Jilted
- eBook
- Paperback
- Audiobook
- Book info
- Sample
- Media
- Author updates
- Lists
Synopsis
Avery Booker is beautiful, successful, and ready to pledge forever to Lloyd, starting with the elaborate wedding ceremony she’s wanted for so long. Avery’s happy, Lloyd’s happy, but the pregnant woman who objects is not.
It seems Lloyd has some explaining to do, but explanations will have to wait. The baby is coming on the rose petals that were meant for Avery. The contractions are too close together to wait for an ambulance, so Avery springs into action. After all,
she is an OB/GYN, and she’s about to deliver her fiancé’s baby on what was supposed to be their wedding day.
As Lloyd desperately tries to win her back and convince her to accept his child with another woman, Avery’s friend convinces her to embark on a new love journey—an exclusive but disastrous dating agency. Eventually, Avery comes
across someone that leaves her intrigued, but the tug to reconcile with Lloyd grows too strong to ignore. Indecisiveness and the growing dependency on sleeping pills cause Avery to spiral out of control, but it’s her callous mother’s
dirty secrets that ultimately send her over the edge.
Will Avery be able to pick up her shattered pieces and move on, or will stepmother place a stamp next to jilted?
Release date: June 14, 2022
Publisher: Urban Books
Print pages: 288
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Reader buzz
Author updates
Jilted
Niko Michelle
Ugh, my life. I envisioned looking like a princess, taking some of the most beautiful professional photos once my floral, beaded wedding dress with metallic tulle donned my five-foot, two-inch caramel, curve-a-licious frame. The guests would gaze in admiration as I walked down the aisle and took the hand of my awaiting prince. We’d declare our love and commitment through our self-written vows, exchange rings, and seal the deal with a kiss. During the reception, I’d impatiently wait for the DJ to announce my new name over the microphone—the hyphenated Mrs. Avery Booker-Peterson.
Typical wedding. Mine just happened to go a lot differently than I expected.
Someone dared to object.
I heard the officiant when he said, “If anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”
And I heard the feminine but brittle voice say, “I object.”
I whipped my head around and eyed the objector. She uttered something, but the gasps and commotion from the guests drowned out the rest of her words. I could’ve read her lips if it weren’t for the distraction of her protruding belly draped in what looked like a white silk wedding dress. She stood with one hand on her hip while the other hand rolled over her stomach. She looked ready to deliver any minute.
I assumed the mystery woman was in labor and had stumbled into the church looking for help. I just knew one of the ushers would intervene. Escort her out. Get her the help she needed without any more major disruptions to the ceremony.
My naive thinking. Mystery woman called out to my fiancé—his full name at that.
“Lloyd Zachariah Peterson.”
Her saying his name wouldn’t have been a big deal. That just meant she knew him. No harm there. But it was what she said that sent shock waves throughout the church and an imaginary bullet through my heart. I’d never been shot before, but I would imagine the pain felt the same.
“Lloyd Zachariah Peterson, how can you marry another woman when you know I’m pregnant with your baby?”
Uproar filled the church like a street full of rioters.
Stay calm. There had to be a valid explanation. This had to be a joke. A sick one, but nonetheless a joke. I mean, who would object? The officiant could’ve skipped asking the objection question anyway. Everyone in attendance wanted this more than Lloyd and me, especially my father, Henry Booker. He loved him some Lloyd. The charismatic MBA HBCU graduate who now served as a financial manager of a Fortune 500 company and who happened to load my finger down with a huge rock. Not that I was materialistic or into designer things, but I was proud that my ring was packaged in the famous little blue box.
Lloyd would never hurt me. Not to this magnitude. He would never cheat on me or be so careless as to get anyone pregnant. I knew that for a fact. We had the same goals in life. One of which was no children before tying the knot. He and I talked at great lengths about when it would be the right time to start a family. At least get through the first year of marriage. We both wanted a son first. We planned to name him Lloyd Junior and call him LJ for short. He’d be like his father and play both football and basketball during high school. Then we’d try for a girl, not sure what we’d name her, but I’d dress her in various shades of pink, and she’d be like me, a cheerleader and a member of the dance team. And since neither of us had any previous marriages, we had no babies or possible babies, so this woman had to be delusional.
