Chapter Two
Molly
Ashburton, England
There were very times in my life that I was superstitious. Today, on my wedding of all days, I believed in those terrifying and gut-wrenching signs. There was an abandoned cemetery next to the church. Many of the headstones had fallen over from years of decaying, like the bodies and coffins beneath.
Alice Jackson, my wedding planner, had insisted that there wasn’t anything left besides the headstones. They had moved everything to a proper place, but I had done my research because I couldn’t shake the feeling off.
The buried dead were unwanted beneath those tumbled headstones. No one ever claimed them, and they were left behind in case there ever was a day that someone wanted to visit. While the church itself was a beautiful wedding venue in Ashburton, I knew it would be a sign of something unpleasant to come.
A soft and warm hand clasped mine. I looked down at the freshly manicured fingers before looking numbly up at Peyton—my best friend, my maid of honor. She knew the meaning of true and hard friendship. That much I was grateful for even after what she told me.
“I’m sorry,” Peyton said, and her perfectly contoured face stretched into a guilty grimace. “I debated on telling you about it—”
“I’m glad you did,” I said, and I was grateful for her honesty. God only knew that I didn’t have much honesty around me. “I was about to marry that douche bag. I’m glad you said something to me about last night.”
“I tried to tell you earlier, too. You were so wrapped up in getting ready. This was the only time I could find you alone without the other bridesmaids around.”
I squeezed her hand. My own bouquet of flowers had fallen to the ground after what Peyton had told me. I picked it back up since they were beautiful flowers. It didn’t seem fair to ruin perfectly good flowers for no reason.
A part of me cautioned to not ask for the details, but I was brimming with disappointment. I needed to know what Peyton had seen specifically.
I traced the soft petals of one of the flowers in the bouquet. “What did you see exactly?”
Peyton sighed as she looked at me sadly. “I couldn’t sleep with the time change, so I went for a walk past the pub. That’s when I saw Harry with her outside. They were kissing each other.” I flinched inwardly. “I was going to confront him, but his groomsmen were there. They were all encouraging it. I don’t know where the best man was, but they went inside. That’s when I went up to the window to watch them disappear upstairs to what I assume was a room.”
“There are rooms you can rent above the pub,” I said, distantly. “They had rented them, so they wouldn’t have to drive around drunk.”
“I guess that’s probably the smartest thing Harry did that night: not drive around these tight streets.”
I smiled a little. It was Peyton’s first time abroad. She hadn’t even batted an eyelash when I called for her to come to England for a week for the wedding. Giving her tours around Ashburton and Devon had provided a distraction from the sick feeling that I was about to make a big mistake.
I stared down at the lacy and white skirts of my wedding dress. There were a few grass stains at the very bottom from walking outside when Peyton had burst into the tiny room to tell me what she had seen.
None of it was that much of a surprise. There were several times I’d had these gut feelings that Harry’s business trips were not just for business. All the wealth and power had morphed him into a complete stranger of a man. I didn’t even recognize the parts of him that I had fallen in love with three years ago.
I had been too afraid to let him go, so when he proposed, I had so naively agreed to it because he insisted that it was for love. In reality, I knew it was because with the more money he made, the higher the taxes, and being married provided a good tax deduction for the both of us. I smoothed a hand through the smooth and elegant braid my hair was pulled into. I found the bobby pin with blue flowers on it and placed it in my lap.
“You don’t seem so surprised by any of this,” Peyton said, frowning. “Did you think something like this could happen?”
I sighed heavily.
“I’ve had my suspicions for a while,” I said. “There were so many unexplainable trips and strange phone calls to our flat at night. I put the pieces together, but I didn’t want to look at the actual truth.”
“Did you ever confront him?”
“Never.” I stared across the old and decayed cemetery. “I wasn’t even ready for marriage in the first place. The more I tried to talk myself out of it, the more loving Harry got about the entire thing.”
“Typical man,” Peyton muttered, cynically. “They want what they think they can’t have, so they do everything possible to get it. Then, they walk all over it with muddy shoes.”
“That’s an accurate description,” I said and wished right there and then that I had a way to escape from the mess that awaited me inside. My parents, Harry’s parents, and our family and friends. All of them were about to be witnesses to a shit-show.
“I can’t go in there to say the wedding is off. I can’t look at people,” I said, grimacing. “My parents—I can just hear them telling me, ‘I told you, Molly. We told you something like this would happen.’”
