Chapter 6

• While normally the idea of drowning her humiliation in a drunken pity-party appealed to Valerie's wounded pride, something about her present circumstances precluded such luxuries. At least for now.
• "Rain check on the drinking binge? I actually...well I may have done something wildly, _wildly_ reckless." She drew a steeling breath, unable to tamp down the delirious trill of exhilaration bubbling in her veins. "I'm married, Em."
• The pindrop silence that followed her pronouncement stretched so tautly, Valerie wondered if the call disconnected. She even pulled her phone away to double check before Emily's voice exploded in her ear.
• " What?! You got married? As in...legally bound, 'till death do us part' married? Valerie Ashford, have you lost your entire mind? To who? When? And don't you dare lie or omit a single salacious morsel, I will throttle you!"
• A low giggle escaped before she could rein it in. Only Emily could alternate between awkward empathy and outraged protectiveness like a disgruntled mother-hen.
• "Would you judge me terribly if I told you his name is...Michael. Michael Donovan." She uttered the name slowly, testing its weight on her tongue. The inexplicable thrill it sent skittering through her senses simply hearing his surname aloud.
• "Am I meant to know this Michael Donovan fellow? Because I gotta say, the name doesn't ring even the faintest bell."
• Fair point, Valerie admitted privately. Emily's sphere scarcely intersected with the shadowed world inhabited by the likes of the Donovan dynasty. Drawing a grounding inhale, she opted for brutal honesty with her only remaining confidante.
• "He's a complete stranger, Em. Literally bumped into him in the courthouse lobby after David's revolting declaration. And I just...I just agreed to marry him on the spot!" She winced, realizing how stunningly unhinged the admission sounded aloud.
• Sure enough, poor Emily seemed momentarily robbed of speech before she choked out an incredulous scoff. "Wait...you're joking, right? Please confirm this is some elaborate prank before my brain self-combusts."
• Valerie hesitated, fully grasping how her confession may sound like the ravings of a lunatic scorned woman willing to leap headfirst into the jaws of the first passing madness. No specifics were needed yet of this Michael's palpable darkness or the electric frisson igniting her blood with each searing assessment from those emerald irises.
• Not until Emily absorbed the stark truth regarding Valerie's mercurial situation first.
• "I'm afraid I'm utterly serious, Em. Just hours after being so brutally left at the altar, I somehow ended up reciting actual wedding vows with a stranger whose last name alone should send shockwaves through certain parts of this city."
• As if her words triggered some internal radar, Emily inhaled a sharp, dismayed breath. "Oh my god...please don't tell me you married into _that_ Donovan family. The crime syndicate one with all those shady business ties?"
• There it was, the spark of nameless fear and trepidation Valerie expected to accompany the mere implication of Michael's pedigree. Still, her heart stayed curiously buoyant, beckoning for Emily to lay aside her objections and join her breathless leap into the precipice instead.
• "You know, funnily enough...I'm not entirely certain _what_ Michael is precisely. Save for magnetic, incredibly self-assured, and utterly compelling in ways my former miserably sheltered existence never prepared me for."
• Her lilting admission hung between them, as heavy and exquisitely provocative as her new husband's potent brand of mystery and magnetism. Neither woman seemed to draw an exhale for several weighted pulses, the yawning silence swelling with Emily's mute shock and rising consternation.
• How to put her bullishly pragmatic friend at ease while shielding her from the startling reality Valerie couldn't fathom herself just yet? That from the gorgeous beast of a man's first vow, she sensed portentous seismic shifts aligning in the universe's cosmic wheel...and somehow, they were destined to remake her as surely as gravity warped light.
• "He's different," was all she could murmur with a tremulous smile no one witnessed. "And for whatever reason beyond my comprehension, Michael inspires something in me I scarcely recognize outside hollow devastation. It might even be a reckless thirst for danger itself."
• On the other end of the line, Emily huffed an overly loud sigh, no doubt shaking her head in patent dismay.
• "Only you would turn getting royally screwed over into an excuse to elope with an outrageously inappropriate stranger. I don't even know whether to congratulate you or sob into the whiskey Valerie."
• Despite her droll delivery, Valerie sensed the unwavering current of affection and concern behind the lightly scolding words. Emily clearly cared deeply for her wayward friend...even if she feared Valerie had just plunged irrevocably off the deep end this time.
• Well, she could rest slightly easier, Valerie mused with a strange, wistful tranquility. Because whatever precipitous path her latest life divergence skewed towards, her feet were undoubtedly destined to navigate it alone. One way or another, the fallout of her seeming insanity would remake and re-sculpt the very planes of her existence anew.
• And deep in the marrow of her bones, Valerie Donovan relished the wrestling, breathless anticipation of that inevitable seismic metamorphosis to its fullest.
• "No whiskey required, I assure you," she replied at last, smiling a secret smile meant for Michael alone as she mounted her apartment steps. "But no judgment for wanting to keep a bottle on hand either. Let's just say...something tells me you'll be needing it sooner than you think."
• With a softly exhaled chuckle and a promise to fill Emily in on the full sordid details very soon, Valerie disconnected the call.
• As she turned her key in the lock and nudged through her front door, she was momentarily arrested by the ordinary, intimate silence of her own space once more. The cherished photographs smiling from each scuffed surface, the pale gouges in the wooden floor from her childhood dance lessons.
• Precious fragments and echoes from her beloved mother's spirit that would now become unceremoniously haunted by the aura of her intimidating new husband very soon. As the notion encompassed her, Valerie felt both a twinge of mourning and a fresh surge of feverish yearning flare to incendiary life within.
• Because while her bright-eyed existence might be shuddering towards its long-awaited ending, something infinitely more primal and rapturous awaited her in the aftermath of this day's irrevocable tumult. Something - or someone - who would remake all the sweetly worn corners and spaces inside Valerie irrevocably unto his own image and liking.
• With a shuddering inhale, she shut the front door on the sacred yesterdays that once achingly defined her. Tomorrow, she suspected, everything would be rendered shockingly, unpredictably... _new_.