Also Known as...Love

J James Beverly

Description

"Life is difficult and sometimes just making it through can be daunting at best-especially when you are single. Giselle had finally gotten beyond all of the concerns that plagued her in single life and her life, as it was, was great. She had a fantastic job with a six-figure salary. She had three best friends and they were amazing. They all faced their own challenges, while depending upon and uplifting each other. Life was okay...Giselle was okay.Then he walked into her life.And everything changed."

Sujets

• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528989992
• Langue: English

Extrait

Also Known as…LOVE
Beverly J James
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-10-16
Also Known as…LOVE About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18
About the Author
Beverly J James has a passion for writing and for humanity. She believes that love is the single greatest and most powerful force in the universe. God is love.
Dedication
For my superhero – no one has loved me more or better. You will always be the love of my life. Thank you for changing the direction of my world and giving me life. I love you more than everything. Everything, baby.
Copyright Information ©
Beverly J James (2020)
The right of Beverly J James to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528989985 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528989992 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgement
Thanks, Melissa for the clarity. Angela and Tiffany, thanks for the faith that helped me go ahead. Sherri, thanks for more than I can say. Jason, my son, my rock – I love you and Tasha. Jayla and Jaxon – you guys are my heart and soul. Thank you, Lord Jesus for forgiving me every day in my weakness and failures and still finding me worthy.
Chapter 1
I should have known that I was going to have problems with this love thing from the beginning of my so-called love life. Way back when I was so in love at 15 that I thought I was ready for sex. Boy was I wrong. I should have known then! But no! I thought I was in love. I truly didn’t get it. In my defence, everybody was lying back then saying how great sex was. I know he did!
“I promise,” he said. “It’s going to be so good,” he said. I don’t know why I believed him, all I know is that my first experience was so painful that I pushed Leslie—(yes, I lost my virginity to a guy named Leslie—okay?) anyway, I pushed him off me and punched him as hard as I could! What had started out as a lovemaking session turned into a big fight, and we never spoke to each other again.
So, the stage was set. Though my first sexual experience hurt tremendously, I did not give up. And the truth is, some form of love has been hurting me ever since. Yet, I stayed the course.
Finally, after years of trying and losing, and trying and losing, I met Harry. Harry said he wanted to marry me on our second date. I liked that. And though I had seen many warning signs along the way, we married after two and a half months of knowing (or not knowing) each other. He disappeared on our wedding day for nearly four hours and actually confessed that he had been with his ex. We were married for a total of 18 months that consisted of numerous affairs by him, me perfecting the art of being a sleuth, several bouts of bloodshed and destruction of property and him finally admitting that he did not want to be married to me anymore. Unfortunately, even with all of that, I thought I still wanted to be with him. The divorce was devastating for me—but I made the Dean’s List in the middle of it! So there!
Anyway, I became a nurse. And it has been the best decision of my life. I learned to throw myself into my work, my patients and their well-being. That took away the time I would use to think about relationships or more specifically—the lack thereof.
This morning, I had the opportunity to see the true love I had hoped I would experience in this life. A couple who had been married for 53 years came to the Surgicentre; he was having a routine procedure. They still looked at each other with their eyes locked and a palpable emotion that everyone could see. She sat by his side, holding his hand, answering questions posed to him when he gave the slightest hesitation of recalling the information and smoothing his eyebrows with a tiny bit of her saliva. He was 73 years old, three years older than his wife—but interacted with her like a schoolboy with his first crush. As we went to roll him into the operating room, after she leant over and kissed him, he quickly reached out and pulled her closer saying, “You have made this life worth living. You are all that has ever really mattered to me.”
“Just go, have that old appendix taken out, Joe!” she said, “You should have done it forty years ago!” They both laughed.
And I’ve been in a funk ever since.
I want to love and to be loved. I never was the girl that guys just looked at and knew they liked me; I was the one they thought they liked once they got to know me. Then, as luck would have it, one or both of us would realise that was not the case and they really didn’t like me at all. Not until after the break-up anyway. After I have used every tactic known to any human to get over them, then they realised, “Oh, I really do like her!” But I decided a long time ago to never backtrack. I’m the same person I was in the beginning. If you didn’t love/like me then, chances are you don’t love/like me now.
Some women don’t seem to have those issues. Take one of my best friends, Greta, for instance.
Greta was visibly beautiful, not just to men, but women recognised it as well. She did not really need makeup and barely ever wore any except mascara and clear lip gloss. Her skin was as clean and clear as a new-born’s, never having had even the smallest pimple. She never had a weight problem, had great taste in apparel, and she had good hair . While she could not pass, it was clear by looking at her that she was likely bi-racial. Greta was never between relationships; she was just waiting to become available for the next guy waiting.
She had just graduated from George Washington University with her BS in Business when the four of us met nine years ago at a Zumba class. She put herself through school, working at Calibri’s Italian Eatery, up in northwest, charming everyone she met and raking in tips hand over fist. She still works there, but now, as an assistant manager.
It was there that she met Cameron. He replaced the previous manager, and while orienting him to his new position, Greta and Cameron became fast friends, and lovers soon thereafter. It’s been a year and a half, and they are still together.
Cameron, on the other hand, had never quite been loved the way he believed he deserved to be loved. Perhaps it was because he was the fifth consecutive son born to parents desperately wanting a girl from the start. His parents had billed him as the last chance for a daughter and decided that if Cameron was not a girl, they would quit trying. Interestingly enough, a post-partum night of comforting turned to unplanned passion and his parents got the girl they had always wanted nine months after Cameron was born. Cameron was destined to be overshadowed and overlooked from the moment his sister Stassi was brought home.
As he grew older, he developed a close relationship with Remy Martin Cognac. And by the time he was 31, Remy had ushered him to or saw him through many broken relationships and three divorces. After his last divorce, he threw in the towel. He swore off marriage and vowed that he would never try it again.
Of course, that’s when he met Greta.
Cameron had become tame since meeting her. He gave up drinking, found his faith and is working hard to be a better man. He became a mentor for young men with absent fathers and learned that what he really wanted more than anything else was a child of his own. He wanted to be a father. Maybe, the one he never had.
He and Greta had had this conversation many, many times before. He wanted a child but not a marriage. Greta had never married, though she had come close a few years back. She wanted a family—but absolutely not without marriage. She wanted to be a wife. This morning it had come up again…
Cameron sat at the foot of the bed. He watched Greta as she stood in front of the mirror and pulled her long, curly black hair into a high ponytail. He watched her hair as it dropped and came to rest just above her buttocks. Their eyes met in the mirror, and Cameron shook his head.
“I don’t know how my saying ‘ I don’t want to get married’ equals’ I don’t love you’ . I just don’t get it,” he said.
Greta turned around to look at him, “And I don’t know why I have to keep telling you over and over again, Cameron. I am not having a baby before I get married! And I know that I love you. But do you even love me? When you truly love someone, you want to get married. You want to be a family in every way.”
“There are many loving and happy couples with children who have never gotten married. Marriage is not a pre-requisite to having children anymore! This is not the fifties, Greta!”
“Well, it’s a pre-requisite for me!” Greta exclaimed as she put on her lip gloss.
“Well, I’ve been there, done that and not so well,” Cameron said, admitting defeat.
“Not with me, and you know that’s what I want,” she lamented.
Interrupting, “You know I don’t want to get married again! I do not want to get married again!” he reiterated. “And yes, I really