Review: The Woman He Married

The Woman He Married by Julie N. Ford
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2 ⭐⭐ - Meh!
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Our Zero is a selfish SOB who has not redeemed himself in my opinion.
Our Zeroine, I do not know what to say about her. Weak, with daddy issues and doormat syndrome.
Besides neglecting the family, he humiliates her publicly because everyone knows about his affair. And still drags his name and family in the mud with a scandal.
I would pick Brian in the blink of an eye and kick the cheater out of my life.
I was disappointed with the end of the book.

What was so pressing he couldn’t have shared even a speck of his attention with the smallest matter relating to his children? Children he’d insisted on having in the first place.

Stopping, Gina pursed her lips, eyeing Josie a moment. “All right, then. You say you could be doing more productive things with your time, yet here you are, every day,” she smacked Josie on her backside, “work’n hard to look pretty darn good for a mother of three, and for what? For whom? That undeserving husband of yours? Has he even noticed?”

“First a minivan, and now the infamous Josie McClain is sitting down to supper with a toxic polluter,” he commented before she could slink away.

“Jocelyn’s my wife and the mother of my children.” He slammed his palm to the desk. “I won’t sit here and listen to you disrespect her any longer.” The corners of Andy’s lips twisted into a mocking smile. “Right, ’cause you’re doing enough of that for the both of us.”

“Why do you let him treat you that way?”

“Can’t you see I’m trying to save my marriage?” Gina shifted her weight to one hip. “How, by being his doormat?”

Only it wasn’t her beauty or bombshell figure that troubled Josie, or even the way she couldn’t keep from touching John’s arm as she spoke to him, but the sparkling piece of jewelry Josie spied dangling from the woman’s wrist.

When was the last time he’d paid Josie that kind of undivided attention? How sad that she couldn’t remember. Josie’s eyes leapt back to the bracelet. Grayson had said that John bought it for Josie. So if he’d bought it for Josie, then why did it appear that Trisha was wearing it?

And hadn’t John and Trisha been an item back in college?

So desperate was she to keep her husband from walking away again, she’d offered the very man she suspected of cheating on her an evening of uninterrupted passion out at their guesthouse. An offer he’d flat-out refused.

Not even in her mind could she stomach the sight of John’s body wrapped around that of another woman’s, his hands touching her in places he’d once promised to only touch Josie.

The fog clinging to Josie’s brain cleared. “What kind of deal?” A look of helplessness with a side of guilt formed tiny creases in Carol’s flawless complexion. “The kind that involved John convincing you to marry him before the summer ended and Brian returned. If he was successful, your father would make sure he got his job at Tyler and Whitney, pay off his student loans, help y’all buy this house, and get him into the country club. All the things he knew John wanted.”

Josie’s hand gripped her coffee cup so tight it started to shake. “Wait, what are saying? That John married me for Daddy’s money?”

“Jocelyn, your daddy wasn’t a perfect man, but he loved you. He only wanted what was best for you. Child, it would break his heart to see you like this.”

“The morning after my first date with Jocelyn, The Judge called me into his office. He was old and frail at that point, but by the homicidal look in his eye, I was fairly certain he had enough strength to wring my neck, had he chosen to,” John explained, the memory of the deal they’d struck sending a gnawing prick he couldn’t quite define to sting his chest. “Thankfully, I’d already decided to do everything in my power to keep Jocelyn from going back to that boyfriend of hers, regardless.”

How stupid could one woman be, going all gooey inside over a kiss? How long was she going to keep trying to love a man who couldn’t be bothered with loving her back?

All these years she’d been all but invisible to him, screaming into a vacuum of alcohol and passive-aggressive behavior, begging for him to tell her she mattered.

Posed on the corner of the dock, she stood there a moment, staring down at him until their eyes met and held. Then she reached for the hem of her short cover-up. Back arched, inch by inch, she slowly— seductively— peeled the fabric up and over her head. Balanced in the tiniest, black bikini top John had ever seen, her globed breasts swung, then settled back into place with the motion. Rising onto her toes, she stretched her arms wide and proceeded to execute a perfect swan dive. The water, and all its human contents, stilled while her elegant body made barely a splash as she disappeared into the ocean below. A burning desire of a completely different, more carnal nature stirred inside him. Without thinking, he relaxed his grip on his wife.

The brief meeting of their lips had been nice, natural, and then . . . Trisha.

John dragged his feet through the sand, resistant to follow along as Trisha led him farther into the darkness, heading toward some sort of rickety old structure.

Trisha poked out her bottom lip. “You’re worried about the election, aren’t you?” She used a whiny voice. “That’s all you ever think about. Why can’t you focus on me for once?” John hated to admit it, but that voice made him weak, vulnerable to her allure. “I focus on you plenty.” He smiled in spite of the fact that he knew better than to encourage her. “Too much, in fact.”

With each additional mile, Josie’s shock and humiliation had slowly morphed into fury. He hadn’t even bothered to refasten the buttons on his shirt properly.

Even if John had never really loved her, how could he have humiliated her like that?

Her anger erupted at last. “If it’s the election you’re worried about, I’ll wait until it’s over to file for divorce. But when we get home, I want you to pack your things and get the hell out of my house! And if you don’t, I’ll have Brian serve you with divorce papers first thing tomorrow morning. Then I’ll hold a press conference so the whole of Alabama can hear what a cheating S.O.B. you really are. See if your beloved Trisha can spin that one in your favor. And don’t think I won’t.”

“I was out of my mind last night. In fact, when I woke up this morning, I almost puked at the thought of having sex with my cheating bastard of a husband.”

Andy snickered. “Hate to break it to you, big brother, but everyone knows about you and Trisha.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Y’all haven’t exactly been subtle. If you didn’t want Jocelyn to know too, you shouldn’t have banged Trisha on the beach last night.”

Andy shook his head, an almost laugh dropping from his lips. “I’ve got news for you, bro, you had an affair. With a lawyer like McAlister on Jocelyn’s side, she’s going to take your home, the kids, and everything else she damn well pleases.”

Like an itch that grew more intense each time she scratched it, with every day that passed, Josie’s anger toward John intensified, growing into a big ol’ toxic cloud of seething resentment.

Josie raised a hand to stop him from saying any more. “John, I’m not interested in your love life, much less who works for you and who doesn’t,” she said. “Just keep your girlfriends away from this house and our children.” The vein in John’s forehead pulsed. “I don’t have any girlfriends. Trisha was the only woman I ever—” Josie extended her hand farther. “And I don’t care.”

“So, you’re telling me that you bought that bracelet for your mistress as an anniversary present from her husband?” she recapped. “That’s twisted, even for you.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you were sleeping with her behind my back, and if I hadn’t seen that bracelet on her wrist, you still would be,” she said, and started for the door.

He’d received a half-dozen or so similar invites over the last few weeks, all of which he’d fabricated a convenient excuse to refuse. Not that he couldn’t see the benefit in releasing some tension though an evening of meaningless sex, but that particular error in judgment had landed him in exile, and he liked to think he was capable of learning his lesson.

In the middle of the corridor, a man had a woman pressed up against the wall, kissing her. The woman was holding tight to his lapels, her fully exposed leg snaked around the man’s hips. Josie and Amy let out a collective gasp.

“Oh. My. Gosh!” Amy shrieked. John broke away from Trisha, his wide eyes whipping around to see who had caught them. His shocked gaze met Josie’s and held a breathless stroke. “What are y’all doing up here?” he asked.

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