3 Book Romance Bundle: "Her Last Love Affair" & "Loving Him Peacefully" & "Unwelcome Reunion" by Clara James, Lisa Martin, & Gloria Bryant
Chapter One
When Sarah got the invitation, she tossed it in the trash. Five years after her high school graduation, she wanted to forget it.
High school did not have pleasant memories for her. If there’d been a category for it, she would have been voted “the most likely to be overlooked,” or something like that. If, that is, the members of her class had remembered her name long enough to put it on the ballot. Graduation was just the culmination of four years of misery. Of course, she qualified the statement, her academic success hadn’t been a misery, just the cause of misery. People who come in at the top of their class but have nothing else going for them have to endure a certain amount of revenge, and in the absence of any retaliation, the revenge tends to be continual and never ending. There had been a lot that people could make fun of – her weight, her appearance, her clothes, her total lack of clever repartee – all were grist to the revenge mill. The students at St. Andrew’s Secondary School might call themselves “Saints” but they weren’t. In fact, since they almost all belonged to the select community of expatriates in Malawi, and therefore, rich, pampered, and brought up to treat those they considered “lesser beings” like their Malawian servants with discourtesy and disdain, they were less like saints than the average human.
Sarah was white, and so technically one of them, but she wasn’t rich, at least by their standards, certainly hadn’t been pampered, and had been brought up to treat everyone, no matter what their color, with respect and courtesy. That, in itself, was resented because of the secret shame the other students felt for their behavior. Her missionary parents, the Allens, had been long on principle but chronically short of money and for both reasons didn’t belong to the expatriate club or associate with the third generation settlers, who called themselves “Nyasalanders.” Sarah’s clothes had been chosen from charity bundles, so by their nature were unfashionable even when they were good quality. So she really had nothing going for her socially, however she excelled academically.
No, she had no particular reason to want to revisit St. Andrew’s five years after graduation. She still had nothing much going for her, though she had earned her BA in pharmacy and was working on her Pharmacist’s License. That was not going to garner any admiration at a reunion, except perhaps from a teacher or two. Jealousy, maybe. Most ex-Saints ended their academic career at graduation. They didn’t need further education to fit into the cushy jobs waiting for them in family businesses and tea estates. Most of them, in fact, didn’t need to work for a living, which was very comfortable physically, but rather uncomfortable emotionally. If they felt generally useless, it was because they were, and could rely only on the artificial status of wealth for a sense of importance. Sarah had a good job at The Malawi Pharmacy. She had started there soon after her graduation, having to work to get enough money for further studies. Her employers found her honest and reliable, but her generally drab appearance and less than appealing way of dealing with customers kept them from promoting her or increasing her salary beyond the across-the-board cost of living increases. Instead, they put her in charge of stores, which kept her mostly behind the scenes.
No, going back was masochistic. She’d been there, done that, and didn’t want to do it again.
But then she remembered that Hunter would be there. That changed her mind completely, and she retrieved the invitation from the wastebasket. Hunter! In the five years since Hunter had rejected her love, or more accurately ignored it, she had convinced herself that when he matured, he would realize what he had missed.
Despite herself, she let the humiliating memory invade her mind. Hunter! Star athlete and champion actor, he had looked the part with compelling good looks – curly blonde hair and the face and body of a COSMOPOLIOTAN model. Naturally, he had always been surrounded by a bevy of adoring female fans, a significant proportion of whom were willing to put out to snag him. He strode the corridors of the school like a colossus, and was no less prominent at the club, where Sarah couldn’t go. She had been forced to adore him from afar, skulking in the bushes, both real and figuratively. And though he never noticed, his bevy of worshipers did, and they didn’t fail to draw blood with their comments. She had schemed and plotted to get him alone so he would have to notice her, but when she did, a moment when he was studying in the library, and had sat beside him with what she was sure was her most charming smile and greeted him with a seductive, “Hello Hunter!” he’d indeed noticed her long enough to say, “Go away! I’m busy,” brushing her aside as casually as he would have swatted a fly. She kept her tears in as long as it took her to rush to the girls’ toilet, where she’d sobbed for what seemed like an hour, stopping only when a pair of the worshippers came in, chattering and giggling. Fortunately, they hadn’t seen her disgrace, nor really noticed her in the toilet, so she felt she’d escaped further humiliation unless Hunter told anyone, which apparently he didn’t. Though she was relieved, she also figured that he hadn’t really noticed her at all, which was devastating.
Yes! He would be there, and things would be different this time. Surely, he would have matured by now. She would go, and when she found him, would walk up with a smile, and in a flash, he would know what a beautiful person there was under the plain exterior and how lucky he was that she was his for the asking.
Never mind that nothing much concerning her appearance and condition had changed in 5 years. She was a bit heavier, her hair still the same mud brown and still unbecomingly long and unkempt. Though she had enough money from her job to dress more fashionably, she saw no reason to waste money on that, and still bought her clothes 2nd hand, unfortunately attracted to bright colors that made her look even more sallow than she was.
But she knew that Hunter would see her differently than he had before, and would be drawn to her inner beauty.
She imagined the meeting.
“Hello Hunter!”
“Hell-o, Sarah, Where’ve you been? I never see you at the club.”
“I’ve been around.”
“I’ve really missed you. What’ve you been doing since graduating?”
“Well, getting my degree, for one thing.”
“Really? That’s cool! What in?”
“Pharmacy. Actually, I’m working on my Pharmacist’s License now.”
“That’s wonderful! But you always were brainy. I always wondered how one person could be so smart and so nice at the same time.”
“Really? I thought you barely knew I existed.”
“I was shy, that’s all, afraid someone like you would give me the cold shoulder.”
“I never would’ve.”
“Oh? Well, what about now? I’ve been fantasizing about you for five years, do y’know that? Can we do something about that?”
“What, here?”
“Sure. Why not? Remember the window seat behind those curtains? If you slip in, I’ll follow in a few moments when nobody’s looking.”
Sarah broke off the reverie. That’s ridiculous! But after that, she couldn’t resist going back to it.
Her heart was pounding when Hunter pushed through the curtains. He pushed her back on the cushion, and slipped her blouse off her shoulders. Slipping his hand behind her, he undid her bra. Waves of ecstasy flowed through her as her nipples swelled and stiffened. “Don’t stop, Hunter! You’ve no idea how I’ve longed for this moment.” But actually, she was hungry for him to hurry on to the next step. The whole area between her legs was dripping and she could feel it throbbing.
After a minute or two, Hunter reached under her skirt and ripped off her panties. His hands caressed her sex until it was all she could do not to scream. Then he unzipped his trousers, revealing his magnificent erect manhood.
“Oh, Hunter!”
Without another moment’s hesitation, he plunged into her, and after a sharp moment of pain, she felt as if her whole being was filled with it, but was willing for anything to happen so long as he stayed inside her. But as it was, he very gently rocked and the bells began to rin
“Beautiful,” said Sarah, before she became suddenly aware that she was alone and fully dressed, though dripping with sweat and body fluids. It hadn’t been real. But after a flood of disappointment, she was sure that it could be and would be like that, and knew that nothing could keep her away from the reunion.