Enlightened (Untwisted Series Book 4)

by Alice Raine

  Spluttering out a laugh Rebecca flushed bright red and shook her head, ‘No!’ To be honest, I doubted Nicholas would need extra action in that department, from the chats Rebecca and I had shared about their sex life I knew it was very healthy and very regular. ‘He just said he’d do it for me,’ she said with a shrug, which was really rather sweet. ‘He lasted longer than I’d expected too. But it wasn’t as fun as it could have been if me and you had gone together.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m gutted I missed it too. Still, look on the positive side, I bet this shop is a much calmer buying environment than the wedding fair was?’

  Nodding her head Rebecca gave me a knowing look, ‘God, yes. It was absolutely rammed. I’m surprised Nicholas even ventured through the doors, to be honest.’

  ‘I doubt Nathan would have,’ I pondered out loud, which for some reason made Rebecca completely stop her search and turn to me as she cocked her head curiously. ‘Do you think you and Nathan might get married one day?’

  That was the question I just knew Rebecca had been dying to ask me for months, but my responding head shake was immediate and definite. ‘No chance.’

  Frowning slightly, Rebecca moved closer, out of earshot of the assistant who was helpfully waiting to carry our choices to the fitting rooms and no doubt enjoying listening in to our gossip. ‘That sounds like a very sure answer. Why not?’

  I couldn’t really describe it out loud, especially not given our surroundings and possible audience, but for some reason marriage to Nathan just wasn’t that big a deal to me. I had his necklace after all – his collar that claimed me as his – which was an ultimate show of commitment from him. I very much doubted he’d ever want marriage, but as long as he wanted me, I didn’t really mind.

  ‘You know Nathan, he’s not exactly the marrying kind.’ I said instead, trying to keep it brief. As one of my best friends Rebecca knew a lot about my relationship with Nathan; she knew that there was still a Dom/sub side to our lives, but I didn’t think she’d like or agree with the collar around my neck, so I hadn’t told her the significance of my necklace. When she’d commented that I always wore the same one I’d simply brushed her off with the excuse that Nathan had given it to me and it was one of my favourites. Which in essence was the truth, so I wasn’t technically lying to her.

  ‘And you’re OK with that?’ she asked, sounding more curious than pitying.

  Nodding, I smiled reassuringly, ‘I am. More than OK. What we have together suits both of us pretty perfectly.’

  Watching me thoughtfully Rebecca continued to chew on her lip before eventually smiling too. ‘Well, that’s all that matters then.’

  Just as I was about to tell her that I was now seriously considering moving in with Nathan, we were interrupted by the door to the shop banging open loudly and Louise bursting in from the frosty day outside. ‘Don’t panic! The cavalry has arrived!’ she announced, practically launching her handbag onto a chair and ripping her winter coat off with a flamboyant tug at the belt.

  For a second the shop assistant looked a little taken aback, but ever the professional she quickly hung up Louise’s coat and set about pouring some more champagne.

  ‘If anybody knows their Prada from their Primark it’s me! Not that I could afford Prada, obviously. But still, the knowledge is there!’ Smiling broadly, Louise gave us both a hug and then accepted the glass of champagne from the shop assistant with a yelp of joy. ‘Oh! Fizz, how lovely! So, what have I missed?’

  ‘Not much, we only just got here five minutes ago,’ Rebecca said as she turned back to the rail full of dresses.

  ‘Is your dress here so we can see it?’ Louise asked keenly, which was something I’d been dying to know too.

  ‘Oh yes! Is it? I can’t believe you bought it without us!’ I joked playfully.

  Smiling shyly, Rebecca shook her head. ‘I know, sorry, girls, but when Mum came down the other weekend and we saw it here I instantly knew it was the one. It’s off having the length altered at the moment, so it’s not here, but you should be able to see it at the next fitting.’

  ‘I can’t wait that long!’ Louise moaned with a mock pained expression.

  Grinning, Rebecca rolled her eyes at Louise’s dramatic outburst. ‘It’s quite classical in style, fairly simple, so any design of bridesmaid dress should match. Basically as far as today goes, it’s a blank canvas, I want dresses that you will both feel comfortable in, something long and straight-ish perhaps, and if possible a colour that I can tie in with the table decorations and flowers.’

