will she ever be the bride?
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
“I’LL go to the bridal show,” Serena James announced. “I’ve always wanted to visit Seattle.”
Not that she cared where she went as long as she could get out of town.
Four of her coworkers at The Wedding Belles, a Boston-based full-service wedding planning company, turned surprised looks in her direction. Oops. Serena tried not to grimace. Had she sounded too enthusiastic for a woman with a devoted boyfriend?
“That is, if no one else wants to go,” she added with a forced smile.
“Well, darlin’,” Belle Mackenzie, owner of The Wedding Belles, purred in her distinct Southern drawl. A beautiful woman with coiffed silver hair and a generous glossed smile, she gave the best hugs this side of the Mason-Dixon line. “That’s sweet of you to offer. We do need a little positive publicity after the Vandiver wedding cancellation fiasco, and the show’s sponsors would be delighted to have one of the country’s up-and-coming wedding dress designers fill in at the last moment.”
This was going to work. Satisfaction filled Serena.
“But you usually avoid bridal shows,” Belle continued. “Are you sure about this with all you have going on?”
“I’m sure,” Serena answered, hoping to sound willing but not desperate. “Besides, there really isn’t anyone else.”
Belle drummed her French-manicured nails on the mahogany table. “That’s true. We all seem to have an extra serving or two on our plates.”
“Well, whoever goes to Seattle—” Callie Underwood, florist extraordinaire, brushed a lock of dark blond hair off her face “—I want them to take my wedding gown to the show.”
The other women gasped.
“You’re getting married in just a few weeks,” Belle said.
“November 22 to be exact, as Jared keeps reminding me, but we need to show brides that The Wedding Belles is still one of the premier wedding planning companies in the country, if not the world,” Callie explained. “That means showing off what we do best, everything from Natalie’s delicious cakes to Serena’s stunning designs. Serena’s entire spring line is beautiful, but my custom gown is her latest and most exquisite creation.”
“But it’s your wedding dress,” Serena said. “I made it to fit you, not some size zero model. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to risk getting makeup or runway stains on the silk.”
“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t display the gown on a mannequin in the booth.”
“What if something happens to the dress?” Regina O’Ryan, a gifted photographer, asked.
“Nothing will happen to it.” Callie winked across the table. “Isn’t that right, Serena?”
“Not if I’m the one who goes to Seattle.” Serena appreciated her friend’s vote of confidence. She wouldn’t let Callie down. “I’ll make sure the dress comes back.”
“Seattle is on the other side of the country.” Regina, her brown eyes as bright as the flash on her ever-present camera, leaned toward her. “Did you and Rupert have plans for that weekend?”
Serena gritted her teeth at the mention of her boyfriend’s—make that ex-boyfriend’s—name, but her smile remained steadfast. “He’s been traveling a lot himself. He won’t mind.”
At all.
She hadn’t spoken to him in months. Not since he’d dumped her in April after The Wedding Belles’ assistant, Julie Montgomery, had announced her engagement to Matt McLachlan. Serena still hadn’t figured out how to tell people.
Things like this didn’t happen to her. Serena lived a charmed life. She was used to getting what she wanted. She’d wanted to get married and start a family. She’d thought she’d found the right guy except that she’d been too focused on the end result to realize he hadn’t been so right after all.
“We don’t have any plans,” she added.
“You got the last good man, Serena,” Natalie Thompson, a young widow with mischievous eight-year-old twin girls, said. The petite blonde sighed. “After Julie, Callie and Regina. Pretty soon, we’ll have another Belle’s wedding to plan. I can already guess the cake you’ll want. Chocolate with orange-flavored fudge filling.”
The baker, who called herself a cake fairy, brought in slices for the Belles to try every time she made samples for brides to taste. That Natalie remembered her favorite flavor touched Serena.
“And I know the flowers.” Callie’s green eyes twinkled like the white mini decorator lights she used with yards of tulle and garlands of blossoms. “White dendrobium orchids, green roses, green cymbidium orchids and white and green parrot tulips.”
White and green. One of Serena’s favorite color combinations. She shouldn’t be surprised. Callie knew her tastes so well.
A cake. Flowers. Serena’s friends had her perfect wedding figured out. The only thing missing was…the groom.
A weight pressed down on the center of her chest. She thought of the nearly completed wedding dress hanging in her hall closet. Okay, she had been foolish, tempting fate by starting on the gown before she had a ring. But who could blame her?
Her relationship with Rupert Collier had proceeded right on schedule. They’d dated a year, met and liked each other’s families and talked about the future, about creating a family together, which was what Serena wanted most of all. Becoming engaged had been the next obvious step. She’d started work on her wedding dress because she’d wanted time to get every stitch and every detail exactly right. She’d chosen the fabrics and design with the same care with which she’d chosen Rupert Collier. Not only smart, gorgeous and rich, but also ideal husband and father material. Everything she’d been looking for in a man, everything her friends expected her boyfriend to be, everything her parents wanted her to marry.
Until, impatient for a ring after dating exclusively for so long, she’d brought up the M-word. Marriage. And suddenly her perfect boyfriend wasn’t ready for a serious relationship. He’d accused her of being too selfish and too self-reliant to make a permanent commitment. Oh he’d wanted to keep seeing her, she remembered bitterly. They looked good together and his boss liked her. But
