The Wedding Fling Read Free

morning sunlight.
    “Okay,” she said. “Thanks. I just needed to talk.”
    “Just breathe, and I’ll see you before you know it. I better go. I’ve got my brother on the other line.”
    “Tell him hi. See you soon.”
    “Bye.”
    Leigh nearly hung up, but after a pause Dan added, “Babe?” He hadn’t called her that in months, and the name flooded her with relief.
    She held back an impulsive plea—that they run off and elope, skip all the staged drama. “Yeah?”
    “Sorry about that. It was her.”
    Leigh’s brow furrowed. “Her?”
    Dan laughed. “It was Leigh. She’s got bridal nerves.”
    She went dead numb, head enveloped by an echoing, unnatural calm as she realized he thought he was talking to someone else.
    “Babe?”
    This time the pet name hit her like a slap. “Yeah?” her mouth replied, disconnected from her brain.
    “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
    “No,” Leigh murmured.
    “I know right where you’ll be today. Every chance I get, I’ll try to catch your eye. I mean, this might be us in a few years. We have to be patient. If it’s supposed to happen, it’ll happen. You never know.”
    The numbness faded, and in its place Leigh felt hot in her dress, constricted, felt tears boiling up to sting her sinuses. Her heart pounded in her ears, loud as a gong. “You never know,” she whispered.
    “Don’t cry. I know the timing’s awful, but it’s not like we planned this. It’s worth it, we both agreed. You and me, we’ll have our time. Last night wasn’t goodbye, I told you.”
    Leigh didn’t reply.
    “Okay? Allie?”
    She sucked in a breath. Allie. Allie. Her mind was too blank to supply a face, a remembered mention...not that it would help. “Okay,” she breathed.
    “I’ll miss you while I’m away. You know that.”
    No words came.
    “I love you.”
    That did it. Those words Leigh needed so badly, offered to comfort some mystery woman. Some Allie. Her hand shook as she pushed the end button.
    She stared at herself in the mirror that ran behind the marble bar, at this stranger with her face, draped in a beautiful dress. Thoughts flashed and jabbed, but the numbness reduced them to abstract concepts. There was an Allie, who’d stolen Leigh’s pet name. Who’d kept Dan from taking Leigh’s call for four rings, on their wedding day .
    The shock lifted, and behind the numbness was pure pain, so sharp it seemed her heart must be coming apart, cell by cell. Strange white sequins danced before her eyes and she leaned against the bar, feeling heavy and awkward, as though suspended on strings. The dress was shrinking, an invisible corset binding her too tight to take a full breath. The room blurred, and for a moment she knew it was just a dream. She’d jerk awake and everything would be as it should be, spinning walls and strangling dress all vestiges of a nightmare.
    The room did come back into focus. The dress relented enough for her to catch her breath, and the spots abandoned her vision. She pushed up from the bar to find the bride in the mirror peppered with red blotches, eyes wild. Leigh saw only a stranger staring back, a scared woman of twenty-seven as ignorant as she’d been at seventeen, playing dress-up in yet another glittering identity.
    She clutched the phone and raised her hand, drew it back...but no. Her posture crumpled. Now wasn’t the time to start smashing up hotel rooms like some out-of-control celebutante. Actually, perhaps this was the perfect time for that, but Leigh wasn’t that girl, no matter what the tabloids yearned to report.
    She pressed a palm over her thumping heart, scared by the sheer pain of feeling this angry, this hurt. The rage was like an animal trying to claw its way out of her chest, but she held it down, as she always did. She forced her mind to practical matters. Decisions that needed making.
    She should confront Dan.
    No, she couldn’t.
    She had to call it off. But then the press would hound her mercilessly and the whole