“I can handle that if you need me to,” Peyton said. “I will let the wedding planner know that the wedding is off. If people ask, I can tell them to ask Harry.”
A smile tugged at the viciousness in Peyton’s voice. Reaching out, I embraced her tightly with a quivering breath. “Thank you, Peyton. I’d seriously be lost without you right now.”
She patted me on the back warmly. “Don’t thank me. I’m your best friend, and I know you’d do the same thing for me if I were in your shoes.” She pulled back to smile at me. “Everything will work out, but I don’t have to tell you that. You already know.”
“I’d like to think I just avoided the biggest mistake of my life because of your great observational skills.”
“I’ve been known to be a great spy,” she whispered and then giggled when I nudged her in the arm. She looked back across the green acreage in front of her. Dark clouds were starting to roll in over the horizon. “I’m glad you showed me around here. It’s beautiful. I can see why you came back.”
Guilt filled me then, thinking of half the family and friends who had saved up for this trip. Flying to England was not cheap, and it was a rather long trip across the ocean.
“I’m sorry you came out here for nothing,” I said.
Peyton looked at me in surprise. “I came out here to see you, so I wouldn’t say any of my time was wasted. I’m just sorry that I have to fly back to the States tonight.” She made a face at me. “Work wouldn’t let me take another day off, so I’ve gotta be back by Sunday.”
“I know. Work never sleeps or takes a vacation.”
“In your case, it should.” I looked away from the landscape at her suggestive tone. “I have plenty of miles racked up now. Come back with me. We can find you a hot American to have a rebound with who’ll instantly make Harry jealous.”
I laughed at the thought. Harry hated American men. He claimed they were arrogant and rude. I didn’t see a difference between them; besides that. Harry was worse at the moment.
“I have to stay here,” I said. “We didn’t book a honeymoon until this summer, so I have to work on Monday.”
“You need to take some time to yourself, Molly. This isn’t something any of us expect you to power through like it was not a big deal.”
“I know. I’ll just work from wherever I go.” I honestly had no idea where I was going to go. Harry and I shared a flat. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him now. He was going to be furious at me for calling the wedding off.
“What about coming back to the hotel with me?” Peyton asked, reading the expression on my face. “That way, you don’t have to face him again. It’d really piss him off if you just left here without saying a word.”
“It would,” I agreed, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up just yet. “I just want some time alone out here to think before I do anything. No one knows we are out here, anyway.”
Peyton stood up from the stone bench we had been seated on. The fabric of her magenta dress shimmered in the sunlight. She looked beautiful, her blonde and fair locks pulled back in a matching braid to my own hair.
“I suppose I will find the wedding planner,” she said. “Then, I’ll make a quick getaway before anyone can question what happened or if I know where you are.”
She winked playfully at me before heading back across the field to the church parking lot. A few wedding guests were congregated outside. I leaned across the bench to peer around the stone wall Peyton had led me to for privacy. I bit the inside of my cheek to contain my laughter when those guests, friends of Harry’s, inquired what was going on. Peyton ignored them. She walked into the church without sparing them a glance.
I leaned back over to sink against the stone wall, not caring if the rough edges snagged the delicate lace and fabric. Three years of my life had gone to complete waste it seemed. I was twenty-seven years old. I was beyond my prime for dating. A part of me even recoiled at the thought of it. My time and energy had been drained by trying to keep Harry in my life.
The town of Ashburton peeked through a valley of hills. I could walk down the road, find a nice place to live, and hide out for the rest of my life while Harry returned to London to an empty flat. Not that he would obviously let it go empty. He’d soon find another woman to bring into the bed we had shared together for years.
Unwanted tears filled my eyes as I gazed down at the quiet town that I had grown to love over the past few months of visiting the venue. I didn’t dare think of what was being said back in the church. There was no doubt that everyone knew that something had happened, but I imagined they were trying to figure it out.
Where’s Molly? What happened, Harry? Why did we come all the way out here for a wedding that no one intended to have?
Footsteps approached from behind. I froze at the sound of them. I couldn’t bring myself to look over my shoulder as the footsteps drew near. My heart pounded as I closed my eyes. Please don’t be Harry. I’ll punch his damn nose in if it’s him.
“Molly?”
I blinked in surprise to hear that voice. Wiping my eyes dry quickly, I looked up to find the last man I expected to see standing there behind the stone wall with one hand resting above my head. My heart did a small start as it always did when I saw him.
It was Alfie, taking a seat next to me—Harry’s best man.