Chapter Forty
‘That has to be the fifth time you’ve checked your phone in the last hour,’ Mel observed from the seat beside me. ‘I’ve a horrible vision that right in the middle of the “I dos” and the “Does anyone here object” you’re going to pull out your phone and start checking your WhatsApps.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ I said.
She raised one of the eyebrows the make-up artist had just finished defining with a pencil. ‘Only because our dresses don’t have pockets.’
She made a good point, and I returned my phone to the dressing table to allow the hair stylist to continue trying to persuade my wedding curls to cooperate and fall where they were meant to.
It was hard being so far away from Rhys, so out of the loop, and he was understandably more concerned with helping Tasha and liaising with the doctors than updating me every five minutes.
I just felt so helpless being half a country away from him and had to keep reminding myself that this was what he’d wanted me to do.
I hadn’t seen him until mid-morning the day after Tasha’s emergency hospital admission. He’d left her bedside briefly to go home for a shower and a change of clothes but had swung by my flat first.
He looked exhausted.
‘Have you eaten anything? Can I make you some breakfast?’
‘No thanks. I want to get back as soon as I can. But I’d love a coffee.’
He drank it scalding hot, as though even the minute or two it would take to cool was time better spent with Tasha.
‘Have you spoken to her doctors yet?’
‘We’re meeting with them later this afternoon.’
He looked sad as he reached for my hand across the breakfast bar. ‘I’m so sorry about messing up our plans.’
I silenced him with a finger pressed against his lips.
‘Don’t give it another thought. We’ve all the time in the world for mini breaks and holidays.
Tasha is the most important thing right now.
’ A pang of regret crossed the features I’d grown to love.
‘And Jackson will totally understand, I’m sure of it.
’ The pang rearranged itself into an expression of confusion.
‘The wedding,’ I explained. ‘He’ll understand why we can’t come now. He’ll be fine with it.’
‘I can’t go to the wedding—’ Rhys began.
‘I know that. Don’t worry about it.’
Rhys shook his head. ‘I can’t go, but you still can. In fact, you have to.’
I stared at him for a long moment as arguments lined up in my head, jostling position to be the first voiced.
‘You told me this wedding has been planned with almost military precision?’
‘International coups have been organised with less fuss,’ I said with a wry smile, thinking about the numerous late-night texts Jackson had sent over the last few weeks beginning with I’ve had another idea .
. . or the laminated list of duties he’d handed to Mel and me.
I’d surreptitiously swapped out many of the tasks, giving myself the most arduous ones.
But if I wasn’t there, Mel would attempt to take them all on herself, however pregnant she was. And I couldn’t let her do that.
And what about Jackson? I’d vowed never to let him down again, and I was so close to doing so now it scared me. But leaving Rhys here when his daughter was still so ill felt like a betrayal.
His daughter. His responsibility. His life. And just in case you haven’t noticed, he hasn’t actually asked you to share any of those, has he? piped up Old Ellie from wherever it was I’d banished her.
I looked up at him with troubled eyes.
Ask me to stay. Ask me to stay and I’ll find a way to make it work, I silently implored.
‘You have to go,’ Rhys reiterated instead.
I nodded sadly in agreement.
‘I know you’re right. And I do want to be there for Jackson and Mel.’ I gave a sad sigh. ‘But I also want to be close by in case you need . . .’ I paused, not exactly sure what I was offering here.
‘You,’ said Rhys softly, slipping off the stool and pulling me into his arms. ‘I’m always going to need you. But right now, Jackson and Mel need you more.’
‘Are you sure?’
I could feel the warmth of his breath ruffling the strands of my hair as he spoke into them.
‘I’m sure that I’m going to miss holding you in my arms for the next few days and falling asleep with your head on my chest. I’m sure I’m going to miss seeing how beautiful you look in your Groom’s Woman dress and watching you get all sentimental when your best friend says his vows.
But I’m also sure there’ll be other weddings we’ll go to together, perhaps ones that’ll be even more special. ’
My heart actually forgot to beat for a good ten seconds as one possible meaning behind those words filtered through. I drew back in his arms and saw something in his eyes that could have been a glimpse of a future I’d never dared to dream of.
‘But for now the right place for me to be is here with Tasha and Annalise, and yours is in Scotland with Jackson and Mel.’
I’d only seen him once more before I’d left for the wedding. We’d squeezed in a quick meet-up halfway through the afternoon. Tasha had been in hospital for two days by then and was improving enough to start feeling bored.
