Better than Cake
Lisa Carlisle
After the worst fight of their relationship,
the last place Stephanie wants to be is a wedding reception. She still can’t
get over what happened. Could their five years of marriage be destroyed after a
blast of heated words? Johnny suggested separating. Separating! Now with her
marriage on the line, she has to put on a brave face and pretend love is grand.
Johnny doesn’t know why he’d freaked out the
way he had and is left with one emotion. Regret. He doesn’t want to lose Stephanie.
He must find her and make things right.
Stephanie enters the reception, fearing the end of her
marriage. Johnny has something else in mind—a much more decadent proposal that
will turn her friend’s wedding into an event they’ll never forget.
A short erotic romance for only 99 cents! Perfect for a beach or summer read.
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Excerpt
Who gets ditched at a wedding? Stephanie paused and took a deep breath before
walking into her friend’s reception. Something like this could only happen to
her.
Ditched
wasn’t a strong enough description. “Maybe we should try separating.” Johnny’s
words echoed in her mind, lashing her psyche raw with repetition.
Separating!
She closed her eyes. Unthinkable.
It’s okay. You can do this. Stick it out for a
couple of hours and then you can deal with the mess.
How
would she explain her husband’s sudden absence? He was at the ceremony, but
wouldn’t be at the reception. What would be a reasonable explanation? They were
spending the weekend here in Cape Cod so it would be tough to feign a work or
family excuse.
Illness.
Yes, something about seafood. That would be plausible at a seaside resort. Food
poisoning. She had an excuse—but it didn’t make her feel any better about the
situation.
Beyond the Sea wafted out from the ballroom, appropriate for
this Cape Cod seaside resort. She glanced up at the imposing exterior of the
multi-level hotel. Her hand trembled so she clutched her silver purse tighter. She
raised her chin to steel herself and entered the hotel.
Stephanie
scanned the place settings to find hers. Mr. and Mrs. John Silvio. Table nineteen.
She dropped her purse to her side, but her fingers still clenched it. The last
place she wanted to be after a killer argument with her husband was a wedding. She forced herself to enter the
reception area, squeezing through all those decked in suits and evening gowns. Searching
the table numbers for nineteen, she followed them to the back of the room. She
guessed she’d be furthest from the head table, since she was neither family nor
close friend, but an old college roommate of the bride. She made her way to the
back of the room, braved a smile, and introduced herself to the couples already
seated.
“Hi.
I’m Stephanie.”
“Elaine,”
a heavyset woman with puffy blond hair said. “You’re alone?”
Great.
Just fantastic. Starting right with the topic she wanted to avoid. “Yes. My
husband couldn’t make it tonight. Something he ate earlier,” she babbled.
“Probably the shellfish.” She shrugged.
The
others introduced themselves as she sat down and peppered her with questions
about where they bought the seafood. A few shared their stories of food
poisoning.
It
was going to be a long night.
Once
the attention was off her, she replayed the fight for what had to be the
fortieth time since it happened. After a ripple of snide comments evolved into
a tsunami of a fight, she stormed away from Johnny and ended up talking to
herself like a crazy person as she pounded through the surf.
“Separating?
Why does he take a small argument and blow it up into something like this? How
could he do this to me at my friend’s wedding? What the fuck!”
A
couple of miles later, she had calmed down. It wasn’t all his doing. She was
the one who’d dragged them here when he had other plans. Her fury decreased as
the sun sank lower in the sky, replaced by a cloak of sadness.
She
didn’t want to split up.
Her
eyes began to water. How the heck would she make it through the night without
breaking down? Her marriage could be over. How long could she sport a brave
face before it dropped?
“Excuse
me,” she said and hurried into the ladies room. She barely made it through the
door before her eyes pooled with tears.
She
grabbed tissues and blotted them, fixing her smudged makeup the best she could.
“You
can do this,” she told her reflection in the mirror.
As
much as she dreaded being at a wedding while her own marriage hung in jeopardy,
she had to put her feelings aside for the sake of Caryn. She’d only get married
once.
Hopefully.
*
* * * *
Johnny
caught glimpses of the ocean from the cab and couldn’t help but brood on what
he had said to Stephanie down the beach this afternoon. A cold black cloak had
surrounded him since, fastened with shackles of regret. The same question
echoed in his head ever since.
Why?
Why
had he freaked out the way he had? Said the things he had? The day had started
out great. They woke up at the bed and breakfast and had the morning free
before the ceremony. They’d rented bikes on the Cape Cod Rail Trail and had
ridden past sand dunes and shacks, cranberry bogs and duck-filled ponds,
villages and pine forests, and even a couple of lighthouses. The scenery was
one thing, his beautiful wife riding alongside him something else. He could
barely keep his eyes off her lithe body and on the trail.
When
they’d stopped to buy sandwiches from one of the beachside shacks and had a
picnic lunch on the beach, things were still good. It wasn’t until after the
seaside wedding ceremony this afternoon that he’d opened his mouth and all
kinds of stupid fell out. And for what? Something trivial, not something to
throw away a marriage over.
Their
argument had stirred weeks before. He resented her for dragging him to a
wedding when he’d already had plans for his monthly camping trip with his
buddies, He had stormed about it for days, but downright exploded on the beach
earlier. Telling her she was too controlling, she shouldn’t speak for him and
make him cancel his plans to do something she wanted. How his outdoor trips
were how he decompressed from work and if she didn’t get it by now, she didn’t
get him. She’d countered, saying he used the same justification for his
softball games, and sometimes he had to suck it up and act like an adult. Snide
comments had escalated into verbal jabs. Past grievances were drudged up as
their defenses rose. Accusations flew, growing uglier, and digging up past
perceived injustices, until finally, he had suggested a trial separation.
He
still wasn’t sure why he’d said it. A heat of the moment incident, blurting out
something to end the fight with something he didn’t even mean.
Her
shocked expression had turned to one of hurt as she blinked back tears. Then
she’d lashed back at him. “If you’re so shallow and selfish that you consider a
weekend away from your buddies such brutality, then yeah, maybe we should.”
When
she had stormed away from him across the beach, he had turned away thinking to hell with her and pounded through the
sand in the opposite direction. It wasn’t
until he had turned back several minutes later to see she was gone that he
realized he might have made the biggest mistake of his life.
About the Author
Lisa
loves stories with dark, brooding, isolated characters and tough, independent,
caring heroines. Her reading tastes very widely and she’ll read almost
anything—especially mysteries, romance, and non-fiction on any new topic of
interest.
She
is thrilled to be a multi-published author writing since she’s wanted to write
since the sixth grade. Her travels and many jobs have provided her with
inspiration for novels, such as serving in the Marine Corps in Okinawa, Japan,
backpacking alone around Europe, or working as a waitress in Paris. Her love of
books inspired her to own a small independent book store for a couple of years.
Lisa
lives in New England with her husband and their children. She spends her days
writing for corporate clients and her evenings writing stories and novels.
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her website for more on books, trailers, playlists, and more:
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Thanks Lisa for sharing,
Tina