  Sipping on her champagne Louise nodded. ‘Got it. Any colour preference yet?’

  ‘Well, I’m having cornflowers in my bouquet, so blue would be OK. We also picked roses, Stephanotis, freesias, and Lisianthus, but they’re all white, and obviously we’re not having white bridesmaid’s dresses!’ Rebecca said with a grin. ‘Anything that goes with those colours … I suppose silver? Or perhaps we could do the powdery, light coloured dresses that are all the rage, you could both have different if you like, powder blue, yellow, or pink?’

  ‘Please not that washed out pale pink!’ Louise pleaded dramatically. ‘It was all the rage in the eighties and it should have bloody well been left there!’ My eyebrows rose in curiosity at her tone and Rebecca rolled her eyes prompting Louise to explain. ‘When I was a kid I was bridesmaid three times in three months for various aunties and uncles, and all three dresses were hideous, huge, and that colour, so I now have a photo album full of me looking like a marshmallow fairy and an understandable dislike of the colour.’

  Visions of Louise dressed up in a huge pink dress sprung to my mind, followed by several choice jokes, but before I could select which one to crack, Rebecca laughed and then spoke again. ‘OK, no pale pink then. Start having a look through, see if anything takes your fancy, girls.’

  The next ten minutes were spent mostly in silence, with an occasional ‘What do you think of this?’, and then Rebecca finally turned and announced it was time for Louise and I to do some trying on. ‘Let me just get this last one …’ Louise mumbled. She was half-buried in a rack of dresses and obviously fumbling around for something right at the back.

  ‘Oof!’ Finally she came stumbling free holding the most hideous dress I’ve ever seen, and believe me, as a child of a wannabe hippy I had seen some really hideous dresses on my mother over the years. ‘Ta-da!’ she exclaimed with obvious pride as Rebecca and I simply stood there staring at her as if she had gone completely nuts.

  ‘But … I mean … it’s … it’s … cerise pink,’ Rebecca finally stuttered in total astonishment. The meringue bottom to the dress was pretty spectacular too, and definitely worthy of comment, but I guessed Rebecca was opting to deal with one thing at a time.

  ‘It’s just perfect!’ Louise sighed happily. Nodding solemnly she stroked the dress lovingly and sighed again. ‘We said no pale pink. Well, this might be pink, but it certainly isn’t pale.’

  She had that right, the ‘thing’ in her hands was practically fluorescent. I thought I’d gotten to know Louise and her tastes fairly well in the recent weeks of helping with the wedding preparations, but apparently there were certain nuances to her style that I had missed. Her taste for neon clothing being one of them.

  ‘I … um …’ Rebecca was floundering for words, but to be honest, so was I. Blinking several times Rebecca turned desperate eyes on me. ‘Stella, what do you think?’

  Backing up I raised my hands defensively and shook my head rapidly. ‘Oh no, no, no, you’re not turning this on me! It’s your wedding, you decide!’

  Thankfully, before Rebecca had the chance to say anything else, Louise dissolved into a fit of giggles, doubling over and laughing so hard that tears were soon streaming down her reddened face. ‘I’m kidding!’ she panted between wheezy laughs. ‘But oh my God, it was worth it … your faces are priceless!’ Feeling a grin slip to my lips I joined with Louise’s laughter, massively relieved that I wouldn’t have to wear the cerise fluff mountain a
fter all.

  ‘Thank God for that!’ Rebecca said on a near-hysterical giggle. Louise was still laughing and wiping tears away from her eyes and in the background the poor shop assistant was looking slightly put out. Perhaps the dress was one of her favourites. Or perhaps she was rapidly beginning to understand that her peaceful morning was quickly disintegrating into giggly, crazy chaos.

  Once we’d agreed on our favourites the immeasurably patient shop assistant sorted out the gowns for us to try on, and after topping up our champagne – maybe she was hoping the alcohol would numb us into calmness – she ushered us through to the changing rooms and then left us to it.

