more.
When the faint sound of the bell over the front door chimed, Isobel let the dress fabric slip through her fingers and made two quick swipes at the tears under her eyes. Then she scurried to the salesfloor to greet the new customer.
But rather than a customer, she caught sight of Sophie Evans, her best friend since high school, handing Celeste a cardboard coffee cup from the shop next door. As Isobel approached, Sophie turned with a smile as bright as her platinum blonde hair.
“Is that the new dress?” She gestured to the gown displayed in the front window and handed Isobel one of the three remaining coffee cups from the drink carrier.
“It’s too poufy, isn’t it?” Isobel popped the lid of her cup and reached for a liquid creamer. “No one’s going to buy it.”
“Someone will buy it,” Celeste said without looking up from the accounting ledger.
“And whoever she is, she’ll look like a royal princess,” Sophie added.
Isobel tilted her head, considering the dress with a critical eye. “I don’t know about that.”
“Oh, please. Everyone you dress looks gorgeous.” Sophie handed Isobel a sugar packet. “Heck, you even made me look pretty when I was the size of a whale.”
Isobel winced. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“You’re beautiful, Soph, and you always have been, no matter what size you’re wearing.”
“And that right there is why you’re my best friend.” Sophie lifted her coffee cup to her lips and took a tentative taste of the steaming brew. “I’ll make you a deal. You stop putting down your talent and I’ll stop referring to myself as a ginormous mammal.”
“Deal.”
Isobel stirred the cream and sugar into the black liquid and watched the color lighten to a smooth brown. Carefully, she tested the temperature with her own tiny taste, all the while pretending she didn’t notice Sophie’s light green eyes assessing her.
“Uh-oh.” Sophie set her cup on the sales counter. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?” Isobel asked innocently.
“You and Shea had a fight, didn’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
“You only look this miserable after you two have a fight.”
With a small shake of her head, Isobel took immense interest in the contents of her coffee cup. “I’m tired, that’s all.”
Sophie propped her elbows on the counter. “So it was a bad one, huh?”
Sudden emotion welled in the back of Isobel’s throat. “It’s not that. It’s just…” She rubbed her forehead, trying to ease away the memory of Shea’s ravaged expression. “We’re both miserable. All the time and…”
“I’m sorry, Iz. I wish I had some advice to give you, but you know I have no experience with healthy relationships.” Sophie emptied a sugar packet into her coffee. “You two have been together so long. Since high school, right?”
Isobel nodded.
Sophie placed her hand next to her mouth, as if to shield her next words from Celeste. “Have you ever been with anyone else?”
Warmth touched Isobel’s cheeks and she shook her head.
“Has he?” Sophie’s scandalized whisper whipped fierce heat into Isobel’s cheeks.
“Don’t you dare tell a soul.�
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“Who would believe me?” Sophie asked, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Besides, I’m not judging either one of you. I’m thirty-three years old and have been with exactly one guy, almost two decades ago, and it turns out he only fucked me because he lost a bet.”
Isobel cringed at the mention of Liam Wright, remembering well the first time she’d heard that name, the same day she’d met Sophie.
Having dropped out of high school when she became pregnant with Finn, Isobel had been working at the store only a few weeks when a classmate from Sacred Heart came in looking for a dress to wear to fall homecoming. Heavily pregnant, Isobel had wanted to melt into the floorboards when Amber Jessop cornered her and demanded alterations to the slinky gold gown she’d chosen.
Isobel had cautioned against the changes, but Amber insisted, and when she returned to the store to pick up her dress a few days later, the slippery material refused to lie smoothly at the site of the alteration. She’d gone ballistic.
While Celeste dealt with Amber, Isobel had crept away to assist the only other customer in the store. A shy, sweet Sophie, who carried quite a bit of extra weight at the time.
After a brief introduction, Isobel had set to work pulling styles of dresses for Sophie to consider wearing to the dance. When she’d collected several gowns that she thought might accentuate Sophie’s assets, cruel laughter pierced the air.
“Who on earth asked you to prom?” Amber had demanded.
Two bright pink spots had appeared on Sophie’s chubby cheeks. “Liam Wright.”
Amber’s jaw had dropped and for one glorious, too-brief moment, she’d been stunned to silence. “Liam Wright asked you to homecoming? You’re joking, right?”
“N-no.”
“He can go out with any girl he wants. Why would he go out with you?”
“I d-don’t know,” Sophie had stammered, looking close to tears. “But he asked me, and I said yes.”
Blue daggers shot from Amber’s eyes as a horrid smile curled her cherry-red painted lips. “We’ll see about that.”
Shaking with fury, Isobel had picked a dress for Sophie and altered it in a way that flaunted her well-proportioned figure. The weight didn’t disappear, but the sleek black dress was a perfect canvas for her white-blonde hair and light green eyes and looked incredible on her.