The Wedding Dress

by Lucy Kevin

  Gareth’s chest squeezed tight as he stood there watching her. He had to tell her about the upcoming DNA test. He had to warn her, had to inform her of the kinds of things Richard and Jasmine might come out with when this case went to court…

  And then what?

  Gareth had no doubt that Richard would make good on his threat to sue Cavendish Investigations. He’d likely win, and then both Margaret and Gareth would have to start over.

  And yet, fear of having a lawsuit brought against him wasn’t what stopped Gareth from just walking up to Anne and saying it straight out. If it had just been that, he would have done it in a heartbeat.

  No, what stopped him was the sure knowledge that leaking information to Anne would be breaking the rules. And whatever Gareth thought of Richard Wells—and it wasn’t very much at this point—Gareth had given his word. He’d signed a contract. He’d made a legal commitment.

  Could he go back on that? Even for Anne?

  A few minutes later, when her interview was winding down, she looked up and spotted him. “Gareth! What are you doing here?” She hurried over to hug him hello. “Are you here to take me out to lunch again? It’s a bit early, but I think we’re almost done here, aren’t we, Tessa?”

  The female reporter with her looked Gareth up and down. “Sure, have fun. I think I have everything I need, and I’ll email you if any other questions come up.”

  “So,” Anne said, slipping her hand into Gareth’s, “where are we heading for lunch?”

  He knew he ought to say nowhere. Or that he ought to warn her about the DNA test, rules be damned.

  But right at that moment, with her lips so close to his, Gareth couldn’t think about anything other than how wonderful it had been to kiss her and how much he’d like to do it again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “How did you find this place?”

  The tiny diner looked like it had been transplanted straight out of the nineteen-fifties and seemed to be run by about twenty assorted members of the same boisterous family, all of whom bustled about them.

  “I was walking past one day,” Anne replied, “and everyone inside looked so happy. I knew that it had to be a good place to eat if it made people that happy.”

  Would anyone else have decided to try the food in a diner for a reason like that?

  Only Anne.

  And, he had to admit as he took a bite of his hamburger, the food was pretty good… though it didn’t even come close to matching his company.

  All through lunch, Gareth was mesmerized by every movement Anne made, every elegant gesture, every beautiful smile.

  And there were so many smiles…

  He shouldn’t be taking this day off, especially when he needed to line up more clients in the wake of quitting Jasmine and Richard’s case. So what was it about Anne that made playing hooky seem perfectly all right? And what was it about her that made him smile just watching her talk with the waitress?

  Unfortunately, his smile didn’t last long. Not when he still had to tell her about the DNA test.

  Because all it took was a half dozen of her smiles for him to realize that the nondisclosure agreement didn’t matter. She did.

  Now, the tricky part was finding the right way—and time—to tell her.

  * * *

  Anne laughed while they went to go check on their shoes in the shoe garden, and Gareth told her the story of the first time he’d chased a criminal as a cop, and how they’d both ended up so out of breath he’d barely been able to read the man his rights.

  “You must have been very determined to go after him like that. What had he done?”

  “Actually, he was a shoplifter,” he admitted with a wry twist of his lips. “But he’d broken the law, and I wasn’t about to let him get away.”

  They both laughed then. Gareth was so easy to talk to. They started to walk back to his car and ended up on a park bench, buying bread from a bakery so they could throw breadcrumbs to a small flotilla of ducks that bobbed on the water expectantly.

  The best part was that he always listened so intently. When she started to tell him about different kinds of lace and this lovely little place nearby where she liked to buy it, only to realize that a big, tough private detective probably wouldn’t be interested, he actually suggested that they drop into the store, rather than trying to change the subject as most men would have.

  “I think I’d rather sit here awhile longer,” Anne suggested, sliding her hand into his.

  * * *

  A little while later, sitting on Pier 39, they watched the sun start to fall. It was one of those things Gareth had heard of doing, but who actually did it?

  Anne did.

  She looked as beautiful as ever as she tilted her face up to the sky to soak up the rays of the setting sun. He couldn’t imagine standing and watching a sunset alone, but with her, it actually made sense.

  It was such a small thing, but Anne took those small things and looked at them until she found the beauty in them, and when she did, he could see the beauty too, for the very first time.

  It was almost enough to drive thoughts of the DNA test from his mind.

  * * *

  Anne felt like she was living a fairy tale as she walked along the sandy beach in the moonlight, hand in hand with Gareth.

  It wasn’t just how strong, how steady, he was. No, those things were wonderful, but the best part, the part that made it special, was the fact that he seemed to feel the same way and was content to walk with her in the kind of comfortable silence that lasted until Anne noticed a particularly beautiful shell, or until she wanted to tell him about the time she’d been to the beach with Rose when they were both kids.

  And yet, Anne could tell Gareth was thinking about something as they walked. Something important.

  She hoped he would feel comfortable enough with her to talk to her about it soon.

