Met True Love After Divorce Novel by Jude Mercer _ Novel




Met True Love After Divorce Chapter 01

My ex and current husbands both graduated from the top military academy, so I never attended any of my current husband's class reunions.
I was always afraid the two of them might run into each other at such events and create an awkward scene.
But today, my husband, Frederic Drayton, insisted I pick him up.
I figured since he and my ex, Geoffrey Baldwin, weren't in the same branch of service, they probably wouldn't cross paths.
Suppressing my irritation at being woken by a call, I pushed open the door to the private room at the officers' club.
"Sorry to interrupt, everyone. I'm here to pick up my husband."
The next second, the noise in the room died abruptly.
A room full of officers with gleaming insignia was fixed on me at once.
And the man seated at the head of the table, his uniform sharp, his gaze cool and stern, was slowly turning his service cap in his hands.
"Claudine Welch?" Someone broke the silence. "This is a reunion for top academy alumni. What's a community college grad doing here?"
The room erupted in mocking laughter.
"Look, it's the drama queen. Remember when hotshot cadet Geoffrey filled his whole political science exam with her name? Ended up marching for 72 hours straight."
"I heard you schemed your way into your stepbrother's bed and forced him to marry you—how else would someone like him end up with a slacker? His wife is a colonel. That's a real power couple. How do you have the nerve to show up?"
The weight of their collective gaze landed squarely on me.
No one knew that Geoffrey had once been the worst troublemaker in the academy. He clawed his way to the top, all for me.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Meeting everyone's gaze, I didn't show the humiliation they expected. I just offered a calm, faint smile. "I'm not here to socialize with officers. I'm here to take my husband home."
Geoffrey, who had been silent until now, finally spoke, his voice low and grave. "Claudie, we divorced five years ago."
I smiled and nodded. "I know.
"So, I wasn't talking about picking you up, Major General Baldwin."
***
"How pathetic, still clinging to Major General Baldwin after the divorce."
A few disdainful snorts sounded.
Ambrose Dunlap stared at me, his tone casual and cutting.
"First time I've seen someone so eager to be the other woman."
Ambrose was the closest friend Geoffrey and I had back on the military base.
He used to be one of the people who treated me best.
But when Geoffrey and I divorced, he'd immediately taken Geoffrey's side.
Because the girl he liked was the very woman who'd broken our marriage.
And he had helped Geoffrey keep their relationship a secret from me.
Only I—from beginning to end—had been the fool left in the dark.
"Ambrose, that's enough." Geoffrey frowned, his voice carrying the distinct authority of a military man.
Ambrose wasn't having it. "What's the big deal? Someone like Claudine is nothing compared to a refined officer like Cordelia.
"Only you ever saw anything in a dunce like her, wasting all those years."
Geoffrey glanced at me, his tone firm. "Claudine isn't a dunce."
Hearing that from a genius like Geoffrey was laughable.
But fifteen-year-old me had believed every word.
When I was a freshman in high school, my mother married Geoffrey's father.
Geoffrey and I were the same age, and we ended up at the same public high school.
We were even placed in the same class. He was dead last in rankings; I was slightly below average.
Geoffrey hated me, so he never spoke to me.
I often saw him get into fights and then get disciplinary action from the school, which meant Mom would be called in, forced to listen to criticism with her head bowed.
One night, I got up to use the bathroom and found her sitting on the couch in the dark, wiping away tears.
"Claudie, how can I get Frey to accept me?"
I didn't know. All I knew was that after that day, the already tense peace between Geoffrey and me snapped into open hostility.
I put paprika in his training canteen, stuffed sticky modeling clay into his olive-green backpack, and slipped bugs into his lunchbox.
Geoffrey issued an ultimatum. "Is that all you've got? Claudine, if you don't finish me off, I'll make sure your mother never feels at home here again."
We were locked in that battle for five months.
I thought Geoffrey would be the person I hated most for the rest of my life.
But I never expected everything to change so suddenly.

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