Happily Ever Afton Read Free Page B

she looks very beautiful in.’ He raised her hand to his mouth feathering a kiss across her fingertips causing the sidewalk to waver beneath her sneakers once again.
    ‘You’re marrying her ?’ The other woman looked her up and down, a trip not taking long since she stood only five-foot three in her sneakers – and she was obviously found wanting.
    ‘How could you possibly prefer someone like…like… that ?’
    ‘Well, for one thing she’s got something you’ll never have,’ Cooper said with what sounded to Afton like quiet conviction.
    ‘Oh really ,’ the cultured voice dripped ice. ‘And just what pray tell is that?’ Katherine demanded with an indignant hand perched on a Prada-clad hip.
    ‘My ring!’
    He dipped into the low-cut neckline of the wedding dress and plucked out the sparkling diamond, both women gasping in shock when he slid the ring back on Afton’s stiff finger.
    ‘Come on, darling.’ He took Afton’s hand in his and they strolled off down the street, not turning once, not even when they heard the angry roar of a sports car zooming off past them. Cooper paused at the door of a diner in front of them with a wry grimace. ‘Let’s duck in here for a minute before we run into anyone else we know. Are you hungry?’
    Afton thought about it for a moment realizing her stomach was beginning to growl. She’d skipped lunch and zipped out of the office-parking garage on her scooter when an unexpected opening had occurred at her favorite nail salon downtown. It was after getting a classy French manicure; she’d passed by the bridal shop with wedding dresses displayed in the front window next door and decided on a whim to take a look. Even without her inseparable best friend since grade school – Mollie – along, who’d said she was ‘ busy ’ when she’d called the last few times to set up a date to go shopping for her gown.
    Afton had carefully extracted the box containing the veil her mother had shipped to her from San Diego out of the compartment on the back of her scooter. Bracing herself, she’d thrown open the door to the store, the bell ringing merrily to herald her arrival.
    Every time the bell rings, a divorce attorney gets a Porsche .
    Afton had looked around her nervously, wondering if she’d actually spoken the words out loud. The cynical thought had popped into her head out of nowhere it seemed. Pushing it aside, she’d waded into the gown-packed establishment, almost blinded by the unrelenting sea of white dresses, intent on finding one of her own with her wedding date looming ever nearer.
    It was when she’d glanced out the large window facing the busy street she’d spotted her future husband strolling by arm-in-arm on the sidewalk with her best friend – the two stopping just outside the bridal shop to share a passionate – tongue-involved kiss – before ambling on.
    Afton had raced out the store to confront them hindered in her mad pursuit of the cheating pair by the voluminous dress. Fortunately, her scooter had been parked at a nearby meter, so she’d tucked the train beneath her and hopped on, almost catching up to them as they entered the coffee shop – until she’d run right smack into him on the sidewalk that is.
    The tall guy with the backwards/forwards name. Stewart Cooper… no …er…Cooper Stewart. Who was looking down at her expectantly now, wanting to know if she was hungry?
    ‘I could eat.’

 
     
    Chapter Two
     
     
    COOPER PULLED OPEN the door to the diner and steered Afton to a booth near the back of the restaurant. Both of them ignored the other diners whose mouths dropped open upon seeing a bride walking by, veil still perched at a crooked angle on her head, dusty pink tennis shoes on her feet beneath the trailing train. He slid onto the red leather bench across from her after she smashed down rows of ruffles to slide in, staring deeply into her eyes, his own still shielded from her by the tinted lenses of his glasses.
    ‘Are you okay?’