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Still, the thought that the hundred or so guests milling about inside the town hall were about to shove it down their gullets made her sick. It was bad enough they were still out there eating her food and delighting in her misery, just waiting for her to make an appearance so they could look down their noses at her. Pity her.
Vultures.
Well, let them eat her not-wedding cake.
I hope they choke on it.
The kitchen door swung open as the waitstaff came and went, their polished silver platters laden with food and drink, and every time it opened, snippets of murmured conversations drifted through the doorway.
Jane strained to hear them but couldn’t make out what was being said, which she conceded was probably for the best. The last thing she needed was to go postal because some old biddy couldn’t keep her opinions to herself.
She could already see the headline of tomorrow’s daily news:Jane Melville stranded at the altar, pregnant and penniless. She figured that was probably better than:Jane Melville burns town hall to the ground with wedding guests inside, teaching gossips a lesson they’ll never forget.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, she knew the stories would start sooner or later with the whys and the hows and the wherefores. In a town as small as Melville’s Cross, good gossip was better than sex.
Not that any of them would know good sex if it jumped up and spanked their arse.
And while being the great-great-granddaughter of the town’s founding father afforded her some protection from the poisonous clothesline prattle, she knew better than to hope it would shield her completely.
Or for long.
She was off to a good start though, what with Abby whisking her away from the sudden glare of infamy in the church to the relative safety of the kitchen in the hall before too many people figured out what was going on.
With its single point of entry and limited space, it was easy to keep the looky-loos out in the main hall where they belonged. Of course, having two of Abby’s enormous brothers standing guard at the kitchen door didn’t hurt.
No one fucked with the twins.
Jane smiled as she remembered watching the whole Bennett clan—her second family—arrive for the ceremony. Well, almost all of them. Henry, Sally, Paul, Sophie, Crispin, Avery, Tobias, Charlie and his modern family, Oliver and his current arm candy, and Abby’s fiancé, Wolf. Hell, even Ulysses Bennett had made an appearance. The only one missing was…
Rafe.
She wasn’t sure what she thought would happen between them after their falling out back in May, but she’d hoped he’d still be at her wedding. A fool’s dream perhaps, considering how adept he’d been at avoiding her every attempt to contact him over the last few weeks.
And she still wasn’t sure how she felt aboutthatlittle fly in her ointment.
With a heavy sigh, Jane picked up the tiny bride from where it lay on the table and stared at it, comparing its slender waist and slinky white gown to her slightly distended belly and the loose-fitting lacy number she’d picked up at a second-hand shop.
After all the time she’d spent dragging Abby from one bridal boutique to the next, trying on gown after gown and always leaving disappointed, she’d begun to despair at never finding the perfect dress and had resigned herself to walking down the aisle naked.
It was only while hunting through an op-shop for a completely unrelated item that she’d stumbled upon the dress she now wore. Standing in the dressing room, staring at herself in the mirror, she’d just known:I’m getting married in this dress.
But apparently not.
With a wave of disgust—or possibly morning sickness—she tossed the tiny plastic bride aside and picked up the groom, glaring at his smug little face and wishing it was the real thing so she could slap him senseless and scream at him and kick him in the balls with her very pointy bridal shoes.
I’m such an idiot.
And after all her arguing with Rafe to the contrary, apparently shewasstill a sucker for a handsome face and pretty words.
Sam Lyndon had conned her good.
As she’d waited for the groom to arrive, excited and anxious to begin her new life, he’d been emptying out her bank accounts and boarding a plane to God knew where.
And how did she know that?
Because Rachel, the bimbo he’d run off with, had the audacity to send her a text message explaining the situation in no uncertain terms. Oh! And a photo of her holding two boarding passes while sucking Sam’s cock. And Jane knew it was Sam’s cock. The strawberry-coloured birthmark on his junk was a dead giveaway.
But just as she began silently wishing the cabin pressure in the aeroplane would make Rachel’s fake boobs explode, something shiny caught her eye.
