Cooper sighed, well aware that the day had turned his already bitter heart just a little more sour.
Even if the wedding had gone ahead, he doubted he’d have been in much of a mood to celebrate today. He’d given his prospective sister-in-law the benefit of the doubt when the save-the-date cards had come out—in fairness, it was unlikely that Justin would have mentioned that the date she’d chosen was the anniversary of Cooper’s divorce. Chances were that his brother hadn’t even realised or they’d have picked another day. But the fact remained that it was now officially three years since he’d disentangled himself from that messy web of lies and false love and, while his freedom probably should be something to be happy about, it seldom felt like it.
But at least his brother hadn’t made the same mistake. That was something to celebrate. With a small smile, Cooper raised his beer bottle to the sky and silently toasted Justin’s lucky escape.
Then he frowned, peering over the edge of the terrace at the sweeping driveway below. Out there, in the shadows of the swaying trees, he spotted a willowy figure. One in a very distinctive white lace dress.
‘Where is she going now?’ he murmured to himself as he watched Dawn trip over her train and reach out for the nearest tree to steady herself. Was she drunk?
And, more importantly, was she going after Justin?
Without thinking, Cooper put aside his beer bottle and sprung over the edge of the terrace, landing in a crouch on the packed ground. He strode across the driveway to where was parked the vintage robin’s-egg-blue Cadillac convertible he’d hired for Justin to drive away in for his wedding night. It had been his own, personal present to his brother—something far more meaningful than a second toaster, or even the speech he’d written to give to the assembled crowd. The car was a memory that only he and Justin shared. A dream, or a promise, they still had to fulfil.
‘When we’re grown-ups, we’ll be able to do whatever we want,’ he remembered saying when Justin had been only seven to his ten. ‘We’ll get the coolest car ever—’
‘A Cadillac?’ Justin had interrupted.
‘Yeah, a Caddy. And we’ll drive it all the way across America together. Just you and me. It’ll be the best adventure ever.’
They’d never done it, of course. Life had got in the way. But renting the car for Justin for this day, the start of the rest of his life, had felt like a reminder never to give up on his dreams, just because he’d been tied down by love, family and the business.
Except now he wasn’t, of course. Justin had run and left him to clear up the mess.
Like a drunk woman in a wedding dress trying to break into his incredibly expensive hire car.
‘Do you really think you’re in any condition to drive that?’ Cooper crossed his arms and leant against the far side of the car, glaring over to where Dawn was trying to unlock the driver’s side door.
‘Do you really think it’s your place to try to stop me?’ Dawn asked, eyebrows raised. She didn’t sound drunk, but Cooper was hard pressed to think of another reason she’d be stealing his car.
Yeah, okay, so he was thinking of it as his. Since Justin clearly wouldn’t be using it for his planned honeymoon road trip with Dawn, it seemed stupid not to make the most of the already paid-for rental. He could take it up the coast, maybe, for a couple of days, until he needed to be back in the office.
Once he’d evicted the woman in white who was trying to steal it.
‘Since it’s my name on the rental agreement, I think it’s exactly my place.’ Cooper was gratified to see that his statement at least gave her small pause. ‘Where are you planning on taking it, anyway?’
‘To find some answers,’ Dawn said, her head held high. Her long, pale neck rose elegantly up from the white lace monstrosity of a dress to where her dark hair was curled and braided against the back of her head, tilting her chin up with its weight. She looked every inch the English aristocrat—rather than the low little gold-digger Cooper knew she was.
Her words caught up with him. ‘Answers? You mean you’re going to find Justin?’
Dawn slammed her hands against the unyielding metal of the car door. ‘Of course I am! Did you even read the letter he left for me? Could he have been any more vague? So, yes! Yes, I’m going to go find him, and figure out what the hell happened so I can get my life back on track!’
As it happened, Cooper had read the letter—if only to be sure that his brother wasn’t leaving things open for a blissful reunion with his gold-digging bride. Which meant... ‘Except, of course, Justin didn’t tell you where he was going. Don’t you think you should take that as a hint that he didn’t want you chasing after him?’