  * * *

  Gareth whirled round in a circle with Anne in his arms. He still wasn’t sure how she’d talked him into dancing barefoot on the beach with no music. It wasn’t the kind of thing he did.

  Except that here, now, with her, dancing in the sand made perfect sense.

  “That’s it,” Anne said breathlessly. “You just have to listen for the music in the waves.”

  A few minutes later, their legs tangled up, and they tumbled down together on the sand. They were so close now that it was easy to kiss her. Easy and amazing at the same time.

  They held each other like that for long minutes, looking out over the waves, with Gareth’s arms wrapped around Anne as they did so.

  It was perfect. Too perfect to ruin by saying the wrong thing.

  He’d tell her about the DNA test when he took her home. That would be better, anyway, because then he could comfort her in private if the news hit her hard.

  “Would you like to come back to my place for a late-night dinner?” Anne asked, out of nowhere.

  “Your place?”

  Anne nodded. “I haven’t planned anything, but—”

  Gareth cut her off with a kiss. “I’d love to.”

  * * *

  Anne didn’t have anything in her fridge that constituted a romantic dinner, yet she did her best with what she could find, throwing together chicken, rice, and a sauce packet she didn’t remember buying.

  “This is great,” Gareth assured her when he tasted it.

  He was always so kind. As they ate, they talked about their childhoods and tried to outdo each other with silly stories of adventures they’d had as kids.

  All the while, Anne felt as if Gareth was circling around something. She tried to be patient and let him tell her in his own time.

  But was there any chance that he was going to say that he was in love with her?

  * * *

  He had to tell her.

  Gareth had been putting it off all day, but Anne deserved to know about the DNA test.

  He’d do anything to spare her pain. He’d seen how upset she’d been when he’d first com
e to her house, and how happy she’d been after the mediation when she’d thought it had all gone away, yet he couldn’t not tell her.

  Not when it meant that Richard Wells would be able to spring the news on her later.

  Gareth put his fork down, trying to find the words. “Anne, there’s something that I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you all day.”

  “I know you have, Gareth,” Anne said with a wide smile on her beautiful mouth.

  And then she kissed him.

  * * *

  Anne kissed Gareth as passionately as she’d ever kissed anyone, and then she slid her hand into his and pulled him through the living room and up the stairs.

  When she turned back to face him at the threshold of her bedroom, he was looking at her with such hunger that a shiver of need took her over, body and soul.

  She reached up on tiptoe to kiss him again, a kiss that was sweet and tender and wonderful.

  When they pulled back, Gareth looked like he might say something, but Anne beat him to it.

  “I love you too.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Anne woke up to the sun coming through the window of her bedroom, spilling in and over her. Through the window, the sky was a perfect blue, the birds were singing to each other, and the bright green leaves on the trees were dancing in the light breeze.

  Everything was perfect.

  She could hear Gareth downstairs in the kitchen. He’d obviously tried so hard not to wake her, but Anne’s eyes had flickered open the moment he moved from beside her, which had given her a fabulous view of his toned body as he’d dressed.

  Anne went and showered, enjoying the feel of the water on her skin. The way the warmth caressed her skin reminded her of Gareth. Although, she thought with a laugh, the truth was, everything reminded her of him right then.

  Last night had been everything she had always dreamed it might be. Not just physically satisfying but emotionally satisfying as well. There hadn’t been any barriers between them, just so many sweet yet sinful moments where she wasn’t sure where she stopped and he began.

  She dried off, then put on a sky blue T-shirt she’d customized with silver stitching around the edges, and a pair of jeans with extra decorative patches. Every small thing leapt out at her this morning, from just how much she appreciated the old pictures on the wall to how stunning her mother’s wedding dress looked on one of her dressmaking stands in the living room.

  And then there was Gareth. He stood in the kitchen with his back to her, cooking scrambled eggs on the stove. He turned as Anne entered the room, and she was on the way to give him a good-morning kiss when they were interrupted by a knock at the door.

  She was surprised when he quickly moved past her. “Why don’t you go ahead and start on breakfast?”

  Since he had just gone to the trouble of making her breakfast, Anne took her eggs to the kitchen table by the window to eat. They tasted great, just how she would have made them if she’d been doing them herself. Though admittedly slightly less burnt than her usual version of breakfast. She was on her second or third mouthful when the sound of Gareth’s raised voice came to her.

  “I don’t care who you say you are. You aren’t coming in.”

  “You think you can help her hide from this?” another man’s voice demanded in a hard tone. “I was told to deliver this to Anne Farleigh, and you aren’t going to stop me from doing my job.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  Anne shot up from the table, spilling her scrambled eggs as she hurried through to the hall.

  The man at the door was big and tough-looking, dressed in a dark suit and holding an envelope.

  “What’s going on?”

  He started to step past Gareth, but Gareth wouldn’t let him pass.

  “Anne Farleigh?”

  “Yes,” Anne said, “that’s me. Who are you?”

