AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He was so good with all his family. His grandmother, his parents, his siblings, even Martha, who was at pains to give him grief. He doted on his nephews and nieces. She had visions of Lukas with his nephews swarming around him, grinning broadly as he hoisted his niece onto his shoulders so she could be princess of them all.
She sat at her desk and tried to focus on writing a press release. But the last time she’d tried, Lukas had carried her off to bed. And of course, then she couldn’t help but close her eyes and see Lukas naked in her bed, eyes slumberous, yet hungry and intent, focusing just on her.
“Ah, there you are!”
Holly jumped a foot as Althea swooped into her office, all smiles, and with a dress carrier bag over her arm. “Look what I’ve got!”
Holly felt a sinking sensation. “Oh. How nice.”
Althea rolled her eyes. “Oh, ye of little faith. You’ll love it. Truly. Stig says it’s you. I just hope you won’t outshine the bride,” Althea added wryly.
“No chance of that. You’ve always been a beautiful bride.”
Althea laughed. “All that practice. But Stig picked my dress, too, so I’m feeling pretty confident.” She thrust the dress bag at Holly. “I’m just the messenger, and I’m late for a hair appointment. Let me know how it fits. If you need alterations, we can get them done next week.” And she was gone as quickly as she’d come.
The dress bag hung over the back of a chair in her office the rest of the afternoon. Holly ignored it, even though it began to take on the proportions of an elephant in the room. She carried it upstairs after work, but she didn’t take it out of the bag. She didn’t want to be depressed. Then Charlotte and Teresa and a sculptress called Gwen invited her to go out for pizza.
“Since Lukas is gone,” Teresa said, “we thought you might come.”
Holly went. And after the pizza, Charlotte headed back to work on a wall hanging, but the other two wanted to go clubbing.
“Come with us,” Gwen urged her and Teresa nodded her head.
Holly couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone clubbing. Maybe after she and Matt were first married. Another lifetime ago. It wasn’t her scene. But if she went back to the apartment, she knew what would happen. She would be faced with the dress—and she would miss Lukas.
“I’ll come,” she said.
It was nearly midnight when they left the club, and just past when Holly let herself into the building and climbed the stairs to her apartment.
“Stay in mine,” Lukas had suggested. “Then I could come home and find you in my bed.”
Holly had shaken her head firmly. “I’m sleeping in my bed.”
But faced with it—as big and white and empty as an Alaskan winter—she was tempted to go upstairs. There, of course, she would find an even bigger bed, but it would have Lukas’s scent on the pillows. And she could sleep in the T-shirt he’d worn yesterday.
Which just went to show how far gone she was, Holly thought, disgusted with herself.
August had better hurry up and get there. She was getting too soppy for her own good. But at the same time, she didn’t want it to come at all.
Her brain muddled, Holly took a shower. But there were reminders of Lukas there, too. Yesterday morning she’d washed his back, had trailed her fingers down its muscular planes, then had slid her hands around to soap the front of him. Her body heated again now remembering the feel of slick, firm flesh beneath her fingers, and remembering what had happened after.
Abruptly, she shut the water off and got out of the shower. It was when she was putting on sleep shorts and a T-shirt—her own—that she spied the carrier bag with the bridesmaid dress hanging on the closet door.
She wanted to ignore it. But if it needed alterations, she would have to get them done. Wearing a frilly cupcake dress was bad enough. Wearing one that didn’t fit would be even worse.
She slid the zip down on the carrier bag and opened it, then stared. “Oh, my word.”
Anything less like a cupcake would have been hard to imagine.
The dress was red, a deep, vivid red. A dark, sultry lipstick of a color. There wasn’t a frill or a flounce or a furbelow in sight. There wasn’t much material at all, to be honest. It was a minimalist sort of dress, Holly decided as she took it out of the bag and gave it a shake. She sucked in her breath.
Very minimal indeed. And elegant. And sexy. And Stig thought it was “her”?
She had never worn anything quite so clearly sexy in her life.