Dawn’s eyes narrowed. ‘No, he didn’t tell me. But I’m willing to bet he told you. So, spill, Cooper. Where is your brother?’
Damn.
* * *
She didn’t really expect him to tell her outright, but maybe she’d get lucky. Maybe there’d be a clue or something that would lead her to Justin.
Cooper’s expression went blank, obviously trying to avoid giving anything away. Dawn sighed. Still, Justin couldn’t have gone far, right? Not if he’d left those notes for Cooper and her that morning. Especially since their bags for the honeymoon, according to the carefully planned and laminated schedule for the day, should be in the boot of the very car she was trying to unlock. Stupid vintage cars and their stupid vintage locks. Why couldn’t Cooper have hired them something with central locking, at the very least?
Wait. Were the bags in the car? She hadn’t checked.
Ignoring Cooper’s lack of reply to her question, Dawn hurried around to the boot of the Caddy—trunk, she supposed, since it was an American car—and fiddled with the key Ruby had pinched from Cooper’s bag for her until the boot popped open.
Empty.
The boot, trunk, whatever you wanted to call it, was empty.
‘Where’re my bags?’ she asked in a whisper.
Cooper followed her round to stand beside her, and they stared at the lack of suitcases together. ‘There should be bags?’
‘Yes!’ Dawn could feel the desperation leaking out in her voice. ‘We packed all the bags for our honeymoon and put them in Justin’s car yesterday.’ They’d had a late lunch together back at Justin’s hotel before Dawn had headed off to spend the night with her sisters at their hotel across town. Justin had been a staunch believer in the ‘bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding’ thing and, quite honestly, Dawn hadn’t wanted to tempt fate either. Which seemed doubly stupid now. ‘He was supposed to transfer them to this car this morning. I figured he’d have at least left mine when he dropped off those bloody letters earlier.’
‘He didn’t.’
‘Well, I can see that!’ Dawn’s voice was getting high and squeaky now, and she didn’t even care.
‘No, I mean he didn’t bring the letters here. I found them both this morning—they’d been slipped under my hotel room door in one envelope, with my name on it. I thought they were the notes for my speech I’d asked my secretary to drop over and just shoved them in my jacket pocket. I only checked them once we realised that Justin still wasn’t here...’
‘So he never even came here this morning,’ Dawn said softly. ‘So all my things...they’re still in his car. Which is probably wherever he is.’
Her clothes. Her ridiculously expensive wedding-night lingerie. Her toiletries. Her honeymoon read
ing. Her passport. All she had with her here was a tiny clutch bag with some face powder, a dull nude lipstick she’d never wear in everyday life, a spare pair of stockings, her phone and her credit card, in case there was a problem with the open bar at the venue. Even last night she’d borrowed things from her sisters and had worn the ‘Mrs Edwards’ pyjamas they’d bought her—which she hoped they burned as soon as they got back to the hotel.
She had nothing. Not even a husband.
‘I’m sure your family can—’
‘No!’ Dawn cut him off before he could even suggest she crawl back to her family, broken and in need of help. Again.
She’d done that too often in the past. This time, she needed to fix things herself.
Yes, she had nothing. Yes, this was basically the worst she’d ever felt in her whole life.
But that just meant that things could only get better from here on. Right?
At least, they would if she made them better. If she took charge of her life for once and stopped waiting for a happy-ever-after to save her.
‘Okay, I need you to tell me where Justin is,’ she said as calmly as reasonably as possible. ‘He has my belongings. My passport was in his travel wallet with his, ready for our honeymoon. If he’s not going to marry me, then I need to check out my visa, figure out what I do next, and in order to achieve that I need my stuff.’ And she needed closure. She needed Justin to look her in the eye and tell her what had gone wrong. What had changed since lunch time yesterday that had made him run?
She needed him to tell her what was wrong with her so she could fix it and bloody well make her own happily ever after, with or without a man.
But, somehow, she suspected Cooper would react better to the more practical approach.
‘Look,’ she said when he hesitated. ‘You want me out of your brother’s life, right? I mean, that much has been obvious since you called to not congratulate us on our engagement.’ Are you sure about this? was what he’d actually said. Isn’t it a bit fast?