news. Part of me wondered if he’d disown me, if I’d even be able to call myself a Barnett by the end of the week.
Part of me didn’t care, as long as I was free of the man who had lied to me for the past year.
And maybe that was what upset me most — that under all the anxiety over what was to come, I was still heartbroken over what had happened. The man I had promised my forever to wasn’t the man I thought I knew at all, and as much as I wished I didn’t hurt over that fact, as much as I wished Noah being with me the night before fixed everything, it didn’t.
I had still been betrayed.
My heart fluttered at the thought of Noah, a small smile curving on my lips. I reached up, smoothing my fingertips over the bottom one, remembering how it felt when his tongue swept across the sensitive skin.
The way he touched me, the way he made love to me…
It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
How could I feel more passion and care in one night with that man than I felt in an entire year with the one I promised to marry?
As if he could sense I was thinking of him, Noah stretched his arms up over his head, resting them on the back of the pew before he did a casual scan of the congregation like he wasn’t just trying to look back at me.
But he did.
When our eyes locked, every shred of doubt, every fear faded.
He smiled.
I smiled.
And then I counted down the minutes until I could be in his arms again.
“Mama, can we talk?”
She was in the kitchen, baking her famous lemon squares for her meeting with the women’s circle at church the next day. Her auburn hair was up in a messy bun — which Mama never did, unless she was stressed, cleaning, or baking.
Sometimes, it was a combination of the three.
“Sure, sweetie. Just let me get these in the oven and we can pull up the seating chart again.”
I shifted. “It’s actually not about the seating chart.”
“Oh,” she said, opening the oven and sliding the baking sheet of squares inside before she popped it closed again. “Is it the registry? I know we’re a little behind, but we can get it all done before next Sunday. Most people wait until the last minute to buy gifts for the shower, anyway.”
“Mama,” I said, taking a seat at the kitchen island. “It’s important.”
I set the ring Anthony had given me on the counter with a gentle clink, metal hitting granite, and it was as if that sound alone stopped Mama in her tracks.
She stopped right in front of the sink, one hand under the faucet and the other ready to turn it on, but she never did. Instead, she just stood like that, glancing at the ring, at me, back at the ring, at me again.
Her face paled, and she turned back to the sink, kicking on the faucet with her wrist before running her hands under the water. “We still need to decide what readings you want to do during the ceremony. I was thinking we should do something fresh. Corinthians is so overdone.”
My heart squeezed.
“Mama.”
“And you know, maybe we should do the twine like you wanted. Instead of the coral ribbon.” She dried her hands haphazardly on one of the towels hanging from the oven, immediately launching into clean up. “You were right, that would look so much classier.”
“Mama.”
“And we need to go in for your final fitting on Friday. Don’t forget that.”
“Mama!”
She winced, shutting her eyes and hanging her head between her shoulders with the sponge in her hand. She shook her head, eyes still closed, and I knew in her mind she was praying to God that I hadn’t actually taken my ring off.
“Please,” I begged her, my own throat tightening. “Can you please sit down?”
She sniffed, dropping the sponge on the counter and sitting at the stool across from me. She wouldn’t look at me. She kept her eyes on her hands, which were folded now, her right fingers playing with the ring that adorned her left.
I inhaled a deep breath once she was seated, once the ball was in my court. Dad and Anthony had gone out for the evening, back to the casino, and after talking to Annie first, she’d helped me decide that Mom was the first person I should tell in the family. From there, I could make