The Sacrifice: A Contemporary Romance Novella

By Red L. Jameson

It was an accident, looking at my husband’s phone when he had a text. Just a split second of time, and all my worst fears were confirmed. My life, my marriage, my husband—is it all a lie?
When I stumble into a circus-act of people—all juggling their own broken hearts, tightrope walking their own bitter ironies—I face the hardest question of all: Who am I? Everyone sacrifices for their loved ones. Everyone gives up their dreams...right?
As my husband rescues me from an act gone bad, I can’t help but wonder what he’s given up and if our sacrifices made our love or broke it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red L. Jameson
• Release date: Mar 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781311560001

Red L. Jameson

Red L. Jameson lives in the wilds of Montana with her family. While working on a military history master’s degree, she doodled a story that became her bestselling, award-winning romance, Enemy of Mine, part of the Glimpse Time Travel Series. After earning her gigantic master’s—the diploma is just huge, she couldn’t stop doodling stories, more Glimpse stories—because she couldn’t get enough of hunky Highlanders and buttoned-down Brits—and other stories, a paranormal romance series and a contemporary series, which grew into the pen name R. L. Jameson, under which she writes cerebral and spicy erotic romance. While working on yet another master’s degree—nowhere near as giant as the first, she wrote her first women’s fiction novels. But no matter which genre she writes, her novels always end with a happily ever after.She loves her readers, so please feel free to contact her at http://www.redljameson.com

Book preview

The Sacrifice

The Sacrifice

A contemporary romance novella

Red L. Jameson

Contents

The Sacrifice

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

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The Sacrifice

Red L. Jameson

It was an accident, looking at my husband’s phone when he had a text. Just a split second of time, and all my worst fears were confirmed. My life, my marriage, my husband—is it all a lie?

When I stumble into a circus-act of people—all juggling their own broken hearts, tightrope walking their own bitter ironies—I face the hardest question of all: Who am I? Everyone sacrifices for their loved ones. Everyone gives up their dreams…right?

As my husband rescues me from an act gone bad, I can’t help but wonder what he’s given up and if our sacrifices made our love or broke it.

1

Ididn’t mean to look. I really didn’t.

I have my husband’s phone. He grabbed mine on his way out the door this morning, always in a mindless rush to get to work, and I’m on my way to exchange our phones, when I got a text.

I checked the text because I’m in default mode. I can’t function in a crowded elevator. Well, I feel like it’s crowded when there’s more than three people in a small space with me. And there’s four. We all have enough room to studiously ignore each other, but I worry I can’t breathe all the same.

As soon as I see my husband’s friend’s name, Markus, I tell myself to ignore the text. It’s none of my business. Besides, I don’t like Markus. He’s a bit of a dick and looks at me…well, I feel uncomfortable around him, never sure if he’s judging me or my husband for picking me to be his wife.

I have my beautiful husband’s phone in my hand and wonder what I’m doing when I press the link Markus sent with the text, This is so you, bro.

Finally, my brain powers on, and I realize I shouldn’t have pressed the link. I shouldn’t have invaded my husband’s privacy. But I sigh with relief, realizing I’m in an elevator where I surely can’t get a good enough signal to launch a website link.

But the phone works perfectly well, and I can’t seem to stop myself from looking at the screen, curious what my husband is. I’ve been married to my husband for eleven years now. I shouldn’t be curious. I should know who he is. But I hold my breath as the phone finds the website and loads a page.

Men Settle For Wives

The elevator pings. The doors open. Two people get off. I can think much more clearly now, but I still stare at the screen, reading how men settle for women they’re not in love with. How men are lowering their expectations to marry.

The article is based on neurological science. Not my field, but I like reading about neurology. As a former chemist, I think neurology is fascinating. But not so much when it’s about me.

My heart. God, my heart is squeezing so hard.

Can I give myself a heart attack? I’m not even forty. That’s a hurdle that’s still a few years away. But my heart hurts so much. I feel like my insides turned into tissue paper and something is burning and tearing the fragile stuff to shreds.

The elevator pings.

This is my husband’s floor. I walk jerkily into his office’s waiting room, no longer sure if my body is my own.

For the past eleven years, somewhere inside me, I struggled with the question why my lovely husband would want to marry me. But to have it just out there. Exposed. To have his friend, his dick of a friend, tell him he married me because he was settling…

What are the symptoms of a heart attack? Why does it hurt down to my toes? I don’t usually cry. I don’t know why. I’m not built that way, which always makes me wonder about my femininity. But I might cry at this second.

My husband lowered his expectations when he married me.

Mrs. Greene, Darcy, my husband’s personal secretary, calls from behind her desk. She rises elegantly and walks to me on stilts that would break my ankles. I wasn’t expecting you today. Was Harrison?

I almost visibly cringe when she says my husband’s first name. I’ve always hated that she calls him that, but I don’t know why. I’m a modern woman, raised by a radical anthropologist, who opened my eyes to social mores that hold race, class and gender back. I’m not averse to my husband’s secretary calling him by his first name. But for whatever reason, I am averse to her.

