Maid of Dishonor Read Free

now. ‘We’re booking it tomorrow,
remember?’
    â€˜I’ll take a rain check on that.’ She nodded towards Marnie,
who was staring at her as if she had snakes instead of hair sprouting out of her
head. ‘Right at the minute, I’m thinking I’d rather not spend three weeks in a
car with Scarlett staring daggers at me.’
    She strode back through the house, Marnie’s harsh words and
Reese’s concerned buzzing fading as she concentrated on keeping her back ramrod
straight and the self-pitying urge to cry on lockdown.
    Cassie caught up with her on the stairs. ‘Gina, I don’t get it.
You can still come on the road trip. Marnie will get over it. What her brother
did with you really isn’t any of her concern.’
    But just as she finished saying it the high, angry shout of
‘whore’ echoed through the house, making them both stiffen.
    Gina pressed her hand to Cassie’s cheek. And wondered how her
friend could be so scary smart and yet so clueless about the most basic of
relationship dynamics?
    â€˜We’ll see. I’ll speak to you tomorrow. See how me and Marnie
feel then.’
    But she already knew, Marnie wasn’t going to forget it. Gina
had made absolutely sure of that. Once again, she’d burned her bridges. Pushed
the people away who mattered so she wouldn’t have to let them mean that much.
She already regretted her outburst. The cruel, outrageous, provocative things
she’d said. But it was too late to take them back now. And it was probably
better that way.
    She wasn’t any good at friendships. And the three of them
needed to know that.
    Cassie nodded. ‘All right. I’m really going to miss you, you
know.’
    I’ll miss you too. And Reese and even
Marnie.
    But instead of admitting that much, Gina simply nodded and
walked away.
    * * *
    She called a cab the next morning before anyone was up.
Happy with the deliberately flippant parting note she’d spent several hours
before dawn composing.

    Sorry for screwing up our last night together
so royally, Awesomes. But I think we all knew, me and my insatiable appetite
for man candy were bound to mess things up at some point. I hope you can
forgive me.
    G x

ONE
    New York City, August, the present.
    Something’s come up. U & M will have to
pick fabulous venue for Cassie’s do without me. C u tomorrow at Amber’s
Bridal. 11 a.m. Don’t B late. R xxxx

    â€˜Reese
Michael, I am going to murder you.’ Gina Carrington glared at the
text that had popped up on her smartphone.
    This was a set-up, pure and simple.
    Now her old college roomie was in the throes of second-chance
nirvana with her sexy ex- and soon-to-be-new-husband Mason, Reese was so full of
the joys of spring—and Gina suspected really spectacular sex—that she was
starting to make Pollyanna look like a killjoy.
    The something that had come up was Reese’s cock-eyed optimism,
and leaving her and Marnie to have this meeting without her was her unsubtle way
of getting them to kiss and make up properly after that fun-filled night a
decade ago when they’d hurled words such as ‘Tramp’ and ‘Whore’ and ‘Virgin’ at
each other before busting up the Awesome Foursome.
    Gina’s fingers hovered over the keypad of her phone as she
cursed her own stupidity.
    She should have seen this coming, as soon as Reese had
suggested that the three of them organise a surprise wedding party for Cassie
and Tuck, the hot jock she was scheduled to marry at the Manhattan Marriage
Bureau on the Friday before Labor Day.
    But the truth was, Gina hadn’t given it a second thought. Reese
was classy, committed to her friends and a champion organiser—the original Park
Avenue Princess—it had made total sense that she would come up with an idea like
this.
    In typical Cassie fashion, their super-geek friend had agreed
to marry Tuck and then left the arrangements up to