  ‘Which one first?’ I asked Rebecca expectantly, secretly hoping she’d say the gorgeous midnight blue one. It was slinky, stylish, and utterly gorgeous. Definitely my stand out favourite from the bunch.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Rubbing her chin Rebecca assessed the selected gowns again. ‘I know Nicholas mentioned that he wouldn’t mind a silvery grey colour theme to the wedding, so let’s start with the silver one that you spotted, Lou.’

  I hid my slight disappointment with a smile. I suppose the silver dress was beautiful too, so I grabbed one in my size and stepped into a large cubicle. Looking around my eyes widened – there was a sofa and a side table in here with me, adorned with a stunning vase of flowers. Wow. I suppose the changing areas here needed to be big because they catered for brides as well as bridesmaids, but this was pure luxury.

  Assessing the design of the dress I decided that sliding into it from the bottom was the easiest option, and miraculously I managed to get my arms and head up through the underskirt and two layers of thin silk without any mishaps. Judging from the giggles and grunts coming from the cubicle next door, Louise wasn’t having quite as much luck. Stepping out into the main changing area Rebecca looked over me and raised her eyebrows in pleasant surprise. ‘Ooooh! I like it!’ she said, almost skipping around me to check out the back view.

  ‘How you doing, Lou-Lou?’ Rebecca asked, circling me again with a growing look of pleasure on her face. ‘It looks great on Stella, we just need you to match and we might have found our dress on the first try!’

  There were several more huffing noises from behind the curtain to Louise’s cubicle. ‘Well, girlies.’ Grunt. ‘If it’s a show stopper you want.’ Grunt. ‘Then this is the dress.’ With a whoosh the curtain to Louise’s stall whipped back and Rebecca and I were met with the sight of her standing there, hands on hips, bright red in the face, hair all over the place, and most obviously, with her bra clad boobs on full view squashed up outside the top of the dress. I looked at her cleavage again to check that what I was seeing was correct, but it definitely was. Her boobs were outside the dress.

  ‘What can I say?’ Louise said with a shrug as she blew some wayward hair from her face, ‘My tits are clearly too boobylicious for this dress.’

  Simultaneously Rebecca and I burst into laughter until we were clutching at our sides and clinging to each other for support. ‘Wanna know the best thing?’ Louise said over our giggles, ‘I’m stuck tight like a frigging sardine so we might have to buy this bloody thing anyway.’

  By this point Rebecca had a hand shoved between her legs and was practically hopping around the room, ‘Stop! Stop! I’m gonna wet myself laughing!’ she cried desperately as a knock on the changing room door instantly silenced us all.

  ‘Alright in there?’ The voice of the shop assistant calling through the wood was tinged with disapproval, making us all grin and slap hands over our mouths and stare at it like three naughty schoolgirls about to be caught out smoking a cigarette behind the bike sheds at school.

  ‘Everything OK, ladies?’ the assistant called again. Rebecca was frozen by the wall, still with one hand over her mouth and the other clutched at her crotch, Louise was standing there stuck in her dress and clutching her boobs like they were going to fall off, and I was clamping my lips together to stop myself laughing and digging my hands into my hair, because quite frankly I didn’t know what else to do with them. Waving her hands like an out of control windmill, Louise frantically indicated for me to go and help her. I dashed over and began desperately tugging at the dress to try and free her more than abundant cleavage, while Rebecca flashed us a comical expression and cleared her throat. ‘Everything’s fine, thanks!’ she called, her voice high-pitched and slightly manic, which only set Louise and I off sniggering again.

  After a five-minute team effort of tugging and coaxing the material over Louise’s curves we finally had the bloody dress off of her and back on the hanger only looking marginally out of shape. Puffing out a breath I leant back on the wall. ‘That was more exhausting than a run!’ I quipped. At least I wouldn’t need to go on the treadmill later.

  ‘Well, that’s one design out.’ Rebecca said, giving the dress another amused glance. ‘Let’s try the blue one, it has a zip and it’s a little roomier up top.’ She lifted down the dress that had been my favourite from the start. Taking the hanger from her I almost pranced back into my cubicle in my eagerness to try the fabulous dress on.

  The dress slid on like a glove and I stepped out to let Rebecca do it up for me before turning to the full length mirror on the wall.

