“Kate?” I push, but she’s still refusing to meet my eyes. “What about Sam?” I ask. The poor bloke is out there, completely oblivious. “I can’t believe this.” The heel of my hand meets my forehead, my brain aching with information overload.
She hiccups and giggles before reaching for the sink to steady her swaying body. “Fun,” she says haughtily. “And it’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Oh, okay,” I exclaim, lifting my dress. “I’ll leave you to have your fun in that case.” I turn and leave the toilets, heading straight to Jesse’s office. Today couldn’t get any worse.
The summer room has been cleared of tables but is now full of people, the band enticing everyone to the dance floor with classic Motown. I skirt through our guests, smiling, trying my hardest to look like the elated bride and cutting any lengthy conversation very short. I’ve fallen out with my brother, and now Kate, too. I want to escape with Jesse and be alone when we’re at our happiest—when the world and its problems are not interfering with our little bubble of contentment, where we have only our own issues to contend with.
I steam down the corridor and straight into his office, my heart falling straight into my Louboutins as soon as I lay my eyes on the occupants.
There are just two people.
Jesse…and Coral.
Chapter Four
My day just got a whole lot worse.
They’re seated at opposite ends of a couch, and both heads fly toward me while I just stand there feeling a little lost. All of my anger, all of my frustrations of the day have just transformed into unbearable pain. I can feel my eyes welling up with tears and my heart is thundering in my chest. I feel completely crushed.
Not knowing what else to do, but knowing for certain I don’t want this woman to see me break down, I slowly step back, closing the door quietly behind me. I walk numbly down the corridor in a haze of misery and escape the happy chatter and dancing bodies of our guests, heading down the gravel pathway toward the woodlands.
Sitting my defeated arse on an old log, I start picking at the dried bark, crumbling it into grains between my fingers, while the cool evening air spikes at my exposed skin. They were just talking, but he knows how I feel about her—how I feel about any other woman who Jesse’s had—yet he still sacrificed time with me on our special day to see her. I want to scream at him, bash my fists on his chest, and yell in his face. But I don’t have the energy. All of the fight has been sucked out of me. My spirit has been stripped down by drama, mine and others’, and it’s left me feeling exposed and vulnerable. And doubtful, too. On my wedding day of all days, I’m doubtful I can maintain the strength I need to spend my life with Jesse—spend my life fighting off women and problems…issues. The tears I’ve been holding back jump straight from my eyes and onto my lace. I’m powerless. I can’t make these women go away, I can’t strip Jesse’s past from him, and I can’t control other people and what they do. The one thing I could do, though, is take my pills so I don’t get pregnant. I drop my head in my hands and sob quietly to myself. I’ve not even got the energy to cry properly.
Through my low, pathetic weeping, I hear him approach behind me. I can smell his fresh water and minty scent. Even through my total numbness, I can still feel his presence. Every part of my being senses him, but I don’t want to look at him.
I brush my tears away. “I know you’re there,” I say quietly, keeping my gaze downward.
“I know you do.” His evenly spaced steps crunch over the ground, getting louder as he nears, and in my peripheral vision I see him lower himself next to me. But he doesn’t touch me. His hands are clasped in front of him, his thumbs circling each other slowly. I can hear the tail end of his heavy breathing subsiding from where he’s been running around the grounds like a madman trying to find me. And now he’s just sitting next to me, all silent when he should be explaining himself, explaining why he abandoned me on our wedding day so he could see a woman who’s in love with him—another woman who’s in love with him.
I laugh to myself. “Isn’t it funny how we’re so in touch with each other, yet you sit here now and don’t know what to say to me?” I see him shift next to me, and then his hand drifts across the space between us and rests on my thigh, his heated touch doing things I really don’t want it to do. I look down at his spread fingers, his flat, platinum and diamond band sparkling as he flexes his hand and squeezes my thigh. “So he touches me,” I say quietly.