‘The bar?’ Ruby shook her head, turned on her heel and stalked away from him towards her gold-digging friend—stopping briefly to talk to Dawn’s confused parents on her way. Maybe they’d been in on it together, he thought absently. Well, Dawn might not be a heartbroken jilted bride, but if nothing else she had to be bitterly lamenting the loss of all that money. The thought made him smile.
Love, Cooper knew from bitter experience, could make a man act crazy. Justin had done the right thing, and Cooper would make sure he kept doing it.
There was no way he was going to let his little brother make the same awful mistakes he had.
* * *
Dawn had found the perfect hiding spot: in the ladies’ room on the second floor, furthest from the bar. There were at least two other bathrooms between there and the ballroom where the not-wedding breakfast would be served, and Dawn couldn’t imagine anyone traipsing this far away from the complimentary alcohol if they didn’t have to.
She was completely alone, just as she needed to be.
‘Dawn?’
Completely alone except for Ruby, that was.
‘In here,’ she said, unlocking the door with a sigh. Ruby, she’d learned over the last couple of years since they’d become friends, never took silence for an answer.
Ruby bustled into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her and handing over the bottle of Prosecco she was holding.
‘Okay, can someone please explain to me what the hell is going on? Because that idiot of a best man was basically useless.’
Reaching into the tiny clutch bag she’d retrieved from her sister Elizabeth on her way back to the mansion, Dawn pulled out the letter from Justin and gave it to Ruby. It wasn’t as if she needed to read it again, anyway. The words were already burned into her brain.
Dearest Dawn,
I’m so sorry to do this to you, darling, but I know I have to be fair to both of us, to give us both our best chances at a happy future.
I can’t be there to marry you today. Please don’t ask me why, simply know that when I asked you to be my bride it was because I truly believed that our futures lay together. But the world changes more quickly than we can sometimes imagine.
Cooper will help you with our guests, and explain everything to my parents.
Once again, I’m so sorry, Dawn.
With love and affection,
Justin
Dawn watched as Ruby read the letter, her eyebrows jerking higher with every line. Yeah, that was my reaction too. Well, that and her heart cracking in two.
Time to open the Prosecco.
‘So, he can’t tell you why he didn’t show up, he ditched the whole problem onto his idiot brother and still claims he’s being fair to you?’ Ruby sounded incredulous.
‘Yes, apparently I have been jilted at the altar for my own good.’ Dawn took a swig from the bottle and passed it back to Ruby. ‘At least that’s an excuse I haven’t heard before. I mean, with Richard it was because he realised he wasn’t ready to settle down after all—although he did settle down six months later with a redhead he met on his “finding myself” trip around India, incidentally. Harry decided he was gay, after he’d been living with me for three months.’
Ruby stifled a giggle at that. Dawn ignored her and carried on ticking off her disastrous prior relationships on her fingers.
‘Patrick left me for a job in Dubai, where he claimed I’d be desperately unhappy so he couldn’t ask me to go with him. Ewan cheated on me with his ex-girlfriend and Trevor married my sister instead.’
‘Girl, you have the worst luck with men. You should try women instead.’
‘Don’t think I haven’t considered it.’ Dawn sighed. ‘I just... I don’t understand what’s wrong with me.’
‘Nothing is wrong with you,’ Ruby said fiercely. ‘Trust me, it’s those men who are the fools here.’
‘Except every one of them managed to settle down with someone else after they got shot of me,’ Dawn pointed out. ‘And now Justin... I mean, he just didn’t even bother to show up. And he can’t tell me why. That’s...it’s not enough.’
‘You need closure,’ Ruby said sagely, returning the bottle of Prosecco to her.
Closure. That sounded good. Closing the book on her absurdly cursed love life and moving forward instead. Understanding the mistakes she’d made, or what it was about her that made finding her happy-ever-after so impossible. Because this? This wasn’t what all those fairy tales and happy endings had led her to expect from life. And she wanted better for her future.
She wanted to find someone to share her life with. Someone who’d stick by her through the ups and downs, someone to come home to after a hard day at work, someone to love her just as she was.
Really, how hard could it be if all four of her sisters had managed it? Not to mention every cousin, friend and family acquaintance she had, except for Ruby. Dawn had attended so many weddings in the last ten years, they’d all started to merge into one.
And now it had been her turn at last and everyone had been so happy for her. And relieved, she knew—her family wasn’t good at hiding their emotions that way. They’d been relieved that at last Dawn was through that terrible run of bad luck and they could all stop worrying about her and get back to being blissfully happy themselves.
Except now it was all ruined.
‘Your parents were looking for you,’ Ruby said, her voice softer. ‘And your sisters. Plus, well, everyone you’ve ever met.’
Yet Ruby was the only one who’d actually managed to find her. Not that Dawn was particularly surprised by that. Ruby knew her—had seen right through her the first day they’d met and declared that they were destined to be best friends. And so they were.
‘I don’t want to see them.’ She loved her family, really she did. And she knew they loved her. But she couldn’t take the pity in their eyes one more time. That disappointment and—worse—that sense of inevitability. And she really didn’t want to hear her mother’s, ‘Not every woman is meant to be a wife and mother, Dawnie,’ speech. Because she knew that—of course she did. And if she’d chosen to be alone, to forge her own path through life, that would be great. But she hadn’t.
Six times now, she’d thought she’d found true love. She’d thought she’d found forever.
And six times she’d been wrong.
She took another, longer gulp of Prosecco, the bubbles stinging her throat as they went down.
Maybe her mother was right. Maybe it was time to concede defeat. To dedicate her life to being that crazy aunt who was always off on adventures, posting photos of her in exotic places with handsome men she never stayed with long enough for them to let her down.
It wouldn’t be a bad life.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Ruby asked. ‘Just say it, and I’ll make it happen.’
Ruby, Dawn decided, was the best friend a girl had ever had. Life would be so much easier if she could just fall in love with Ruby. Well, as long as Ruby loved her back, which wasn’t at all a sure thing. She wasn’t exactly Ruby’s type—she preferred blondes who played guitar, if her last three girlfriends were anything to go by. So, no, even Ruby couldn’t be her happy-ever-after. Not in a romantic way, anyway.
But she was still the best friend ever.
‘I need to get out of here,’ Dawn said. ‘I need to figure out what happened. What I do next. I don’t want anyone to worry about me or anything but I can’t stay here. I need to go find...closure.’
Ruby gave a sharp nod. ‘Closure it is. Give me five minutes. And finish that bottle while you’re waiting.’
CHAPTER TWO
THE PARTY WAS in full swing, the celebratory spirit apparently undimmed by the fact that there hadn’t actually been a wedding for them to celebrate. Cooper stayed in the bar long enough to make sure that the venue had everything in hand, then grabbed
a bottle of beer from behind the bar and headed out into the darkening evening to find some peace and quiet, his best man duties done.
The terrace at the front of the mansion was expansive, elegant and, most importantly to Cooper, empty. Apparently none of the other guests felt inclined to survey the view that Dawn had been so taken with that she’d had to book the venue on sight, despite the fact it was convenient for practically nobody. His mother, at least, had seemed pleased with her choice.