‘I’ve bought her some books and games,’ I said, passing him a huge glossy carrier bag with a large furry cat sticking out the top. ‘And something to cuddle,’ I added.
‘She’ll love it,’ Rhys said, his eyes warm as he took the bag from me.
‘You don’t have to say it’s from me if that’ll make things awkward with Annalise. You can say you bought it.’
‘Absolutely not. Annalise is going to have to learn to get over that,’ Rhys said firmly, which settled me more than he could ever have known.
‘Besides, she’s too busy being the most clued-up mother of an asthma patient in the universe to worry about anything else.
I swear she must have read every paper in existence on the condition in the last two days. ’
I laughed. ‘I admire her for that. Tasha’s a lucky girl to have parents who love her the way you both do.’
‘I think that’s possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,’ Rhys said, his eyes molten emeralds. ‘Thank you, Ellie.’
‘Breathe in,’ I said, gently trying to persuade Mel’s zip to fasten.
‘I don’t think baby bumps work like that,’ Mel grumbled, hands on her hips to persuade the material to give her just another half an inch. Amazingly it took pity on her and I eased the dress closed with a soft purr of the zip.
‘You’ll probably have to cut me out of it later,’ she said with a grin, stepping back to my side so that we could admire our reflections in the floor-length mirror.
‘We don’t look too shabby,’ she said, smoothing down the fabric of the gorgeous silk dress with her hands. She turned ninety degrees and gave a small snort of laughter. ‘Well, at least from the front.’
I put my arms around her and gave her as big a hug as my godchild would allow.
‘You have never looked more beautiful,’ I whispered.
‘Well, that’s gone and done it,’ she said, stepping out of my hold and reaching for a tissue to dab at her now watering eyes. ‘I told you not to be nice to me. Weddings always make me cry.’
I had a feeling they might do just that to me later.
I’d been feeling emotional ever since Jackson had pulled me aside the previous day to ask if I’d mind looking over the speech he was intending to give at the reception.
‘You’ve always been good at that kind of thing, and I’d really appreciate your input on what I’ve written.’
‘Can I edit out all the four-letter words?’ I teased, secretly touched that I was the one he trusted enough to vet his speech.
‘No, definitely not. They all have to stay,’ he said with a wink, passing me his laptop.
I was teary-eyed before I was even halfway through. By the time I closed the document and passed the laptop back, I’d needed three tissues to mop up the mess he’d made of my mascara.
‘That is absolutely perfect, Jackson. There isn’t a single word I think you should change.’
The speech was an open love letter to his partner and a glimpse into my friend’s heart. And he certainly hadn’t pulled any punches.
‘That bit about how you’d known the moment you first met Lars that he was the one you wanted to grow old with . . .’ I said, my voice still wobbly with emotion. ‘And how sometimes, when you least expect it, lightning strikes—’
‘Ah, I thought you’d like that bit.’
I smiled. ‘That’s how you really feel, isn’t it?’ I don’t know why there was a question mark on the end of that, because the speech made Jackson’s feelings crystal clear. ‘It really can be a love that will last, can’t it? However fast you fall? That doesn’t mean it’s only infatuation or a fling?’
‘Are you asking me, or telling me?’ Jackson said, fixing me with a gaze that saw right through me.
‘Telling you,’ I said softly.
But this morning I’d woken up to a maelstrom of niggling worries.
There’d been something distant in Rhys’s messages the previous day.
I’d spent the entire rehearsal dinner on edge trying to decipher what was bothering me.
He was saying all the right things, but something was missing.
Something was different and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
‘Perhaps he’s worried about what will happen when Tasha is discharged,’ Mel had suggested, which was certainly a possibility.
The doctors had been hopeful that she could go home after one more night in hospital.
‘It’s bound to be tough for him not being with her, after spending so many days right beside her. ’
‘Perhaps he’ll stay over at Annalise’s place for the first night or two,’ Steve had innocently suggested. He seemed oblivious to the death stare his wife shot him across the rehearsal dinner table.
‘What? What did I say?’
‘Too much,’ muttered Mel.
‘Nothing that wasn’t already going through my head,’ I assured him with a rueful expression.
Later, in the hotel bar when guests had begun peeling off to bed in preparation for the big day, Mel had swooped down to give me a kiss and caught sight of the internet page displayed on my phone screen.