with his customary courtesy, the remaining Belles sighed and looked at each other with a mixture of uneasiness and determination.
“I hope we did the right thing,” Natalie said quietly.
All of the Belles nodded. Not one of them had been truly fooled by Matt’s “kidnap” plan. Things had been strained between Julie and Matt for too long to be fixed with a quick romantic getaway, and Matt was far from stupid.
And they, too, had seen the look in his eyes.
Callie bit her lip. “I know how it feels to be with the wrong man. What if we just helped push Julie the wrong way?”
Audra sighed and looked bleak. Serena frowned, shading her eyes as she gazed after the departing car. “No. She loves Matt. I know she does…”
But her voice lacked its customary briskness and confidence.
Oddly enough, it was Regina, the least confident Belle unless she was behind her camera, who ended the indecision. “If Julie’s lost her faith, girls, we have to have it for her. No fears shown. No hesitation or uncertainty. I nearly lost Dell because of a lack of faith. I kept everything a secret, from him more so than from you, but all of you as well.”
“Me, too, with Kane,” Serena added soberly.
“Pride, fear and embarrassment can be a recipe for disaster,” Audra sighed.
“I believe we all met for a reason, and that Julie came to us for a reason. And I believe it’s partly because of Julie and Matt that we’re all so happy now. It’s our turn to give.” Regina looked around at each of her dearest friends. “I think Belle’s right. If Julie won’t share her worries with us, then we’ll keep throwing her together with Matt and see what happens. And believe the best will happen for them both, because we love them. Now, I don’t know about you girls, but I have a four-thirty about to come in and I have to turn the studio into a Carnivale in fourteen and a half minutes.”
The others smiled at Regina, still with the same uneasiness, but turned and walked into the building.
He was about to lose the entire contents of his stomach. Or maybe it was his heart that was coming up. It sure felt as if it was in his mouth about now.
Despite his plans to win her over, all the things he’d worked out to say, he barely spoke until he took the turnoff to the airport. He couldn’t make the words form. All he could think to say was, Do you still love me? But how could he, when he was almost sure he knew the answer and there was no way in hell he was prepared to hear it?
The clock was ticking. He had less than ninety minutes left to tell her, and trust that she’d be the strong, understanding woman he’d fallen in love with. The woman he’d relied on through the worst time of his life. His beautiful Julie…
“So,” she said, holding her flowers with fingers about to snap the stems, her voice over-bright. “The girls said we’re going to the airport. I hope you had things packed for me? Where are we heading—skiing? The Caribbean islands?” The final two words bordered on sarcastic. Obviously, his silence had given away that this wasn’t the kind of surprise it seemed.
She’d given him the opening he needed, but he refused to jump in and say it, to shock her that way. “Jules, you know I’ve been trying to get you alone since the day after our engagement party. I need to tell you something important, but you’ve been—” he paused so she’d get the full sense of his meaning “—very busy. But I knew you wouldn’t say no to the Belles if they helped me arrange time off for you.”
She flushed, as he’d expected she would. Julie’s honesty compelled her to say what came next. “I know it seems like I’ve been avoiding you…”
“Seems like?” He heard the rip-roaring fury in his voice, and knew it came from months of hurt. “You have avoided me, for almost two months now. You don’t call me or come to see me. When we have to be together, you only touch me in front of the cameras or to reassure your friends.” He held up a hand as she began to speak, her face filled with weary resentment. “And I’m sick to death of hearing that it’s the job. I see the other Belles spending time with their men, so stop making excuses.”
“So you’re more intelligent than me,” she snapped. “I believed your excuses for months on end. And your work never came in a prettier package than Elise.”
He refused to dignify that with a retort. Surely she must know he’d been faithful to her! Her problem had come from finding out about his work arrangements from a stranger. “You’re right about my making excuses. I have done that, but not for the reasons you think.” Once he’d turned onto the freeway leading to Logan International Airport, he said, “Time’s run out, Julie. It’s time for us to be honest—both of us.”
Beside him, he felt her freeze. “So, I gather this isn’t the romantic getaway the girls believed it was when they helped you?”
“No.” He kept his gaze on traffic. “But you already knew that.”
“So you lied to them, to our friends?”
He shrugged. “They drew their own conclusions. I didn’t correct them.”
“Sliding out of the truth is lying in my book,” she said, her tone left sarcasm behind, and headed straight into belligerence.
You ought to know, you’ve been doing it for months, he almost said; but an innate sense of honesty made him admit she was right: she’d only followed his example.
She’d been flashing her anger as bright as sunlight. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. She didn’t want to know. Avoiding him had been all she could do to stop this final confrontation from happening—and time was up. Luring him into a fight was her last stand against the end.
“It wasn’t their place to know, Julie. I had to tell you first. After today, everyone will know anyway.”
The blood drained from her face, making her freckles stand out in sharper contrast. “I see,” she whispered. Her head lowered to where her thumbnails scratched at her index fingers. One of a legion of nervous habits he’d learned to read: she was nervous as hell and hiding it with belligerence.
But why? Why didn’t she take the opening he’d given her, and ask him to stop the car so she could get out, or just throw the ring back in his face?
The Belles. She’s staying in this engagement for her friends’ sake.
Since the Vandiver cancellation, the mammoth event that had gone belly-up without payment, the whole business had been on the rocks. Proud and fiercely independent, the women of The Wedding Belles wouldn’t take a cent from their men to stay afloat. But when it had hit the media rounds that The Belles, in debt themselves, were giving Julie and Matt the best wedding they could afford, Julie Montgomery and Matt McLachlan were suddenly hailed as the love match of the year, and the Belles as “wedding planners with heart.” Since then, brides and their mothers had flocked to The Wedding Belles to book their weddings…but, as ever with this kind of business, payments were slow to come in. They couldn’t afford a single cancellation now.
The Belles couldn’t afford to lose the
