Selling Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 1) by Samantha Westlake Read Free Book Online

together! I didn't have any assets to bring to the marriage. Barry brought all the assets. He just wanted a woman to cook and clean and be his domestic little servant, maid and housekeeper and cook and occasional lay all rolled into one."
    "Asshole," Portia declared, once again demonstrating her value as my best friend.
    "Yeah, but I'm still stuck with needing to pay him to get this divorce over and resolved for good," I said after a minute. "And that due date keeps on getting closer - it's less than a month away! I don't know what I'm going to do if it gets here and I haven't yet figured something out."
    "Something will come up," Portia insisted, and for a moment, I felt her confidence sweep across the little table and into me, buoying me up. "Now, let's get you another glass of wine!"
    As Portia slid off of her high seat and I followed after her, my empty wine glass in hand, I tried to not compare the two of us. Even now, almost a decade out of college, I still couldn't help feeling like Portia somehow managed to win the genetic lottery, and I got all her castoff, rejected genes. She insisted that I looked just fine, but that wasn't what my eyes told me whenever I looked at her.
    Today, Portia was clad in a blouse and pencil skirt, similar to my own outfit. Hers, however, looked amazing on her slender body, as if she was modeling the clothes for a high-end fashion catalogue. The skirt hugged her legs, showing off her slender calves and gracefully tapering thighs, and the soft cream color of her blouse contrasted perfectly against the waterfall of dark, brown-nearly-black hair that cascaded down over her shoulders and settled in between her shoulder blades. I knew that Portia attended spin classes at the gym three times a week, and the results showed in her fit, slender arms and in the way that her shoulder blades stood out gracefully from her back.
    I, on the other hand, looked much more... frumpy, I decided, was the appropriate word. Sure, I'd put on a skirt that fit me, but it still squeezed my legs and hips closely and made it very clear that I'd filled up every available inch of space inside the garment. I could feel my thighs bump together whenever I took a step. Similarly, although I'd hoped that my top might disguise the slight muffin top that poked out from above the waistline of the skirt, it also clung to my breasts and made me look like I was about to take a starring role in a low-budget adult flick streamed over the internet.
    Maybe Carter James had just gotten out of prison, and I was the first woman he'd seen since before his incarceration, I considered to myself. He'd just lied about the real estate agent stuff, and he wanted to get with an easy woman before the cops caught back up with him for violating his parole. He planned to spend his last hours of freedom seducing me and enjoying the touch of a woman one last time before the cops came busting into his cheap hotel room and dragged him back to super-max.
    "So, what's it going to be this time?" Portia asked me, nudging me and jarring me out of my little daydream. "Something even sweeter? Moscato? Or more of that rose stuff?"
    "And you'll go for something that burns at the back of the throat, I'm sure," I countered. "Why don't you just start drinking bourbon, so you can totally fit in with all the sophisticated men?"
    "If only they dispensed bourbon in taps like this," Portia lamented. "That would be my dream bar."
    I punched her lightly in the arm and went to fetch myself a new glass of wine.
    "So, any upsides?" Portia asked, as we settled back in at our seats at the high little table.
    "To bourbon?"
    "No, to working at the art gallery."
    I frowned for a moment, considering whether I should tell Portia about Carter James. On one hand, she was my best friend, and I'd confided in her about every single crush I'd had, ever since I fell for Tommy Jones way back in fifth grade.
    But on the other hand, nothing really had happened between Carter and me yet, right?