Harlequin Kimani Romance February 2015 Box Set: The Way You Love Me\Forever with You\Thief of My Heart\Journey to Seduction by Donna Hill

Author:Donna Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Leslie didn’t know how much time had passed when she heard knocking at the kitchen door. She tried to lift herself up, but she was too weak to move, her body still wrung out from the deluge of anguish that had overtaken her. A minute later she heard the kitchen door open and Shayla calling her name.

“Les? Are you here?”

Moments later her bedroom door creaked opened. She heard Shayla gasp, and in a heartbeat her sister-in-law was at her side.

“Oh, my God, Leslie! What happened? Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Leslie said, pushing herself up before Shayla called 911.

“What happened?” Shayla asked again. Her eyes darted from Leslie to the shattered picture frame. Understanding washed over her face. “Oh, Les,” she said.

“Mom?” Cassidy called, followed by Buster’s squeaky bark.

Shayla quickly pushed herself up from the floor. “Don’t worry, I’ve got them,” she said before backing out of the room.

Leslie didn’t put up an argument. She felt too broken to do anything.

Five minutes later, Shayla came back into the room. Leslie was exactly where she’d left her.

“Oh, honey,” Shayla said. She walked over and sat on the floor next to her.

Leslie tried to keep the tears at bay, but it was as if she’d released the hinges on a dam that had been closed for too many years. The force of the tide was too strong to stop it. She cried until her body ached with it, until she was too weak to do anything more than rest in Shayla’s arms.

“It’s okay,” Shayla murmured as she ran a soothing hand over Leslie’s head again and again. “It’s going to be okay, honey. It’s going to be okay.”

“When?” The single word came out hoarse and craggy. “When will it be okay, Shayla? It’s been two years and nothing is okay.”

Leslie wiped her nose on the sleeve of her robe and looked up at her sister-in-law. She and Braylon had the same deep brown eyes, the same eyes that her daughters had.

“It’s not okay. I slept with Gabriel,” Leslie admitted in a small voice. “In this room. I slept with another man in my husband’s bed.”

“Oh, honey, don’t. Don’t you dare do this to yourself,” Shayla said. She cradled Leslie in her arms again, rocking from side to side as guilty tears once again overwhelmed her. “This is exactly where you should have slept with Gabriel, because this is your room, not Braylon’s. This is healthy, Leslie. This is right.”

“Taking another man to my husband’s bed is right?”

“You’re damn right it’s right,” Shayla said. “You told me yourself that you and Braylon talked about this. This is what he wanted for you if anything ever happened to him. There’s no reason to be angry with yourself for doing something that Braylon would have wanted. I mean it, Leslie. Don’t you dare feel one ounce of guilt about sleeping with Gabriel.”

Shayla lifted Leslie’s chin so that she could look her in the eyes.

“Is it really you that you’re angry with?” she asked. “Or is it Braylon?”

Leslie pulled her trembling bottom lip between her teeth.

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