  ‘Oh!’ It wasn’t just my voice, expressing a happy exclamation, Rebecca and I had spoken almost in unison as we stared at the beautiful dress now clinging to my body. It was strapless, hugging my torso tight and then falling to the floor in looser folds. It had to be said that the colour looked pretty amazing against my blonde hair too. We were joined then by Louise, who had a similar look of wonderment on her face as I quickly helped her with the zip before swivelling her towards the mirror.

  The three of us stood there gazing at the reflection of the beautiful gowns. All it needed was Rebecca to be in her dress and the scene would be set. Hearing a sniff by my left ear I turned to Rebecca and saw her eyes welling up. ‘These are the ones, girls,’ she murmured happily. ‘I know Nicholas wanted a silver theme, but I think he’ll be just as happy with navy blue. Let’s get the woman to properly size you up.’

  Nine – Rebecca

  Today called for my extra special new shoes. They needed to be comfy, while also utterly fabulous to look at, and they needed to match a black outfit – luckily this pair ticked all those boxes. The reason for my all singing, all dancing new shoes? Today was my hen-do, and I was so excited I’d barely managed to eat my breakfast. Nicholas had also hardly touched his toast this morning, but his loss of appetite was because he was in a bit of a sulk about the prospect of me being out all day and night without him, something I found rather over the top, but had so far refrained from commenting on.

  Admittedly it was perhaps a little early to be having my hen-do because we still had nearly four months until the wedding next March, but after initially setting the hen do for the end of February I’d had a phone call last month that had changed all my plans and forced me to drastically shift my hen-do forwards. One of my oldest and closest friends Fiona – best buddies since our days at nursery – was heading off to Indonesia after Christmas and was going to be away for a full year working in an orphanage. She’s a doctor, a very well respected paediatrician at Great Ormond Street, and had been practically begging for the sabbatical needed for her trip, so when her hospital had finally agreed to the placement she couldn’t turn it down or try to rearrange just for little ol’ me.

  We’d both been so disappointed when she’d told me that she was going to miss the wedding that we’d spent an entire evening in a cocktail bar drowning our sorrows and crying our eyes out, but when I’d told Stella the following day she thought for a few seconds, then simply suggested moving the hen-do forwards so at least Fiona could be involved in that. As soon as she’d said the words I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself. There had been no reason not to – there wasn’t a chance I was changing my mind about the wedding, so really it didn’t matter when I had the hen-do.

  After Stella had spent so long changing the arra
ngements so Fiona could be accommodated, I’d then spent the last few weeks thinking that my chief organiser herself wouldn’t be able to come. The flu Stella had suffered – a ‘super flu’ according to her doctor – had really run her down for nearly three full weeks in the end, and as the date for the hen-do crept closer and closer I’d started to really panic. Luckily Nathan had picked up some antibiotics from the pharmacy, which had perked Stella up within a few days. Last weekend’s dress shopping trip had been her first real excursion out of the house since her illness, and after no adverse side effects from the exertion she had announced herself recovered. Nathan had been a wreck during her illness, poor guy. He might not vocalise his emotions much, but it had been clear for anyone to see how worried he’d been about Stella.

  So now here we were, the day of my hen-do, just after two p.m. on the first Saturday in December and we’d been picked up in a flashy long limo that comfortably seated all six of us – me, Stella, Fiona, Louise, and two of my other closest friends. As well as being roomy, the car had its own very well stocked mini-bar and sound system pumping out some brilliant music, and we were on our way to the first surprise stop of the day. I had no clue about Stella’s plans for me, but I didn’t care; I was surrounded by friends, we were all in fabulous moods, and that was all that mattered.

  Stella had us all chinking our glasses together as she raised a toast to “a fabulous friend, fabulous day, and fabulous wedding” which had me blushing with embarrassment, and then our limo set off. The driver didn’t rush to the destination though, instead opting to take us on a route around Hyde Park and Regents Park whilst we sang along to classics by Wham!, Take That, and Mika and drank two glasses of deliciously fruity Pimm’s. Once we had drunk the jug dry and were well and truly in the swing of things we finally pulled up outside The Ritz where Stella informed me that we had an afternoon tea date in the Palm Court. Afternoon tea in The Ritz – how exciting, and what a great start to the proceedings!