do!’ Dylan muttered darkly but very distinctly. ‘You’re making a terrible mistake!’
They’d heard.
Not the whole congregation, but the ones who counted. Annabelle’s mother and Annabelle herself. Alex. The celebrant. The bridesmaid and the best man. The first two rows of guests. Lord, had he said it that loudly?
Apparently.
It didn’t help that the little boy had suddenly gone quiet. A plastic lollipop stick protruding from his mouth explained this unlikely development.
Dylan began to sweat. Again.
Alex and Annabelle had both turned in his direction. Alex was looking slack-jawed and appalled, Annabelle startled and bewildered. The bridesmaid was gulping in air, and had a hand pressed to her ribcage. The best man was staring in horror.
Even Annabelle’s little boy was watching him, happily sucking on his lollipop, while ‘Gwanma’ looked as if she had fully expected some kind of ghastly last straw at some point during the afternoon, but hadn’t thought it was going to be this.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dylan barked. Instinctively, he stepped forward. This was another mistake. He was standing just a foot or two from Annabelle now, and right beside her. ‘I didn’t mean it.’ But he had meant it. ‘It was…’ a moment of indulgent madness ‘…a joke. It was nothing. Please, uh, carry on.’
Alex wasn’t buying it. The slack jaw had hardened. The washed-out complexion had refined to white around his nostrils.
‘A joke?’ His voice rasped. ‘That’s ridiculous! People don’t joke in the middle of a wedding. You have a reputation as a loose cannon in some circles, Dylan, and I’ve chosen to ignore it, but this…What do you mean by it?’
He looked from Dylan to Annabelle and back again, and the action seemed to link the two of them together, standing shoulder to shoulder, as they now were.
‘Dylan? Annabelle?’ His voice rose.
It was obvious that he suspected an affair. Annabelle had gone bright red. The first two rows of guests were watching in strained silence, like the audience at an amateur play in which the cast have forgotten their lines. Further back, there was whispering, as those who hadn’t heard Dylan’s words tried to fathom what was going on. On the string quartet’s dais, the cellist let her fingers slip and the strings of her instrument squawked.
‘Nothing,’ Annabelle said. ‘Nothing, Alex.’ She clasped her hands together. The gesture could have meant either ‘Believe me’ or ‘Forgive me’. Dylan knew it was the former, but Alex clearly wasn’t so sure.
Taking another edgy step forward, which brought the billowing skirt of Annabelle’s dress washing around his trouser-clad legs, Dylan said, ‘Really, Alex, I’m sorry. I know what you’re thinking and it’s my fault, but, no, it’s…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Nothing like that.’
Annabelle’s bridal fragrance enveloped him, evocative and sweet.
‘It isn’t, Alex. Honestly,’ she echoed. Shaking, she laid a hand on her groom’s arm. From this perspective, Dylan could see the slope of her right breast where the neckline of her dress gaped a little with her movement. Too many heartbeats passed before he looked away. ‘You can’t possibly believe—’
‘It doesn’t matter what I believe,’ Alex said. ‘It’s what other people believe, and it’s fairly obvious what they’ll believe about this!’
‘Garbage!’ Dylan put in helpfully.
‘Then, please, let’s just…get on with it,’ Annabelle begged, ignoring him. ‘The way you’re reacting is only making things worse. People are whispering, and—’
‘Oh, it’s my fault?’ Alex’s nostrils flared again.
‘No, I’m not saying that, but—’
‘It’s my fault,’ Dylan interposed. ‘That’s clear. Annabelle’s right. Please, just get on with it.’
But Alex had a look on his face now. It happened in surgery very occasionally if he was tired and absently asked for the wrong size of clamp or something. Most surgeons would simply correct themselves and go on, but Alex could never do that. He would doggedly proceed with a piece of equipment that was less than ideal, rather than lose face by admitting to a mistake. Fortunately, he was a good enough surgeon to carry it off, but this wasn’t surgery, this was his wedding.
For heaven’s sake, get over it, Dylan wanted to tell him. Don’t lose your sense of proportion. But he knew it was already too late.
‘No, I won’t get on with it,’ Alex said coldly. ‘Are you coming, Peter?’
‘Yes,’ said the best man, who had to be Alex’s younger brother. He blinked, like an animal caught in a bright light. ‘Yes. Right. Of course.’
Without another word, Alex spun neatly around, strode down the centre aisle and out the glass door through which Dylan had entered just a few minutes earlier. Peter hurried after him. In the dead silence that had now fallen over the assembled guests, just two sounds could be heard—the squeak of the door as it swung closed again, and the lusty sound of one little boy slurping on a red lollipop.
The silence didn’t last for long.
In seconds, the sound of voices had swelled from a buzz to a roar. Annabelle’s silk skirt swished against Dylan’s legs again as she whirled to face him. She was furious.
‘Why did you do it? A joke? You can’t think I’ll swallow that! It was malicious! You know Alex as well as I do, Dylan Calford. You must have known he’d take it as a personal insult or worse. Why did you do it!’
In hundreds of hours of working together during surgery, Dylan had never seen her brown eyes blaze that way before. Her chest was heaving. The dress had slipped a little, and one creamy shoulder was bared. Her cheeks were still fiery red. She looked electric and wild and more stunningly attractive than he’d ever have thought she could…but, then, he’d never seen her dressed for her own wedding before. A dangerous new awareness stirred inside him.
‘Why?’ he echoed. ‘Why?’
As fast as a computer scanning its hard drive, he ran through all the possible placatory falsehoods at his disposal and rejected every one of them. He was left, therefore, with the bald truth, so he said that, aware even as he spoke the words of how inadequate they sounded.
‘Because I knew you wouldn’t be happy.’
Annabelle was not grateful for the insight.
In a low voice, she said, ‘I wanted this marriage. I needed it. I was going to give up work and take Duncan out of child-care. He hates it, and it’s not good for him. I was going to spend more time with my mother, who isn’t well, who isn’t going to get better, and who needs me, too.’
‘Is that what marriage is—?’
She rode right over the top of him. ‘I was going to relax, for once, with a man I respected and cared for—care for—at my side, a man who’s made it clear that I’m important to him, and that we can create a good
