Page 133 of The Bad Wedding Date

Fraser closed his eyes again, breathing in deeply before he showed me that grey colour I’d come to crave so much. “I didn’t know you then, Charlotte,” he repeated.

I pushed myself farther away from him, my back against the passenger door as I stared at this man I’d shared so many intimate moments with. Moments I’d once dreamed of. Moments I’d once believed couldn’t really exist because men like him didn’t exist, surely to God.

“What did you do to my best friend, Fraser? What did you do?”

Turning on his side, he tried to reach out for me, but the moment he saw me flinch away from him, he let his hand hover in the air before he brought it back to his lap. “You’re going to run.”

“Fucking tell me!” I cried.

He ran a hand down his face and sighed. “We needed to get into the wedding. There was no way that was going to happen. Because of what I do and the high-profile people who employ me, a few faces in that room knew who I was, and not all of them would approve of my presence… including Mayor Williamson.”

My mouth fell open.

Another lie.

He’d convinced me they hadn’t known each other. He’d sworn it, and I’d believed him—this handsome stranger who rode into my life like a knight in shining suit and dazzled me with his willingness to help me. To save me. When really, he was only trying to save himself.

“Do you remember me telling you about the first girl I saved?” he asked.

I nodded, unable to speak.

“That was Williamson’s daughter, Rosie. She was fourteen at the time, Charlotte. Four-fucking-teen, and a shaking, shivering wreck when I got her back to him. It’s because of him that I do what I do. Most of my clients now have come off the back of that guy. It was great at first. He treated me like a son. He trusted me with his daughters’ lives. Rosie and Jodie.”

“Jodie…” I breathed, remembering the story of the mayor’s daughter that had died.

Fraser nodded, brushing a thumb under his eye as if to catch an invisible tear, or maybe stop one from falling altogether. He looked raw, split wide open already, and he’d barely started to talk.

“When we were in the library, you asked me if I’d ever been in love,” he said, looking back out of the windscreen.

“You said you hadn’t.”

Fraser shook his head. “I didn’t lie. I hadn’t, but Jodie was the closest I got. After I saved Rosie, Jodie and I grew close.”

A weird, misplaced feeling of jealousy rolled over me, and I quickly pushed it away, knowing this particular story didn’t end well.

Fraser blew out a breath. “Rosie hated that. She held me on some pedestal and developed this attachment to me. Saw me as her hero and thought that once she got a little older, something could happen between her and me. But then she saw her older sister with me, and Rosie knew. She knew Jodie was the one I had my eye on, not her. It caused tension. I became a problem between them both. Their dad had asked me to keep them both safe, but I’d somehow come between them and ruined their bond as sisters. I hated myself for it. I told Jodie then that whatever was going on between us had to end. I couldn’t tear a family apart.”

Despite wanting to run, I needed to hear this. I needed to know everything, so I waited, letting him speak at his own pace.

“The night I ended it with her, Rosie and Jodie went to a party together. Rosie was seventeen by that point, Jodie a few years older. Closer to my age.”

“What happened?” I whispered.

“Jodie got drunk. Blamed Rosie for losing me. They fought, and Jodie…” He trailed off, pinching the bridge of his nose. “She got in a car with the wrong guy. A reckless guy. One who took too many drugs and ran too many risks. She died under my fucking watch,” he croaked. “Only three years after I’d saved her little sister.”

I didn’t know what the hell to say as my eyes filled with tears.

“I was only twenty-three at the time. I was a big guy. Fearless. But, fuck, Charlotte, you have no idea how hard that first loss hit me. I didn’t save her.”

I wanted to reach out to him so badly. To cradle his head against my chest, let him bleed without fear or worry, and soothe all his aches and pains… but I couldn’t do that. My own fear of what was to come had crippled me. It had a noose around my neck, and I didn’t dare move in case it tightened.

“Mayor Williamson blamed me for everything. Rosie couldn’t handle life at home once Jodie had gone, so she moved to America. Williamson and I parted ways. He’s barely been able to look at me since.” Fraser cleared his throat, never taking his eyes off mine. “You were the only guest with an unnamed plus one, Charlotte. You were my only way in. The only chance I had to get close to Matteo. I couldn’t take any risks. I had to be that guy on your arm.”

“Even though you knew seeing you would hurt Williamson?” I whispered.

“I didn’t care about anything but getting my hands on the man who’d hurt my mum.”

My face tensed, trying so hard to focus on the impending bad news rather the heart-breaking story he’d just told me about Rosie and Jodie. About the mayor himself. It showed him in a whole new light, and I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

---