The ceremony was almost over. Ten minutes, maybe. Within that short time, I believed Lloyd or someone from the wedding party would yell, “Gotcha.” The hired wedding crasher would then pull a pillow from underneath her dress, and we’d laugh it off. If not, we’d at least call an ambulance for the misguided woman to be transported to the psych ward, because clearly she had to be crazy to try to pin a baby on Lloyd.
I turned my back and pretended she wasn’t there. I nodded for the officiant to continue. Instead, he clutched the Bible to his chest and mumbled. “Heavenly Father” was the only thing audible, but I assumed he was working his rebuking powers on this woman. I was all for it.
Too much detail had gone into our wedding, and I was determined to be Mrs. Avery Booker-Peterson before October 5 was over.
I smiled at Lloyd.
He didn’t smile back. Sweat hung out in the creases of his worried, wrinkled forehead. “I’m so sorry, Avery. I love you.”
That was sweet of him. And that gesture was why I loved him, too. It wasn’t just about me. It wasn’t just my day. It was Lloyd’s day also, and he had apologized to me because some neurotic woman tried to sabotage our union.
There was a brief moment of silence, about as long as it would take to walk from a refrigerator to a stove, before that woman faced the crowd and yelled, “That’s right, everybody, I am pregnant with his baby.” She pointed back at Lloyd.
My right hand was joined to Lloyd’s left hand. His hand slipped from my grasp. Did he pull away willingly, or was it from the perspiration that covered both of our hands? His eyes, which were usually a warm hazel brown, seemed . . . black.
Did Lloyd know that woman?
I looked from him to her. And back to him. He stared at that lady like he was familiar with her. Like the ridiculous words pouring from her mouth were . . . true.
Impossible. Call me naive, if you will, but she had to have stormed into the wrong wedding. I knew she had. I looked around Lloyd and over to the groomsmen. Maybe they’d set this up. I winked at them. “Nice try, guys.” Their faces were stern, with no signs of this being a joke. My gown was big, but I shifted it while still holding my bouquet to look back at my bridesmaids. Their faces matched the groomsmen’s.
“Why are you doing this, Oakley?” Lloyd asked.
Oakley? So, Lloyd knew her? “Lloyd, you know this woman?” I inquired.
“He knows me well.” She pointed to her stomach. “Lloyd, we talked about this. You said you were going to tell her.”
They had talked about this? Tell me what exactly?
I was frozen in one spot. Everyone was frozen, except Oakley. She waddled a little closer. “I object, and I’ll say it again and again. This wedding is not happening today, or ever if I can help it.” Oakley buckled over and let out a grunt. Through labored breaths, she said, “Lloyd.” Breath. “I’m having.” Breath. “Your.” Breath. “Baby.”
My hands fell to my waist. My bouquet hit the floor.
Fear covered Lloyd’s face as he rushed to her aid.
Oakley stammered over her words. “Llo . . . Llo . . . Lloyd,” she yelped and bent over farther. She seemed to be in agony. Lloyd took off his tuxedo jacket and laid it in the middle of the aisle for her to lie on. The rose petals that were thrown on the ground for me to walk on surrounded Oakley’s body as if they were meant for her and her bundle of joy. She panted and began Lamaze. So did Lloyd. How did he know Lamaze? He coached her through breathing techniques. Their breath was in sync as they held hands and stared into each other’s eyes.
Instead of our wedding party and spectators witnessing Lloyd and me becoming one, they were about to witness Lloyd become a father for the first time, and it wasn’t with me.
“Avery, help. This baby is coming.” Lloyd’s plea for help erased the shock in my body and gave me a boost of adrenaline. After all, I was an ob-gyn, and I was about to deliver my fiancé’s baby with another woman I knew nothing about and on what was supposed to be our wedding day.
A boy.
Lloyd and Oakley became parents to a son. She named him on the spot—Lloyd Zachariah Peterson, Jr.
Oakley tilted her head and familiar-looking downturned eyes upward toward Lloyd, who was silent. “Our little LJ,” she said through fatigue. Her long, dark, curly hair was wet and stuck to her bronze-colored face from the immense amount of sweat that her body had exuded from intense pushing.
I gasped and covered my mouth with my forearm to keep from screaming. So much for our dreams of calling our firstborn that. Oakley had stolen the name for my son, my rose petals, my moment, my attention, and my man.
