Project Runaway Bride(21)

Instead, Juliet had run off before anyone could see what amazing work Lily was capable of, and worn the fairy-tale gown halfway to Vermont before stopping to change into street clothes in a convenience-store bathroom.

Yeah, she might have to keep that part to herself, or Lily really would kill her.

Leaving the closet doors open, Juliet backed up to the bed and sat carefully on the edge, simply staring at the gown for several long minutes.

She’d already decided she wouldn’t be marrying Paul. Ever. At some point, she would have to face him again, to apologize and explain why she’d abandoned him at the altar after assuring him she really did want to go through with the wedding, even though she’d called it off only weeks earlier. With luck, it would be in a nice, crowded public place with lots of witnesses so he would be less likely to create a scene.

So wearing the gown for a second shot with him was out of the question. And if she ever, ever decided to give the whole engagement/wedding/till-death-do-us-part thing a try with another man—the image of Reid in a tuxedo, waiting for her at the end of the aisle burst across her brain, but she quickly snuffed it out—she didn’t know if she would recycle this dress or choose another that had no old memories and emotions attached to it.

But she hated to think about it going to waste. Just hanging there in her closet forever like a forgotten prom gown, or shipped off to Goodwill where someone would pay twenty dollars for it and never know what a true treasure they’d been lucky enough to find.

Hopping up, she hurried over to the overnight bag she’d stuffed full of items she thought she might need while she was hiding out for her little breakdown-slash-journey to self-discovery and grabbed the sketch pad and pack of pencils she’d brought along. She almost never left home without them, even in the middle of a crisis.

Smiling to herself, she carried them back to the bed where she sat cross-legged, still facing the Wedding Dress of Doom. Even at the worst of times, she was a designer at heart. She’d grabbed these supplies first and packed other things like underwear and her toothbrush second. A girl had to have her priorities.

It had been ages since she’d really had the time to work the way she liked to. The way she should have been. Lily and Zoe had definitely been carrying the weight of the company these past few months while she focused on wedding preparations and letting herself be distracted by Paul’s bad behavior and her completely inappropriate yet irresistible attraction to Reid.

There was still plenty going on to distract her, but she felt oddly rejuvenated creatively. Eager to get back to work because maybe, just maybe, sketching would help to keep her mind off the problems hanging over her head. She might even manage that most coveted form of problem solving—the brilliant revelation that came out of the blue while one was focused on something entirely unrelated.

So what if she took this wedding-gown dilemma and turned it into a solution? A jumping-off point for some gorgeous new handbags that Lily and Zoe would both proclaim were well worth her minor emotional meltdown and sudden disappearing act.

Her parents might not agree, since they were the ones who were going to lose all the money they’d put into the wedding plans, but maybe the fact that she would soon be giving them their first grandchild would soften that blow.

Charcoal and colored pencils spread out beside her, she began to doodle. Just shapes and squiggly lines at first, a few that looked a bit like flowers. Then, as more solid, structured designs came into her head, the rest of her mind drifted. A left brain/right brain thing allowed her to work with focused intent while also humming one of her favorite songs, lyrics and all.

The only problem was, the song she started to sing—the one she couldn’t get out of her head no matter how many other tunes she tried to hum instead—made her think of Reid and the first time she’d spent the night with him.

* * *

This was the third time he’d brought Chinese. It was becoming a guilty pleasure. He’d call her or she’d call him. Her sisters would be away, leaving her alone in the loft, or he would tell her to come to his place; he’d leave the door unlocked for her. These secret rendezvous made her feel both naughty and vibrantly alive at the same time.

She shouldn’t be doing it. Should have put a stop to this crazy infatuation after that first time, when she’d known things could so easily get carried away.

But they meant too much to her. She could talk to Reid in a way she couldn’t with anyone else, because he knew things about her life that she hadn’t shared with anyone else, and she looked forward to their casual get-togethers far too much, feeling as though they were almost the only time she could breathe easily and be herself.