Beauty and the Bridesmaid

Chapter Nineteen

I don’t want to go meet everybody in the hotel bar for celebratory drinks. I want to climb into the clean white bed, snuggle under the duvet and watch The Voice.

I don’t really even want to stay here at the hotel, waiting for tomorrow’s big wedding. But bridesmaids are more important to the wedding than the regular guests, so Kerry and Steph insisted. And going along with those two is the easiest option.

Most of the guests have got a room at the Cedar Court tonight so that we can just get ready here for the wedding tomorrow afternoon.

Maybe no one will miss me, I think as I reach for the remote control for the wall-mounted TV.

There’s an interrupting knock on the door. My fingers brush over the rubber buttons. If I have the TV’s volume turned up loud enough, I can pretend I didn’t hear the knock, can’t I? But whoever it is, they’re persistent, and I creep towards the door as though I can tell who’s standing outside it if I listen closely enough.

I hope it’s not the bride. Or the groom. Or either of the other bridesmaids. Actually, I’d quite like to avoid the majority of the wedding guests. And most of all, I’d like to avoid Damien.

Well, that’s not strictly true. I don’t want to see him because of the things he said and the self-satisfied look on his face when I realised that he was right. But if he turned up at my hotel room, clutching a big bunch of flowers and a bottle of rosé, I wouldn’t exactly send him away.

Eventually, I get curious enough to open the door.

It’s not Damien. It’s Emily.

“Hi,” I say, pulling the door back wider. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be out of the country by now?”

“I should,” she agrees, following my silent request to enter. “Lela begged me to stay, so I’ve delayed my trip for a few days.”

I close the door and gesture for Emily to sit down on the bed, pulling out the dressing table stool for myself. “But I didn’t see you earlier at the rehearsal.”

She shrugs. “Well, when I say delayed. I’d kind of already started.”

“You didn’t fly all this way back for her, did you?”

“She’s the only sister I’ve got. She needs me.”

“You missed a great rehearsal,” I say, recalling the way Lela and Ash had looked at each other as they practised their vows. “But at least you’ll be here for the wedding.”

“Do you think that’s why I came back?” she asks, shaking her head. “Of course her wedding is important to me, but I came back because Lela’s terrified that the only reason you haven’t said anything to Ash is because you’re going to announce what she did to everybody at the ceremony tomorrow.”

“She needs to stop acting like her life is an episode of Hollyoaks,” I mutter, rolling my eyes.

“Are you saying you haven’t considered it?”

I look away from her, focusing on a small coffee stain on the beige carpet.

“I thought as much,” Emily says smugly, sitting up and folding her arms across her chest.

I glare at her, remembering that this is exactly the way Damien acted. “Look, I’ve told Lela how I feel. What she does is up to her.”

“But what about you? What are you going to do?”

“Nothing! Nothing. I’ve already said.”

Emily scans my face for a moment like she’s an expert in detecting lies. “Okay,” she finally says. “What are you doing up here then? Aren’t you coming downstairs for a drink?”