Lloyd’s eyes were wide and fixated on his baby boy, who I had wrapped in an ivory scarf belonging to one of the many onlookers and placed on Oakley’s chest. Was he proud? Happy even? I couldn’t quite gauge his feelings, but his mood seemed dark, like the small, dark blotches that had stained the front of my wedding dress. My mascara bled, and so did my heart.
The ambulance arrived a few minutes after I had done all the work. I watched Lloyd as he watched the EMTs rush in with a gurney and load up their two patients. His six-foot, three-inch stature sprouted as he stood on the tips of his toes, craned his neck, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and repositioned his solid 200-pound body to get a better view over the backs of the medical professionals.
Instead of us celebrating this date as our wedding anniversary every year, he’d be celebrating this date by singing “Happy Birthday” to his child.
How did this happen? And right under my nose. Lloyd and I had spent too much time together for this to be true. If he wanted to be with someone else, he wouldn’t have popped the question last Christmas in front of my family. It was cute how he did it.
“Avery,” Lloyd said, “did you look in your stocking?”
I gave him a mean side-eye. It was a tradition for us to sleep over at my parents’ and empty our stockings on Christmas Eve, which we had already done. “We did that last night, remember?” I reminded him. “Lay off the eggnog, silly.” I leaned over and planted a kiss on his nose.
Lloyd slid my bangs from my eyes. “I think I saw Santa put something in there last night. Go check.”
I laughed. “Santa? Really? How old are we?”
“Just check, Avery.”
Another mean side-eye.
The candy-cane-decorated stocking with my first name embroidered on the top swayed from side to side when I thumped it. My finger met with something hard. I looked back at Lloyd. He was still sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa.
“Lloyd, I swear if this is some kind of rodent or bug to scare me, I am going to kill you.” Lloyd was a prankster during the moments when he wasn’t bogged down with work, so there was no telling what he had slipped into my stocking. I palmed it, trying to make out what it was. A box.
“It will be next Christmas by the time we see what it is.” That remark came from my snooty yet surly mother, Florence Booker. My two brothers and I sometimes referred to her as the devil behind her back. She was evil for no reason. Her genetic makeup had to be half human, half devil. In her case, a lower percentage of human because the actual devil was probably a lot nicer.
After three attempts of sticking my hand halfway in the stocking and snatching it out, I finally retrieved the box that held my engagement ring. The box bounced within my trembling hands. Tears of joy escaped my eyes and splashed on the porcelain marble tile in front of the fireplace. When I turned around, Lloyd was on one knee. There was no speech attached to his proposal. He was straight to the point. “Avery, will you marry me?”
When I answered yes, Dad let out a feminine squeal. My mother was nonchalant. Not that she expressed anything other than judgment anyway, but I didn’t think she cared for Lloyd much. Maybe she picked up on something that I didn’t. A clue that she didn’t see a need to share.
Clues? Let me think back. Did I see any flags waving in my direction, trying to get my attention, cautioning me to turn around and head in the opposite direction?
Embarrassment swallowed my ability to think and only allowed me to hang my head. When I finally got the courage to look around, nothing but fog emitted throughout the sanctuary from the throng of lingering, nosy-ass, polluting-ass people who circled me like we were about to play a reversed version of Duck, Duck, Goose. Why didn’t these people disappear when Lloyd and his family left with the ambulance? What more did they want? To hang back and witness my breakdown?
I knew why my immediate family stayed behind. Well, everyone except for the devil. If she stayed, she probably hid to save herself the embarrassment of being inundated with questions of how her “oh so perfect” family just got hit with the biggest scandal this town had seen since probably . . . never. Or she was somewhere crying, playing the victim, soaking up all the sympathy. I always said that if Florence Booker ever decided to become an actress, she’d make a damned good one, because she stayed in character while around her church family.
It made sense for the officiant to remain. He was the pastor of the church. However, I didn’t understand why he maintained his position at the altar, even with the Bible still close to his heart. I wondered if he thought another couple would spring forward, confess their love, and request permission to marry. That only happened in fake life. This was real life. My real life. The ceremony was over. It concluded with a bang. Well, a birth. There’d be no completion of unity for me, nor would I have approved of another couple using the ideas I spent months and countless hours planning. And they damn sure weren’t going to marry using the thousands of dollars my dad spent to make it the wedding of my dreams. His only daughter at that.