  “My name is Terrence Blithe. I work for Richard Wells, Jasmine Turner’s lawyer. He’s asked me to inform you that Ms. Turner intends to submit to a DNA test proving that she’s Edward Farleigh’s daughter.”

  He threw the envelope to her, and she caught it out of sheer reflex.

  “Those are the details. He’s also told me to let you know that if you don’t agree to take part in this DNA test, he will ask the judge to consider your noncooperation when it comes to deciding how much to award. And that he’ll press for the exhumation of Edward Farleigh to get the DNA evidence he needs.”

  “Wait a minute,” Anne said, staring down at the envelope. She looked back at the man at the door. “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s your problem, lady. Have a nice day.”

  He walked off, leaving Anne standing there, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

  Have a nice day? She’d been having a nice day. The best day ever, and now…

  Her eyes were starting to blur with tears as Gareth put his arms around her and took her into the living room. His voice was gentle. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you, but—”

  “You should have warned me?” Suddenly, Anne felt as if the hardwood floor beneath her was falling away. “You knew?”

  Anne tried to ignore the negative feelings the way she had so many times before in her life, but this time it was like trying to plug the Hoover Dam with her finger.

  She pushed back from Gareth and stared at him like she didn’t even know him. Because right then, she wasn’t sure she did.

  Especially when he said, “Yes, Anne, I knew.”

  “You knew and you didn’t say anything?” Each word felt brittle as it fell from her lips. “How could you let them blindside me like this?”

  “At first, I didn’t say anything about it because I couldn’t. I had a legal obligation not to.”

  “And rules are rules,” Anne said, half turning away from him as she felt the tears starting to well up in her eyes.

  Years’ worth of tears, all the ones she’d managed to hold back through her sheer determination to be happy, rushed at her.

  “I tried to tell you,” he insisted.

  “When? When did you try?”

  “I needed to find a way to tell you that wouldn’t hurt so much, but it was so hard, and I couldn’t figure out how to do it last night. I hoped it would be easier in the morning, that I could find a way to explain it without hurting you.”

  Anne whirled back toward him, her hands balling into fists. “You think that this doesn’t hurt?”

  Oh God, it hurt.

  So much, like her parents had died all over again. For years, Anne had worked so hard to press that pain down, the depths of hurt that drowned her every time she tried to breathe. She’d only managed it by remembering how much her parents had loved one another. By clinging to that knowledge as tightly as she could.

  But it had been a lie.

  All of it.

  Jasmine and her lawyer wouldn’t ask for a DNA test if they thought there was even the remotest possibility that Edward Farleigh wasn’t Jasmine’s father. Which meant that all the time her father had claimed to love her mother so much, all the time their marriage had seemed so perfect, he’d been having an affair with some other woman.

  And had been the father of another little girl.

  “Anne,” Gareth began, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

  “Leave me alone!”

  Anne had wanted to believe that she and Gareth had found the same magical love as her parents. But now she knew that the two of them were just as big a lie as her parents had been. Because the whole time that she was in Gareth’s arms and he was kissing her and sharing her bed, he’d known what was going to happen.

  In her rush to get away from him, she crashed into her mother’s wedding gown on the dress stand.

  Wedding dresses were a symbol of two people promising to love one another. Promising to be faithful to one another. Anne had made her living stitching together a symbol of perfect love, but now she knew that love was the biggest lie of all.

  “I hate this stupid
thing!”

  She tore the dress from the stand, wanting to tear it into rags, then burn those rags like the meaningless scraps of fabric they were. Her fingers ripped at it, pulling apart seams and opening up lines of stitching like wounds.

  And yet, none of it, none of the mess she’d just made of the once-beautiful dress, looked as bad as she felt right then.

  “Anne! What are you doing?”

  He caught her arms and pulled her back from the dress, holding her against his chest.

  Anne fought to break free from him. She wasn’t going to let herself cry in his arms the way she had before. And she definitely wasn’t going to let him promise her that everything would be all right.

  Nothing was all right…and wouldn’t ever be again.

  “Let. Me. Go.”

  “I know how upset you are right now,” Gareth said as she pushed away from him, “but don’t keep destroying your mother’s dress. Not when I know how much it means to you.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Anne snapped back, letting herself lash out for the first time in her life. “I was stupid enough to think I loved you, but love is just a word, isn’t it? Just something people say to try to feel better about their pointless lives.”

  “That’s not what love is,” Gareth insisted.

  “No, you’re right,” Anne said. “Love isn’t even that, because it doesn’t make you feel better. It just tears you up inside.”

  Gareth reached out to put his hands on her waist and wouldn’t let her evade his touch no matter how she tried. “You have to keep believing in love.”

  “Why should I, when it’s just another lie?”

  “Because love is real.”

  “And how could you possibly know that?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Because I love you.”

  A part of Anne wanted so desperately to believe him. Because if she could believe in his love, then maybe…