Read Online Beyond Ruin by Crystal Cierlak - Free Book Online Page B

time. Those gorgeous blue-green eyes and thick eyelashes, a curl of honey colored hair falling loose across his forehead. It would be so easy...
    'James?' she asked through the heavy fog of sleep that had claimed her only a moment prior. 'Is everything okay?'
    'It's fine, baby. Go back to sleep.'
    Natalie lifted her head just in time to see him setting his phone screen-side-down on the nightstand. The skin between his eyes atop his nose was pinched, and his lips were in a tight line. He looked distraught. Natalie glanced up at the curtain-drawn windows and found light struggling to stream through, then reached for her phone to find the time. Mid morning. She'd been asleep more than twelve hours.
    'Come on, go back to sleep. You need it,' he said as he drew the covers up closer to her chin.
    'Speak for yourself, Fitzgerald. You look like shit.' It was meant to be a joke but neither one of them could laugh. 'What's wrong?'
    He shook his head. 'Later. You should be resting.'
    Something inside her told her that later would be just the same as now. 'Who was it?' She motioned with her chin in the direction of his phone.
    James' face scrunched in on itself, like his entire face was trying to keep his mouth from talking. He could barely look at her, but when he finally did glance up and look her in the eye, there was very little doubt in her mind what he had to say was good.
    'It was Celine.'
    Celine. The amniocentesis. If her heart weren't already broken she might have had a chance of mentally and emotionally surviving the news that she knew Celine had just delivered to him.
    'Oh.' She sat up in her bed and kicked the covers off, ignoring the splintering sensation that crackled throughout her body. 'Well, congratulations, James. Looks like you get to have a baby after all.' She was up and halfway to the bathroom before he was calling after her, her name an excruciating apology upon his lips as he rushed after her. She made it before him and closed the bathroom door just in time for her spirit to succumb to the same fate as her heart.
    She lowered herself to sit atop the closed lid of the toilet and waited for the tears to come.
    And waited.
    And waited.
    And waited until she realized that the tears weren't there. Instead a numbing sensation descended upon her, pouring over her from head to toe like darkness rising after the setting sun.
    She had finally reached her breaking point.
    With a blink Natalie was transported back into the present, months away from the memory of one of the worst days of her life; a memory she had learned to ignore. James looked at her as though no time had passed. As though he were still in love with her.
    She wondered if he was.
    "I heard you finally got divorced," she said.
    James' eyes settled on her lips for a brief moment before meeting her gaze again. The hand that had swept across the shortened length of her hair was now resting at the junction between her neck and shoulder. "I did."
    Natalie nodded and bit her lip to keep herself from saying, 'Good'. Instead she said, "Life is good? Things going well?"
    "Almost. I've got a plan." His eyes narrowed as his gaze intensified. "Will you have lunch with me tomorrow?"
    "Is that part of your plan ?" she asked.
    "Natalie you are the plan."
    Somehow she'd moved close enough into his embrace to feel the rhythm of his chest rising and falling as he breathed. Something stirred inside her. Perhaps it was the scent of him, the mass of his body pressed against hers, or more than likely the leftover high from the orgasm she'd given herself only moments prior. Her body's desire for him could never be matched with her own touch or the touch of another.
    Two loud knocks resonated from the door just feet away before the door itself opened.
    "Natalie, are you-" Audra stopped dead in her tracks, eyes widening at the sight of them. Natalie instinctively moved to step out of James
    embrace, but he kept one hand on her waist.
    "We'll be out in just a moment, Audra," he told