CHAPTER THREE
THERE WAS A weird kind of irony in arriving as maid of honour for your best friend’s destination wedding with divorce papers in your hand luggage. But the one thing Juliette was determined not to do was spoil Lucy and Damon’s wedding day. Well, not just a wedding day but a wedding weekend. On Corfu.
And her estranged husband was the best man.
Juliette sucked in a prickly breath and tried not to think of the last time she’d stood at an altar next to Joe Allegranza. Tried not to think of the blink-and-you’d-miss-it ceremony in the English village church in front of a handful of witnesses with her pregnancy not quite hidden by her mother’s vintage wedding dress. The dress that scratched and itched the whole time she was wearing it. She tried not to think of the expression of disappointment on her parents’ faces that their only daughter was marrying a virtual stranger after she got pregnant on a one-night stand.
Tried not to think of her baby—the baby girl who didn’t even get to take a single breath...
Juliette stepped down out of the shuttle bus and walked into the foyer of the luxury private villa at Barbati Beach. The scarily efficient wedding planner, Celeste Petrakis, had organised for the wedding party to stay at the villa so the rehearsal and other activities planned would run as smoothly and seamlessly as possible. Juliette had thought about asking to stay at another hotel close by, as she didn’t fancy running into Joe more than was strictly necessary. Socialising politely with her soon-to-be ex-husband over breakfast, lunch and dinner wasn’t exactly in her skill set. But the thought of upsetting the drill sergeant wedding planner’s meticulous arrangements was as intimidating as a cadet saying they weren’t going to march in line on parade. Juliette had even at one point thought of declining the honour of being Lucy’s maid of honour, but that would have made everyone think she wasn’t over Joe.
She most definitely was over him—hence the divorce papers.
‘Welcome.’ The smartly dressed female attendant greeted her with a smile bright enough for an orthodontist’s website homepage. ‘May I have your name, please?’
‘Bancroft...erm... I mean Allegranza.’ Juliette wished now she had got around to officially changing back to her maiden name. Why hadn’t she? She still didn’t understand why she’d taken Joe’s name in the first place. Their marriage hadn’t come about the normal way. No dating, no courtship, no professions of love. No romantic proposal. Just one night of bed-wrecking sex and then goodbye and thanks for the memories. They hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers. By the time she’d worked up the courage to track Joe down and tell him she was pregnant, he had insisted—not proposed, insisted—on marrying her soon after. They’d only lived together as man and wife for a total of three months. Three months of marriage and then it was over—just like her pregnancy.
But once Joe signed the papers and the divorce was finalised she would be free of his name. Free to move on with her life, because being stuck in limbo sucked. How would she ever be able to get through the grieving process without drawing a thick black line through her time with Joe?
She. Had. To. Move. On.
The receptionist click-clacked on the computer keyboard. ‘Here it is. J Allegranza. And the J is for...?’
‘Juliette.’ She wondered if it would be pedantic to insist on being addressed by her maiden name while she was here but decided against saying anything. But why hadn’t Lucy told the wedding planner she and Joe were separated? Or were Lucy and Damon still hoping she and Joe would somehow miraculously get back together?
Not flipping likely. They shouldn’t have been together in the first place.
If her childhood sweetheart, Harvey, hadn’t taken it upon himself to dump her instead of proposing to her, like she’d been expecting, none of this would have happened. Rebound sex with a handsome stranger. Who would have thought she had it in her? She wasn’t the type of girl to talk to staggeringly gorgeous men in swanky London bars. She wasn’t a one-night stand girl. But that night she had turned into someone else. Joe’s touch had turned her into someone else.
Note to self. Do not think about Joe’s touch. Do. Not. Go. There.
There was not going to be a fairy tale ending to their short-lived relationship. How could there be when the only reason for their marriage was now gone?
Dead. Buried. Lying, sleeping for ever, in a tiny white coffin in a graveyard in England.
‘Your suite is ready for you now,’ the receptionist said. ‘Spiros will bring your luggage in from the shuttle.’
‘Thank you.’
The receptionist handed her a swipe key and directed her to the lifts across the hectare of marble floor. ‘Your suite is on the third floor. Celeste, the wedding planner, will meet with the bridal party for drinks on the terrace, to go through the rehearsal and wedding timetable, promptly at six this evening.’
‘Got it.’ Juliette gave a polite movement of her lips, which was about as close to a smile as she got to these days. She took the key, hitched her tote bag over her shoulder and made her way over to the lifts. The divorce papers were poking out of the top of her bag, a reminder of her two-birds-one-stone mission. In seven days, this chapter of her life would finally be over.
And she would never have to think about Joe Allegranza again.
