The Best Next Thing ((Un)Professionally Yours 1)

“Yeah, I like to burn the women I love too,” Miles replied, with a cynical snort. “And cut them and hurt them and humiliate them.”

“You don’t know anything.” Her voice was an angry sibilant whisper, and she bristled with fury. “Charity was always difficult. I warned him not to marry her, warned him she would make a terrible pastor’s wife, but he loved that girl beyond reason. She tested him. Tested his commitment to his faith and his parish. What was he supposed to do?”

“Not fucking hit her! Not mark her with cigarettes, or slice her with razor blades. Not break her ribs. He was supposed to love her for the amazing, spirited, beautiful woman she is.”

“Yes, their relationship was very volatile, but there was always love there.”

Her eyes shone with tears, and for a second, Miles felt sorry for her, for the mother who had lost her only child. Then he recalled Charity mentioning the times the very woman standing before him had driven Charity to hospital after one of her precious son’s more violent beatings. How she had made Charity feel at fault. She had been as abusive as her son and Miles refused to waste another moment of sympathy on her.

He glanced over at Charity, then froze, she had climbed off the trampoline and was staring at them in concern.

Shit.

He was one-hundred-percent certain she wouldn’t be pleased to know what they were discussing. He swallowed down the rest of what he wanted to say and smiled frigidly instead.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, with insincere politeness. “I see someone over there I’d much rather be spending time with.”

He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and, without waiting for a response, walked away.

“What did you tell that horrid, horrid man about my son?” Sandra cornered Charity in the ladies’ room about forty-five minutes after Charity had seen her speaking with Miles. It had been very apparent from the woman’s offended body language during that conversation that whatever Miles had been saying had not been to her liking.

Charity had an inkling of course, but she hadn’t been able to pin him down to ask for specifics. Not when everybody wanted to speak with her and spend time with her.

Charity wasn’t even sure how she felt about Miles talking to Sandra about Blaine. Angry? Upset? Hurt? Concerned? Relieved? It was all jumbled up and left her even more confused and frustrated than before.

Now her former mother-in-law had a hand clamped around Charity’s wrist and looked utterly furious with her. Sandra’s hand tightened when she caught sight of Charity’s bare ring finger. She had stopped wearing the fake ring the day after she and Miles first made love.

“Where is your wedding ring? Why aren’t you wearing it? It’s a family heirloom. I want it back if you no longer intend to wear it.”

In the past, Charity may have been cowed by the older woman’s strong-arm tactics. Back when they had isolated her from her family, this woman had been the only maternal figure in her life, and Charity had been grateful to her for always taking care of her in the aftermath of Blaine’s brutal attacks. She had long since recognized it for the carrot-and-stick routine that it had been. And Sandra Davenport no longer held any sway over her.

She yanked her wrist out of the woman’s grip and glared right back.

“I told Miles nothing but the truth. And I donated the ring to a shelter for victims of domestic violence.” She took a great deal of satisfaction in Sandra’s appalled gasp. “It represented years of horrific abuse, and I hated wearing it. My fondest hope is that it has helped other women escape the same nightmare I lived through.”

“You had no right! It was Paul’s mother’s ring.”

Charity shrugged carelessly. “I can give you the name of the shelter, and you can try to track it down. But I never want to see the vile thing again.”

Sandra blinked, appearing confused by Charity’s nonchalance and lack of timidity. She inhaled, before changing the subject. Possibly in an attempt to goad an emotional response from Charity. “How dare you speak to that monster about my beautiful boy? And how could you sully my Blaine’s memory by whoring yourself to a man like that?”

Well…if she had been trying to provoke a reaction from Charity, she succeeded with that. Because it pissed Charity all the way off.

“Miles Hollingsworth is a thousand times the man Blaine was. He’s kind and gentle and caring. He would never hurt me. And like any sane man would be, he was sickened to hear what your son did to me in the name of love.”

“You killed my boy,” Sandra snapped. “I’ve been silent all these years, but we both know that it’s your fault he’s dead. You were toxic for him. And you drove him to do everything that he did. Drove him to kill himself.”

“Your precious fucking son tried to kill me that last night. And the only reason he committed suicide was because he thought he’d succeeded. I knew him well, and I know that he wasn’t man enough to face the consequences of what he thought he had done. I’m happy I’m free of him. Free of you. And I refuse to feel any guilt whatsoever about what happened that night. I lived in fear and pain and regret for too long. I left because I could no longer pretend to feel any kind of grief over his death. And because I couldn’t stand to watch my parents mourn for him. But I’m back now. And I won’t allow them to think of him as some saint anymore.”

r />

The woman went gray, and Charity folded her arms over her chest, staring her down.

“What are you going to do?” The words were choked and panic stricken, but Charity had not an ounce of pity for her.

“That’s none of your concern. My family is none of your concern. I think it’s past time that you and Paul gracefully exit our lives.”

“Your parents are our best friends.”