Page 17 of The Bad Wedding Date

“This whole charade.” I shook my head. “True love shouldn’t need fifty thousand pounds thrown at it for it to count as true love.”

“If you’ve got the money, why not use it?”

“If you’ve got too much of it, give it away to those who have nothing and take your flaunting away from me.”

The elderly woman next to me—I recognised her as a great aunt from my father’s side—cleared her throat and glared through frosty eyes, warning both Fraser and me that we weren’t being as quiet as we’d hoped. I offered her a sarcastic smile and pretended she wasn’t there shooting daggers into my profile.

As with all these things, the ceremony came to an end sooner than anyone expected. Twenty minutes of saying the right things on cue led to a forever with the same person. It made me shudder as much as I had when watchingChildren of the Cornat just fourteen years old with Ruby. She’d laughed at me hiding behind the sofa cushions, begging her to turn it off.

Charlotte, you can’t just switch off from the things that scare you. Life doesn’t allow you to hide from this shit. You might dodge fear a lot longer than others manage to, but it’ll always be there in the end. That’s why you’ve got to face it. Be unafraid. Take it by the throat and choke the life out of it until fear doesn’t exist at all,she’d said to me.

She always had been wise for her young age.

“I now pronounce you husband… and wife. Lucas Williamson, you may finally kiss your beautiful bride.” The words came like an announcement from a boxing ring in the middle of Vegas, and while I rose to stand alongside everyone else, clapping with delight, I couldn’t help but feel a crippling sense of dissatisfaction at the whole affair.

If ever I married, I wanted my first kiss with my new husband to be in private. Just the two of us, sealing the deal with a little groping added in for good measure. Away from people who didn’t matter, away from cameras clicking in our faces repeatedly.

Shouldn’t the moment two people tie themselves together for the rest of their lives be sacred?

Shouldn’t it be something only they’d ever truly remember? From the heart, not for the show.

Fraser’s hand on the small of my back caused me to tense, and I swallowed away my negative thoughts and blinked up at him with a smile as fake as my sister’s. He was soon slow clapping with big, rough, and heavy hands, his investigative eyes studying me the whole time. I liked the feel of his gaze burning my skin.

The string quartet flared to life, breaking me from my thoughts and making the cheers in the room rise as Emmie and Lucas went to sit behind the registrar’s table to have their pictures taken while signing the register.

So stilted.

So manufactured.

Smile here. Tilt your head there. Pout those pretty lips. Show the world how perfect you are, Emelia Grant-Now-Williamson.

How would she be able to look at those images and think, ‘Look at how in love I am’? To me, she held as much sincerity in her face as the models used in those dreadful dental adverts for teeth whiteners. Her smile may have been wide, but her eyes held no love inside them.

It reminded me of my mother with my father: the ultimate marriage of convenience.

“A picture with the bride’s family,” the photographer announced.

A small knot of dread formed in the pit of my stomach at the thought of the room focusing on me beside Emmie, but I shouldn’t have worried. My parents stepped in place behind their favourite daughter, and they each placed a gentle yet loving hand on her shoulder and smiled for the camera.

That was Emmie’s family.

Me? I’d always been the outsider, and I couldn’t blame that on them entirely. I’d played my part well. A little too well.

Fraser’s hand found mine, a stroke of his finger brushing over my knuckle in a way I hadn’t expected.

I looked up at him, staring at his profile, only for him to side-eye me and offer a smile.

“Being an outcast isn’t always a bad thing,” he whispered.

I swallowed and looked back at my family, not sure why my chest pinched if being an outcast really was meant to be a blessing in disguise.

* * *

We were seated on a circular table, to the left of the top table, where Emmie, Lucas, my parents, and Lucas’s parents would sit and enjoy their meals, along with Lucas’s best man, Tristan Neeson.

Tristan. Neeson.

As if today wasn’t going to be bad enough.

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