Page 2 of Revenge Honeymoon

Mrs. Evers shot daggers in the woman’s direction.

“I need to talk to him.” The bride snapped her fingers at Emily. “Get Tyler on the phone. I will just demand that he come.”

Emily gulped and bit at her lower lip, then got up the courage to tell her best friend since grade school the worst thing a best friend could say. “Tyler doesn’t want to get married. Do you really want to force a man to marry you, Rubes?”

“But he promised me. He gave me this ring.” Ruby held out her hand for the cousins, her mother, Emily, and now the florist who’d arrived with her wedding bouquet. A gorgeous pear-shaped 2 ½ carat diamond decorated her left ring finger. “Would he have given me this ring if he didn’t want to marry me?”

“He doesn’t want to marry you, Rubes.” Emily knelt and put an arm around her friend. The bride sagged against her.

The florist quietly set the bridal bouquet on a chair and scrambled for the door.

Emily led Ruby to an empty chair and her mother sat beside her. “He’s an awful man. A terrible, mean, awful man. Who would do that to my little girl?” Mrs. Evers took her daughter by the hand and gripped it tightly.

“Ow, mother, that hurts.” Ruby pulled her hand out of her mother’s grasp and began to nibble on her freshly manicured nails. “What do we do about the guests?”

“Your father is telling them now,” Mrs. Evers reassured her.

“What will we do about the reception?” Ruby pulled the veil out of her hair.

“We’re inviting everyone to meet us over there,” her mother answered. “We’ve already paid for the hall, the food, the entertainment. We might as well have a party, don’t you think, darling?”

“What will we do about the honeymoon?” Ruby kicked off her satin heels and rubbed her toes.

“Well, I guess you’ll have to cancel,” sighed Mrs. Evers. “Maybe they’ll give you credit.”

“No, wait, I have a better idea,” said Emily.

And that’s when the revenge honeymoon took shape. That very moment. And Emily Small’s life would never be the same.

* * *

As the taxi pulled up to the cruise terminal in Tampa, Emily smiled. She’d always wanted to try out a cruise. It had sounded so exotic, so luxurious. But she’d never had someone who wanted to go with her. And who takes a cruise alone?

“I can’t do this.” Ruby cringed in the back seat. Her perfect, but caked, bride makeup had been washed away last night in the Hilton honeymoon suite the two had shared and had been replaced this morning with a simple black mascara, nude lipstick, and a pinch of blush. She wore a blue sundress with a flared skirt, and a wide-brimmed straw hat sat in her lap. “I’ll look like a fool. Everyone will be wondering.”

“Wondering what?” Emily had her mind on the miracle of FedEx who’d shipped her passport overnight. Thank goodness her mother knew exactly where she kept it: bottom drawer of her old dresser next to her tax returns. She’d never complain again about what a nosy mother she had. Ever. Okay, maybe she would. But not today. Today, she was her best friend’s rock. The solid thing she could rely on after her terrible, awful, no-good—but very attractive—fiancé left her at the altar. Emily was dependable. Emily was loyal. Emily was beginning to sound like Ruby’s pet dog.

“This is a honeymoon cruise. For couples only,” Ruby said with as much sympathetic whining as she could muster. “You know, just married type of couples.”

“I seem to recall you mentioned that when you booked it last spring.” Emily checked her appearance in a compact she kept in her purse. At least on a honeymoon cruise full of couples in love, no one would be fawning all over Ruby and ignoring her plain Jane best friend. Years ago, Emily had learned her limitations when sitting next to her model-like bestie. When Ruby had gotten engaged to Tyler on Valentine’s Day nine months ago, Emily secretly hoped it would be her time to shine.

Ruby was sweet and kind and truly didn’t realize how naturally gorgeous she was, so it was hard to be mad at her. Hard to be jealous of her. Hard to be anything but appreciative of what a wonderful friend she could be.

“There will be all of these newlyweds in love all around us.” Ruby leaned forward to talk to the taxi driver. “How much to take us to the airport?”

Emily pulled on her friend’s arm, “No, you don’t want to do that, Rubes. This is about you getting over Tyler and what he did to you.”

“I did that last night at the reception when I ate half our wedding cake. The lemon layer only, though. I wanted all lemon cake, and Tyler had insisted on alternating layers of strawberry, lemon, strawberry, lemon. He didn’t even seem to care I was allergic to strawberries.”

“Well, real strawberries, right? Not strawberry flavoring?”

Ruby sighed a big exaggerated sigh. “It was the principal of it. He didn’t seem to care at all that I couldn’t eat strawberries. That I loathe them.”

“True. That wasn’t very considerate of him.”

The taxi driver rolled down his window and lit a cigarette. He must’ve sensed his two female passengers weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. A cool November breeze blew into the car and carried the smoke inside.

Emily sneezed.

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