Impuratus

⚠️Warnings⚠️

Strong language

Dark romance

Dry humor

Death

Diana Jadhav’s marriage had been dying. But her husband died before the marriage.

Cedric Ashford’s body was never found but the nuke that hit his team had left nothing but burning scraps of body parts. They had not been able to identify all of them.

As morbid as the news had been and as relieved as she should have felt, Diana had grieved. She had grieved for the man she had fallen in love with and the life she could have had with him if not for his undying love for his country.

But she had loved that too until she couldn’t. Until she couldn’t get her husband to spend some much needed time with her. Until he chose to run away into the battlefield and die when she had a miscarriage.

Diana carried the pain even after three years of losing the child. And for losing her husband. Although some nights the pain turned into hatred, some nights when she remembered all the good things.

But then the morning came and she had to swallow all her feelings down and get on with life. Even if hundreds of people died, the world did not stop moving. They mourned but they kept living.

And Diana had done her best to live for the past three years.

She woke up - like clockwork - at five, went on a four mile run, returned home and got ready for work by eight-thirty. She had fruit with milk for breakfast, sometimes oats if she had the time and left her front door - car keys jingling from her fingers - at sharp eight-forty five for work.

She had been punctual to a fault even before she met her husband. Punctuality was one of the things they had first found common between them. He was punctual because of the habits he had developed since he joined the army at eighteen and she had been punctual because of the girls’ boarding school she had attended.

People were shocked when the uptight, sophisticated Diana married the patriotic, bumpkin Cedric ten years ago. Her husband was shocked she had even dated his high school graduate self, but she had no complaints. Not until the last two years of their marriage.

Diana tried not to think of those last years these days. She rather focused now on herself after spending much time trying to be a good daughter-in-law after husband died. While, she liked her in-laws just fine, she had despised how they expected her to step into their son’s shoes.

For a while she had not minded but then she finally broke down, weighted by her emotions. Now, she was finally free of that burden and the first Friday of August marked a new beginning.

She would be a grieving widow no more. She was stepping back into the dating world.

Feeling giddiness bubbling in her belly, Diana examined herself carefully in the mirror. A black dress never disappointed, she thought, smoothing a hand down the velvet material falling smoothly down her hips. She touched her pearl necklace, correcting it just the tiniest bit and then ran a hand through her bangs, the rest of her hair in a chic chignon.

Dabbing a bit of gloss on her red painted lips, she felt elegant, sexy and not at all drab for a thirty-three year old.

Smiling at her reflection and satisfied with the way her brown skin glowed under the lights, she checked her phone. Her date was on the way to pick her up. He would not take more than fifteen minutes to reach her house, so she picked up her clutch and made her way downstairs.

Diana was in the process of checking all the gas switches when her doorbell rang. Surprised that her date had managed to reach her in only eight minutes, she hurried towards the front door, stopping only to spritz some perfume that sat in her foyer.

The giddiness intensified and she pressed a hand against her belly, trying and failing to subdue the grin forming on her face. The doorbell rang a second time and taking a calming breath, Diana opened the door only to find her dead husband standing in front of her.

Only he wasn’t dead.

Her mouth fell open, eyes roving over the man standing before her. Dark brown eyes took her dolled-up form, his strong brows furrowed in concentration. Her eyes moved to his slightly crooked nose that had broken one too many times adding to his charm even as his full, pink mouth had promises of sweet and wicked kisses. Although those lips were partially hidden by the thick mustache and beard.

She followed down, over his shoulders, one of which supported the strap of his bag. His arms both looked fine, stark tan against his white t-shirt, no blemishes or burn marks. She could not tell if his torso was scarred or not but his strong muscular legs encased in faded jeans looked just fine too.

When she was done inspecting him head to toe, she was suddenly overcome by shock followed by breath stopping fury as her eyes snapped back to his. He took a step back sensing the danger and opened his mouth to speak but Diana beat him to it.

“What the fuck!”

And her eyes rolled back into her head.

The breath stopping fury made her faint.