talked. ‘From the first moment I met her, she was my future. She was all I could think about.’
‘I remember,’ Zoey said, her voice dry. ‘You had to be reminded that you’d actually met me that night too, when you both finally came up for air a week or so later.’
Ash winced. His eighteen-year-old self might not have been entirely aware of other people’s feelings. But Zoey was smiling at the memory, so he figured he must have made up for it in the decade or so since then.
‘So, why were you scared?’ Zoey asked.
‘Because...everything was so perfect. Grace was so perfect. I was scared I’d screw it up. That I wouldn’t be enough.’
‘That I get.’ Zoey pulled her knees up against her chest, her bare toes with their sparkly aqua nails peeking out from under the hot pink dress. Ash spotted her high heels discarded by the door.
She looked about twelve, sitting like that. Ash felt the familiar protective instinct rising up in him. Ever since Grace died, it had just been him and Zoey, looking out for each other. His parents, as much as they loved him, were generally more concerned with Ash’s ability to perform his role in the family business than the state of his psyche, and Zoey’s parents were worse than useless.
Which meant it was up to him to fix the latest twist in Zoey’s romantic life.
Starting with figuring out which side of that window she really wanted to be on.
‘Is that what this is about?’ He scooted closer to sit beside her. The warm breeze from the open window brushed against the back of his neck. ‘You’re scared that you can’t be what David needs?’
If anything, Ash thought it was the other way around. Of all her fiancés, David was his...second least favourite. Not that he was keeping a list. Well, not a written one.
But then, he and Grace had never thought anyone was good enough for their Zoey.
Zoey pulled a face. ‘Not exactly. It’s more... I don’t think that our marriage will be what either of us are hoping for.’
‘But you didn’t feel that way when you said yes to his proposal. Or when you told me that David was different, and that you’d absolutely go through with it and I wasn’t to let you climb out of a window to escape getting married this time.’
‘Hey! I told you. I’ve never climbed out of a window before.’
Ash raised an eyebrow to remind her that the window really wasn’t the point here.
Because this was the part that Ash couldn’t understand. When they’d had dinner a couple of weeks ago, when he’d been home in London between business trips, Zoey had been so certain, so sure of her love for David and their future together, that he’d resigned himself to boring dinners and holidays with the man for the rest of his existence. Because he wasn’t losing Zoey in his life, whatever idiot she finally married.
He’d really thought that this time she’d go through with it.
But maybe that just meant he didn’t know Zoey as well as he’d thought he did.
‘Zoey. Tell me. What changed in the last two weeks?’ he asked.
* * *
What always changes? Every damn time.
Zoey sighed as she tried to find the words. Find the reasons. How could she explain it to him when it didn’t even make sense to her? It wasn’t one thing that had changed. It was a hundred tiny things she’d finally noticed, all building on each other.
‘Nothing. And everything.’ She shook her head to try and clear the whirlwind of thoughts that seemed to have filled it since she arrived on the island. ‘I really thought I could go through with it this time, Ash. That I could make it work. But then we landed here a few days ago to get everything ready for the wedding...and everything started feeling wrong.’ Pit of her stomach wrong. Instincts telling her to run wrong.
She’d always trusted her instincts. Even when they led her into another engagement, or away from another wedding. At the time, they always seemed right.
‘Everything?’
No. That wasn’t fair to David. He was a good man. She loved him. Had loved him. One or the other.
‘Well, little things, I guess. Like suddenly he wasn’t happy with the ceremony plan and wanted to change it—even though it was what we’d both agreed months ago.’
‘Last-minute nerves?’ Ash suggested.
‘Probably. But then I realised, all the changes he wanted to make, they involved me being with him all the time. Every single second. Even tonight, even though he knows my mother will freak out about it being bad luck.’ And even though they were still doing the stupid abstinence thing the ‘engagement counsellor’ he’d hired had insisted on. Zoey hadn’t even realised that engagement counsellor was an actual job, but David had been adamant that he wasn’t taking any chances. Whatever the counsellor had suggested, he’d instantly implemented. Including the no sex for six weeks before the wedding rule.
No wonder they were both so tetchy and stressed.
‘And why do you think that’s bothering you so much?’ Ash asked, sounding eerily like the relationship psychologist her ex-boss had introduced her to after her third near miss with marriage.
Really, with all these marriage professionals in her life Zoey would think she’d have the mental strength and tools to get through an actual wedding by now.
Of course, getting engaged to said relationship psychologist then calling it off three days before the wedding probably didn’t help.
But she was getting side-tracked. This wasn’t about past mistakes. It was about the one she might be about to make. Whichever way she jumped.
‘Because...’ Why was it bothering her? She was marrying the guy, so why would spending time together be a problem?
Then she realised. The reason behind that feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Ash had already told her, but she hadn’t been listening. It was why she was on this stupid island in the first place.
‘Because he’s not doing it because he wants to be close to me. He’s doing it because he wants to stop me running away.’ God, he’d even planned the wedding for unfashionably early in the day to give her less time to bolt.
Zoey bit the inside of her cheek and stared down at her perfectly pedicured toenails. A waste of polish, really, if she didn’t go through with the wedding. Not to mention all the time, money and energy that had gone into the planning. David might not need to worry about money right now—the company wasn’t doing that badly—but Zoey had put her meagre savings on the line again for her dress and shoes, hair, beauty and all the rest. She couldn’t ask her parents to pay for anything again. Not after all the times before. Even if they did seem strangely more enthusiastic about her marrying David than they had about anyone she’d been engaged to before.
She’d skipped a hen night this time—with Grace gone, it felt wrong anyway—and she’d only