I chalk it up to my insecurities, which are roaring in my head like an oncoming tornado. I wonder if people can hear warning sirens, wailing how I’m about to whirl myself into a heart attack. Or already have.

Harrison’s waiting room is nothing like him—all stiff corners and modern to the point of outlandish. My husband is warm and welcoming, an easy smile for me whenever I see him. But he’s also a corporate attorney, and that’s what this room says—ruthless but covered with aesthetic art.

I hold my gorgeous husband’s phone up, screen facing me, making sure it darkens to oblivion before I dare show her the incriminating evidence that I’m nothing more than my husband lowering his expectations.

He grabbed the wrong phone. I plaster a smile onto my lips. The move feels foreign and wrong. But I can’t let her see how much I’m hurting inside. I can’t let anyone know my husband’s secret.

Oh, Darcy’s smile widens, but I wonder if it’s as fake as mine, I can exchange them for you. He’s on a teleconference right now.

I almost agree when I hear his voice, my lovely husband’s voice.

I remember the first time it sunk into my bones. It was the morning after we’d first made love. He was in my bed, and we woke at the same time. He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me close, when he said with his deep dark voice, You’re too far away.

He had us spooning, but I’d turned in his hold, facing him, loving the purr of his voice, how it vibrated down my spine, right into my clit. Placing a leg over his hips, I moaned as I felt his erection slide against my wet sex. I was eager for him. Always so eager.

Say that again, I whispered.

He kissed my neck, rocking his hips, easily finding my opening. Too far away.

And he was inside me.

Hey, Maybe Baby. My husband comes out of his office. He’s just made partner in his firm. I’m proud of him. I’ve always been so damned proud.

My eyes blur. I have to blink a lot, especially since he calls me his Maybe Baby. My name’s Mabel. My parents cursed me with an old-fashioned name no one has any longer, which ensured many an odd nickname throughout my life. But I’ve always loved Harrison’s Maybe Baby.

Now, though, I can’t help but wonder if he means maybe, baby.

I swallow and blink more.

He extracts my phone from his suit’s jacket pocket. They’re identical, our cell phones. He bought them that way and said he thought it was cute that we matched. He’s wearing one of his navy blue suits that makes his light green eyes shine. His hair is so black it’s glossy and shines silver in almost all lights. He’s clean shaven. He forgoes shaving on the weekends when I beg him to run his face against my sensitive breasts. I smell the aftershave—clean, spicy male scent—he applied just hours ago.

He used to be a scruffy-haired guy who always had stubble.

And I’m the woman he settled for.

I’m still holding his phone out, so he easily exchanges mine for his.

I thought you were in the teleconference, Darcy hisses as she whispers, looking at me with a firm smile.

Harrison shrugs his wide shoulders. The past eight years he’s been working out with weights. He’s gotten a lot more muscular than when we’d met. I think of his body back when we were both graduate students—him law, me chemistry. He was lean back then. The body of a starving law student. I loved the way he would hold me against his body. I loved the feel of his chest hair, which he’d let me play with. His erection would always fit so perfect against me or inside me. I thought we were so perfect.

That’s the oxytocin talking, a hormone that produces feelings of attachment. Or it could be vasopressin. That hormone helps couples stay bonded.

I’ve always known the chemicals of falling in love. I knew how to break it apart and study it objectively. But I never have for myself. Until now.

Harrison glances at Darcy. Nope. Finished up. Can you give me a few seconds to talk to my wife?

She takes a sip of a breath as if she’s annoyed she has to walk away from my husband. Maybe she is. I’ve always worried that she has a crush on Harrison. My gorgeous husband. Mine. But he settled for me. While I adore him.

Maybe I wasn’t wrong about Darcy.

But could Harrison be attracted to her?

My caring husband isn’t the kind of man to cheat. He’s loyal to a fault. And apparently I’m the fault.

I’m shaking. My tornado-heart attack is making me shake. I’m looking at my husband from different eyes now. Wiser eyes.

Darcy sashays away, her walk graceful and refined, while I wonder what Harrison must see in me as I walk gracelessly. I walk with pragmatic purpose. I’m a scientist. Well, I was. I never got my master’s. Never finished. We married instead. He settled for me instead.

The boys off with my parents? He turns and looks directly down at me. I’ve always loved our height difference. I’ve never felt feminine, except when he looks down at me. I’ve always thought myself too in my head to be womanly, but he makes me feel like I’m perfectly female to his perfect male.

I nod. Our twin six-year-old boys are with his parents for the weekend. We’d planned this for months, and I was looking forward

Reviews for The Sacrifice

[Vijay Yadav · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Initial half doesn't make sense.When they started talking in other half it becomes better. Harrison always loved his wife Mabel and was always insecure that she would leave him one day,the same way Mabel was insecure of his affection . Marcus his friend was a pervert who was eying his wife, why didn't he left such person or discuss this issue with his wife....

[Debbie DiFiore · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is just weird. I am not sure why I even read it. Lady thinks her husband settled for her but he really loved her! Strange story. No recommend.