CHAPTER ONE
NO.
This couldn’t be happening.
The box had to be there.
It had to be.
But the luggage carousel was empty. It had even stopped going round, now the last case had been taken off it. And Claire was the only one standing there, waiting with a small suitcase and a dress box—and a heart full of panic.
Where was her best friend’s wedding dress?
‘Get a grip, Claire Stewart. Standing gawping at the carousel isn’t going to make the dress magically appear. Go and talk to someone,’ she told herself sharply. She gathered up her case and the box containing the bridesmaid’s dress, and went in search of someone who might be able to find out where the wedding dress was. Maybe the box had accidentally been put in the wrong flight’s luggage and it was sitting somewhere else, waiting to be claimed.
Half an hour of muddling through in a mixture of English and holidaymakers’ Italian got her the bad news. Somewhere between London and Naples, the dress had vanished.
The dress Claire had spent hours working on, hand-stitching the tiny pearls on the bodice and the edge of the veil.
The dress Claire’s best friend was supposed to be wearing at her wedding in Capri in two days’ time.
Maybe this was a nightmare and she’d wake up from it in a second. Surreptitiously, Claire pinched herself. It hurt. Not good, because that meant this was really happening. She was in Naples with her luggage, her own bridesmaid’s dress...and no wedding dress.
There was nothing else for it. She grabbed her mobile phone, found a quiet corner in the airport and called Ashleigh.
Whose phone was switched through to voicemail.
This definitely wasn’t the kind of news Claire could leave on voicemail; that would be totally unfair. She tried calling Luke, Ashleigh’s fiancé, but his phone was also switched through to voicemail. She glanced at her watch. It was still so early that they were probably in the middle of breakfast and they’d probably left their phones in their room. OK. Who else could she call? She didn’t have a number for Tom, Luke’s best man. Sammy, her other best friend, who was photographing the wedding, wasn’t flying to Italy until tomorrow, after she’d finished a photo-shoot in New York. The rest of the wedding guests were due to arrive on the morning of the wedding.
Which left Ashleigh’s brother. The man who was going to give Ashleigh away. The man who played everything strictly by the rules—and Claire had just broken them. Big time. He was the last person she could call.
But he wasn’t in Capri yet, either. Which meant she had time to fix this.
What she needed was a plan.
Scratch that. What she really needed was coffee. She’d spent the last two weeks working all hours on Ashleigh’s dress as well as the work she was doing for a big wedding show, and she’d skimped on sleep to get everything done in time. That, plus the ridiculously early flight she’d taken out here this morning, meant that she was fuzzy and unfocused.
Coffee.
Even thought she normally drank lattes, this called for desperate measures. She needed something strong and something fast. One espresso with three sugars later, Claire’s head was clear enough to work out her options. It meant more travelling—a lot more travelling—but that didn’t matter. Claire would’ve walked over hot coals for Ashleigh. She was more than Claire’s best friend; she was the sister Claire would’ve chosen.
She tried calling Ashleigh again. This time, to Claire’s relief, her best friend answered her mobile phone.
‘Claire, hi! Are you in Naples already?’
‘Um, yes. But, Ash, there’s a bit of a problem.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Honey, I don’t know how to soften this.’ There wasn’t a way to soften news like this. ‘Is Luke with you?’
‘Ye-es.’ Ashleigh sounded as if she was frowning with concern. ‘Why?’
‘I think you’re going to need him,’ Claire said.
‘Now you’re really worrying me. Claire? What’s happened? Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’ Claire had no option but to tell her best friend the news straight. ‘But I’m so sorry, Ash. I’ve really let you down. Your dress. It’s gone missing somewhere between here and London.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been talking to the airline staff. They phoned London for me. They said it’s not in London, and it’s definitely not in Naples. They’re going to try and track it down, but they wanted us to be prepared for the fact that they might not be able to find it before the wedding.’
‘Oh, my God.’ Ashleigh gave a sharp intake of breath.
‘I know. Look—we have options. I don’t have time to make you another dress like that one, even if I could get the material and borrow a sewing machine. But we can go looking in Naples and find something off the peg, something I can maybe tweak for you. Or I can leave the bridesmaid’s dress and my case here in the left luggage, and get the next flight back to London. I’m pretty much the same size as you, so I’ll Skype you while I try on every single dress in my shop and you can pick the ones you like best. Then I’ll get the next flight back here, and you can try the dresses on and I’ll do any alterations so your final choice is perfect.’