I blinked and looked away.
He looked particularly amazing today. His long-sleeved shirt was rolled up to reveal his muscular forearms, his hair just alittle too long, so that it brushed his collar, and his beard was a few days past needing a trim.
My hands itched from the need to sink my fingers into his hair. I clenched them into fists and squared my shoulders. It didn’t matter how delicious Mike looked; I wasn’t going to drag him back into the role of carer. So I spent the rest of the rehearsal ignoring him. I assumed that once we’d finished, I could just shoot off back to London.
What I didn’t factor into the equation was my interfering stepmother.
“Right, darlings,” Margot said as we walked out of the church. “As we’re all here, we can sort out the outfits in one fell swoop. So I’ve arranged for us all to have the fittings now.”
Before I knew it, all the cars had filled up with people, and the only space left for me was with Mike, who looked unreasonably smug about this turn of events. It was only when he noticed my hands shaking as we drove away from the church that his smile dropped.
“Vicky, love,” he said softly, his voice full of concern. “If it’s too much for you, I can drop you at Buckingham Manor. You don’t have to?—”
“S-stop looking after me, Mike Mayweather,” I snapped.
He let out an actual growl of frustration as his jaw clenched and his knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.
“What if Iwantto look after you?”
I shook my head. “You should find an appropriate woman who does not require that,” I told him.
“I could bloody well murder that mother and sister of yours,” Mike said in a furious voice, and I frowned in confusion.
“What have they got to do with this?”
“Everything,” he said. “They’ve got everything to do with it, and you’re too brainwashed to see it.”
“I am not brainwashed,” I said, totally affronted. “I always approach everything with rationality and reason.”
“Not us, you don’t,” he said darkly. “When it comes to us, you’re the most illogical woman I’ve ever known.”
With that cryptic statement, Mike parallel-parked us outside the shop, stormed around to my side to open my door, and then ushered me inside with his hand on the base of my spine whilst I tried not to cry at how much I’d missed that.
To my relief, the men were sent to one section of the shop, and the women to another.
When Lucy tried her dress on for us, I kept my mouth firmly shut. I did not want a repeat of what happened at Claire’s wedding dress fitting, when the only thing I could come up with about the dress was that it looked itchy.
But it had looked itchy! It was pure lace. I hadn’t been able to see anything else about the dress other than the itchy factor.
But, to my surprise, this time, it was very different. This time, when I saw the lace trim on Lucy’s dress and could think of nothing else, Claire had come up to me and given me a firm side hug.
Lucy noticed and got off the pedestal arrangement they’d set up for her to stand on to come over to me.
“I know it looks itchy, but the lace is actually really soft.” She paused. “Want to try feeling it?”
Slowly, bracing for the scratchiness, I ran my finger over her collar and blinked. Itwassurprisingly soft. I smiled at Lucy.
“You do look beautiful,” I said in a quiet voice. “And you know that’s the truth, because I never lie.”
“Thanks, hun.” She beamed at me. “Now it’s your turn.”
When the shop assistant wheeled in a rack of bridesmaid’s dresses, I started to feel sick. They all had labels, there was tulle and lace, and all manner of scratchy materials.
I took a step back but ran into what felt like a brick wall.
“No lace, no seams, no labels, none of that floaty stuff,” snapped Mike from behind me, and my eyebrows went up as I jumped forward, away from him.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped at him.
