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Will it? The man I thought I loved turned out to be a user and a dick, and his family will now hate me. My mother will be furious. So much money wasted—the flowers, the food, the wine, the gifts...
My friends will probably think I’m a basket case.
Who jilts two grooms? Me. Anne Presley Richardson, failed bride. Destined to be #foreveralone. Okay, yeah. I’m throwing a pity party. So what? I need a moment to wallow.
“I got your phone,” she says, dropping it into my lap. “I snuck into Mum’s place when I knew she would be out, so I didn’t have to dodge any questions.”
“Thank you.”
When I turn it on, the screen lights up with dozens of messages, voice mails, Facebook notifications and more. Sighing, I drop the device back into my lap.Thatis a problem for Future Presley.
Drew leaves me and I hear the whirr of the fancy coffee machine in the kitchen. This apartment belongs to an old colleague of Drew’s who is overseas at the moment. My sister has been staying here temporarily. That is, until she fell for the guy next door. So last night she came home, checked on me and then went to sleep in his apartment, mercifully giving me the space I needed to wallow without fear of judgement.
“So, the apartment is free for a while. Abby is in Croatia and she’s not due to come back for another month.” Drew’s voice floats to me from the kitchen, where the sound of cupboard doors banging and cups clattering tries to fool me into thinking everything is normal. “She’s more than happy for you to stay here. I told her how well house-trained you are.”
I laugh in spite of my miserable mood. “You make me sound like a cat.”
“I’ll be staying with Flynn, but I’m right next door. If you need company or food or someone to hold a dartboard of Mike’s face while you throw shit at it... I’m here for you.” There’s a glugging sound of liquid being poured and Drew returns a moment later with two large, steaming mugs.
I cradle the one she offers and take a big inhale, almost choking on the unexpected alcoholic fumes. “Oh my God, whatisthat?”
“Bourbon. And don’t be a wuss, it’s good.”
I sip tentatively, surprised by the sweet, buttery flavour. “Hmm, that is good.”
“Coffee, butterscotch and Wild Turkey. You’re welcome.” Drew settles on the carpet in front of me, cross-legged and wearing a baggy T-shirt that she definitely stole from her boyfriend’s floor. “Now, are you going to tell me what happened yesterday? The real story.”
I take a long gulp of my spiked coffee. I’m not sure I want to talk about it. Especially since she saw through Mike’s BS the second she landed in Melbourne, and yet I was too stubborn to take heed of her warnings.
“I should have listened to you,” I say eventually. “I should have listened when you said there were red flags. I should have listened when you said he was wrong for me and that he didn’t respect me.”
Drew sighs. “I didn’t present my opinion in the most...tactful manner. We can call it square on that one. If you’d come to me in the same way, I probably wouldn’t have listened, either.”
That’s the one thing I love about my twin. Even when something is one hundred percent my fault, she’s always willing to help shoulder the burden of blame. But this time I can’t let her do it. She wouldneverhave let a man come between us, and I almost did. We’d argued about him. Badly.
For that, I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself.
“What changed?” she asks.
The lump in my throat feels big as a beach ball and my stomach churns at the memory. I gulp down my coffee, forcing my body to sink into the warm burn and fuzzy edges of the alcohol.
“I was alone in the waiting room.” I run my finger over the frayed edge of the denim shorts I borrowed from Drew. “I had this sudden urge to talk to Mike, like I wanted to buck tradition somehow and see him before I walked down the aisle. I don’t know exactly why—but I had this feeling in my gut that I needed to go to him. So I snuck out and headed to the room the groomsmen were hanging out in. I could hear his voice through the door...”
Drew watches me with an impassive expression. My sister is the fiery one in our relationship and I know it must take everything for her to sit so quietly.
“I heard something.” I suck on the inside of my cheek, sadness caving in and giving way to something molten hot. Anger. Shame. “He made it clear he was only marrying me so he could convince his father to hand over the family business—because apparently I made him look responsible. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to stay married to me after that.”
“That fucker!” Drew’s eyes are like twin blue flames and her hands white-knuckle her mug. “That overstuffed bag of donkey dicks.”
“I didn’t stick around to hear any more. I ran back to the waiting room, stripped out of my dress and got the hell out of there.” I cringe thinking about the whole thing.
“But how did you get back here? I mean, other than ‘commandeering’ my phone and keys, that is.” She shoots me a pointed look, almost as if she’s...proud.
I guess she would be. Drew is the wild one and I’ve always been the rule follower. The straight-A student. The boring, bland cereal to her sugar and spice.
“I found a guest I didn’t know, posed as you and asked him to drive me here.” I scrub a hand over my face. Of all the goddamn people, too... Mike’s stepbrother, Sebastian. Hishatedstepbrother.
The stepbrother I’d been hearing about for the entire year that Mike and I were together. The guy who’d been so vividly described that I assumed he must have a forked tongue and horns growing out of his head. And yet...now I know Mike’s words mean nothing. Sebastian had been my savior yesterday.
