Page 71 of Seal My Fate

“Tessa!” Annabelle greets me with a squeal, wearing nothing but a jeweled corset, hair rollers, and a hoop petticoat over luxurious cream silk lingerie. “You’re here!”

“I’m here,” I agree, smiling. The lavish suite is filled with flowers, bridesmaids, and a harried glam squad touching up the party. “Everything looks gorgeous upstairs.”

“Doesn’t it?” she beams. “Like a fairytale. And it’s all thanks to Imogen!”

I turn to where the elegant blonde is perched on a chaise, strapped into her own feathered dress, barking orders over a Bluetooth headset. “No, we’ve cleared it with the Met. It’s one-way traffic only on the approach, they’ll have to bring the trucks around the back.”

“I thought you swore not to get involved,” I remark, when she clicks off the call.

Imogen flicks her eyes skyward. “I did, but her planner was an idiot, and Annabelle begged me at the last minute.”

“I wept buckets,” Annabelle says cheerfully, as a bottle of champagne gets popped to great applause. “Shameless waterworks to get her to agree. But it was worth it. You’re a genius.” She plants a kiss on Imogen’s cheek, then giggles at the print. “Whoops, Maurice!” she calls to the makeup artist. “Touch-up over here!”

I settle in with Imogen, sipping a sparkling drink as the bridesmaids all primp and preen.

“Good plan,” Imogen remarks, plucking a glass of champagne from a nearby tray. “It’s going to be alongday.”

“I think it’s sweet,” I say, watching Annabelle flit around the room with excitement. All her misgivings seem forgotten as her mom and sisters fuss over her makeup and jewels, and it takes three strapping wardrobe assistants to lift her wedding gown over her head; the massive skirts billowing out like a meringue.

An utterly adorable, pink-cheeked meringue.

It’s almost enough to distract me from Saint’s task, talking his father into coming clean about the drug trial fraud. I feel a flutter of nerves. Whoever his partners are in this, they’re dangerous people, willing to do whatever it takes to silence any whistleblowers.

Will Saint be able to convince Alexander to betray those shadowy forces and do the right thing?

I can only hope.

Because if he isn’t willing to tell the truth about what’s happened at Ashford… Then we’ll have to take him down with the rest of them. I clutch my feathered evening bag tighter, thinking of the small USB drive inside. We copied all the important files from the hard drive and left it under lock and key at Sebastian’s place for safekeeping. But the information I have hidden in my purse is more than enough to bring down the Ashford empire and destroy one of the biggest companies in the country.

And it’s only a matter of time before the whole world knows it, too.

“She’s putting onsucha brave face.” One of the bridesmaids, Fiona, flops down beside us. She’s the bitch from the bachelorette, I remember, the one who was constantly making nasty comments. It looks like she’s still keeping it up, as she looks across the room at Annabelle, tutting with faux sympathy. “Everyone knows they had todragMax to the church today. Apparently, he’s still trashed from the stag do.”

“I thought his father canceled it,” I reply, levelling her with a glare.

“He did, but naughty Max went AWOL last night in Amsterdam. Hugh had to fly out on his jet and scrape him off some brothel floor this morning,” Fiona adds, with a smug grin. “They just landed at Farnborough an hour ago. It’s even bets whether Max will be able to stand at the altar, let alone say his ‘I do’s.’”

“Still, it says a lot that he’s here, even in his condition,” Imogen speaks up, syrupy sweet. “Some men can’t bear to think of marriage, even sober. How is Dickie, anyway?”

Fiona makes a huffing noise and flounces off.

“Good riddance,” Imogen mutters, but I’m only half-listening.

“Hugh has a private jet?” I ask slowly, feeling an icy chill shiver down my spine.

“What? Oh, yes. Technically, it’s his father’s, but everyone keeps it hush-hush. You know, not a good look for his whole ‘man of the people’ political image,” Imogen adds with a smirk. “Hugh and the rest of them use it all the time,” she adds, distracted by something on her phone. “They’re always jetting around Europe. It’s miles better than flying commercial,” she adds. “No waiting around at the airport or dealing with security. We all flew to Morocco for a rally a few months ago, were there and back in a flash. Why?” she asks, looking up.

I gulp. “Nothing,” I blurt quickly. I lurch to my feet. “I, um, I need some air.”

I slip away from the party before anyone notices, hurrying up the staircase, my heart pounding.

A private jet.

Why didn't I think of that before now?

Hugh’s entire alibi for the weekend of Wren’s attack was that he was giving a TED Talk in Sweden. We figured that with the travel, he couldn’t have made it there and back in time. But if he simply had to get to a private airfield to be flown out at his leisure…

He would have had more than enough time to kidnap her from the party and stash her somewhere private, before jetting to Stockholm—and back.

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