Read Online Georgie's Heart by Kathryn Brocato - Free Book Online

resented anything that took your time?”
    â€œI’m afraid so.” Georgeanne’s dark, honest eyes met his. “Some of it was my own fault. I spent a lot of time trying to convince him of the importance of the work I was doing, and it made him unreasonable.”
    â€œHe was unreasonable to begin with,” Zane said in firm tones. “Didn’t he have any community projects he was interested in?”
    â€œHe didn’t believe in community service or volunteering.” Georgeanne disliked making the failure of her marriage look as though it was all her ex-husband’s fault. “He grew so resentful of my activities, he accused me of using volunteer work to get out of the house and away from him.” She added in aching tones, “Toward the end, that became a lot truer than I like to admit.”
    â€œGeorgie, don’t accuse yourself of destroying your marriage. It just isn’t true.” Zane sounded convinced of that. “You’re the kind of person who’d go out of her way just to make someone else feel good, and that includes your ex-husband.”
    Georgeanne sighed. “I did my best to please him, but I just couldn’t stop my work. Not after I had willingly taken on the responsibility.” She paused a moment, then went on in low tones. “I don’t mean to make you think my volunteer work was the only problem we had. It wasn’t. There were,” she hesitated, “other ways I didn’t please him. I’ve often thought that if I’d been a better wife in those other ways, the volunteer work wouldn’t have mattered.”
    Zane frowned over this.
    Georgeanne realized Dr. Baghri must have told him her ex-husband had left her for another woman, cleaning out their bank account and leaving Georgeanne with nothing but her house in the country. She had done well since her divorce, but Zane probably realized she still blamed herself for the failure of her marriage.
    â€œGeorgie, it wasn’t your fault. Take it from me, if your husband had been a man, he’d have sat down with you and worked things out.” He smiled and shrugged. “My ex-wife was a rising corporate executive. She married me while I was still in medical school because she thought being a doctor’s wife would further her career. What she hadn’t counted on was the fact that I had no interest in the social aspects of being a doctor. When I went into pediatrics rather than cardiology, it was the end. She filed for divorce as soon as she realized the marriage wasn’t performing as planned.”
    Georgeanne, shocked, murmured something sympathetic. What did the social aspects of physicianhood matter when a woman was married to a man like Zane Bryant?
    â€œI’m afraid I was a big disappointment to her.” Zane’s voice carried no hint of remorse. “Instead of partying in my spare time, I volunteered at the county charity clinic and spent my weekends doctoring sick children. The truth is, we married for all the wrong reasons, and we soon found out we had little in common.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Georgeanne said, meaning it. “Actually, that’s what Dr. Gant says about my husband and me. The only thing we had in common was the fact that — that he was taller than I was. Oh, dear, how silly that sounds.”
    But it was the truth. Much as Georgeanne hated to admit it, Tony Rollins’s chief attraction for her had been his size. For once, she’d met a man who made her feel small and fragile.
    â€œGeorgie.” Zane waited until her attention returned to him, then laced his fingers through hers. “I don’t think it’s silly at all. I married Roxanne because she made me feel unlike a geeky guy who spent all his time in science labs.”
    She smiled back at him gratefully, then glanced down in a puzzled way at their locked hands. Zane Bryant might have spent all his time in science labs, but