‘Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?’ she asked, trying to feel outraged and failing. ‘I mean, you’d let me marry a man who didn’t give me an out on my wedding day? What kind of a friend are you?’
Ash rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, obviously this is my fault. Zoey, you know that if you told me you wanted out then I would get you out—planes, boats and automobiles be damned. But, if you recall, you also told me—quite definitely—when we had dinner last month that David was absolutely the one, and that I wasn’t to let you get cold feet this time, because you’d regret it for the rest of your life.’
Had she really said that? It was hard to imagine somehow, here and now. Impossible to summon up that certainty again—and not because of the island, or his father’s pompous speeches. But because now it came down to it she simply could not picture spending the rest of her life with David.
But she had been able to once. She must have done, to say yes to his proposal. She’d loved him—or believed she did—and had been planning their life together right up until the moment they had arrived in paradise to get married.
People might laugh at her history of running out on weddings—and, yes, there had been a few family members who’d refused to even come to this one, just in case—but when she said yes to a guy on one knee with a sparkly ring, she always, always meant it.
It was just getting from ‘yes’ to ‘I do’ that seemed to cause her problems.
Her whole life with just one person—that was a big ask. And Zoey had seen first-hand what a disaster it could be if she picked the wrong one. Her own parents were a shining example of how not to do marriage.
And then there was Ash.
Ash, her only friend, who had been her best friend’s husband. Ash, who’d had the perfect marriage—until it had been ripped away from him and had left him broken.
Zoey bit her lip, contemplating the question she wanted to ask but didn’t know if she dared.
‘What?’ Ash sat up straighter, watching her. ‘Whatever it is, just ask, Zoey. You know I’ll help if I can.’
He always had. Ash was one of only two people she’d known beyond doubt that she’d always be able to rely on, ever since she and Grace had met him in the student union over a decade earlier. But she didn’t want to hurt him by bringing up painful memories.
On the other hand, she needed to know the answer, if she were to make a real decision about what to do next—not just bash her way through a window and hope for the best.
‘When you and Grace...on your wedding day. Weren’t you nervous?’
Unbidden, memories of that perfect English summer day came back to her. Grace, her best friend since junior school, ethereally beautiful in her delicate lace dress. Zoey’s rose-pink bridesmaid’s dress, a perfect match for the tea roses in Grace’s bouquet. The tiny stone chapel in their home village. The afternoon tea reception on the village green, with mismatched china and bunting strung all around.
And, through it all, Ash and Grace smiling at each other as if their hearts were on show. So in love, so certain that the future would be perfect, as long as they were together.
It hurt now to think of how happy they’d all been, never imagining that it could all be torn away from them in a heartbeat.
‘Nervous?’ Ash shook his head. ‘I was terrified.’
He hadn’t looked it. He’d seemed like a man whose every dream had come true.
If Ash had been nervous, maybe it was okay that she was too?
Or maybe it depended on why. Because Ash had gone through with it. He’d said ‘I do’ and promised his whole life to another person.
And six diamond rings later, that was something Zoey still hadn’t managed.
* * *
Ash took in the look of confusion on Zoey’s face and wondered how he could make her understand, when the depth and strength of his love for Grace had always been something he’d just had to take on faith, rather than pick apart and puzzle out.
He was telling the truth when he said he’d been nervous, but perhaps not in the way Zoey meant the question. It hadn’t been the wedding—all those people there looking at him—that had worried him, or the fear of anything going wrong. And it definitely hadn’t been the concept of marriage itself; the idea of spending the rest of his life with Grace had only ever made him smile.