I crouched on the floor, devastated. I guessed everyone else thought it was okay to crowd around me as if I were a quarterback in the NFL calling out a game-winning play to my team. But I was determined to break up the huddle like I was one of the highest-paid in the league.
“You all are smothering me. Can I please get some space?” I asked nicely. Given the circumstances, everyone should have respected my request. I didn’t look up to see who had touched my shoulder. I jerked away. “I don’t want to be consoled. I just want space to think.”
Everyone slowly backed away, but I could still feel their eyes burning through my skin like a laser.
I took a couple of deep breaths and tried for a quick, broad recap. Nine months ago, what was I doing? Planning the wedding and working crazy hours. Work was life for me, especially working as a doctor in the small town of Augusta, Georgia, about two and a half hours from Atlanta. Not only did delivering babies bring much satisfaction, but so did being able to look out of my office window at the green glass building across the parking lot, knowing that my man was in there working just as hard.
Lloyd and I made it a point to spend our lunch hour together unless he had a meeting or I had a baby to deliver. Speaking of delivering babies, I delivered my fiancé’s firstborn during our wedding. Who does that? Me apparently, but what kind of coldhearted, trifling person places who they claimed to love in that kind of position? How did Lloyd even know this woman?
Her eyes, though. I’d seen them somewhere before. Did Oakley work at the hospital? No, Augusta Regional Medical Center wasn’t that big. I would’ve recognized her face.
Her face. It was permanently etched. I would never forget the face of the woman who boldly humiliated me and took part in ruining my life. I’d always remember the way my soon-to-be husband ran alongside the stretcher when the ambulance arrived and loaded them up. Nor would I forget how the three of them looked—like a family.
I was supposed to give Lloyd that child. Now, I wasn’t sure if I would ever have children of my own. We were supposed to have been a family, and now he had one, which left no place for me.
The only thing left was a bleak outlook on love and marriage, nowhere near what I pictured for myself.
I was supposed to make love to Lloyd for the first time as my husband. Since becoming engaged, we agreed to a sabbatical to make our wedding night special. Maybe he couldn’t handle it, and if that was the case, he should’ve told me. I would’ve much rather caved than to have my life altered in such a drastic manner.
Or could it have been the name change thing? We rarely argued, but we had many tense discussions over what last name I’d carry. Lloyd wasn’t pleased with the idea of me keeping my maiden name, but because of my profession, it was easier. We compromised on hyphenating, which he still wasn’t happy about, but that wasn’t a reason to drive a person into the arms of another.
I knew there had to be a calendar somewhere. I needed to see the prior nine months.
We were engaged for a little over ten months, so that meant Lloyd got Oakley pregnant right after he proposed to me. I had to see it.
I was still propped up on my knees when I asked, “Does anyone have a calendar?”
For the first time since the bombshell announcement, the church silenced.
“Oh, I see what this is.” I wagged my finger around and rolled my neck. “There has been nothing but chatter and whispers, and now y’all wanna be quiet?” I was going to see nine months and figure this out, and every nosy person who littered the church would help me whether they wanted to or not. “Can someone get my phone?” I asked. No one moved. I remembered it was still in the room I used to get dressed. “I’ll get it myself.” The extra material from the cathedral train of my wedding dress made it difficult for me to stand with ease.
My dad grabbed my arm to help me up. “Sweetheart”—his hand swept across my shoulder and then rested there—“let me take you home.”
“No! Not until I get a calendar. Not until I figure this out.” This was the beginning of the mental breakdown that everyone had stayed behind to witness.
The embarrassment. They should’ve thrown me in a casket and pushed me back to the front of the church, because I was going to die. The sanctuary was already decorated in white, khaki, and my favorite shade of blush pink. The pastor still hadn’t moved, so at least he could have the satisfaction of completing something, even if it was my eulogy.
“Avery, please. Just let me take you home, and we can figure it out from there.” Hurt lay behind my father’s eyes. He barely looked at me, and when he did, it seemed as if his gentle soul had escaped and was replaced with a VACANT sign to a rundown motel. I knew how much this day meant to him.
“I’m not leaving.” I peeled off the gloves that someone handed me before the delivery and staggered over to my oldest brother, Anthony.
My feet tingled from the amount of time I’d spent on bended knee delivering Lloyd’s baby and staring. . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...