What A Girl Wants

Luke opened one eye and peered at her. “You told me we’d decide what to do about Heather and Michael this morning.”

Pretending to ignore him, Jane climbed out of bed and hurried to the bathroom, where she took a quick shower. Heather’s two-timing was the last thing she wanted to think about right now. What was the right thing to do? She couldn’t let loyalty to her sister outweigh basic human decency, but she also didn’t want to meddle in a relationship problem that was too intimate for outside intervention.

Then again, considering what an idiot she’d been recently—carrying on a meaningless sexual fling, pining after a guy who’d turned out to be a bigger jerk than she ever could have imagined—Jane wasn’t sure she could trust her own judgment at all anymore.

After she finished her shower, she toweled off and went to the closet. As she tugged on a pair of black pants, she finally responded to Luke. “If Heather hasn’t told Michael, you think we should, right?”

Luke nodded, his expression sober as he sat on the edge of the bed, gloriously naked.

“Then I will. I’m the one who discovered the affair, so it’s my responsibility to talk to him. But first, I’ll talk to Heather.” Jane’s stomach rebelled at the thought, but Luke was an honorable guy. If she couldn’t trust her own judgment, maybe she could trust his.

Luke stood up and went to her, but she stepped back before he could take her in his arms. “I can go with you.”

“No, that’s not necessary.” She turned back to the closet and grabbed a stretchy T-shirt, then pulled it on. “I hate to rush you out of here, but I have to go.”

His expression darkened. “So this is it?”

“We’ll see each other at the wedding later. We can talk then.” She smiled at him as she slipped on a pair of wedge sandals, but she felt like she’d just stabbed him in the back.

He deserved a lot more than a brusque goodbye as she rushed out the door, but she just wanted to get away before things got any more complicated between them.

Luke was still getting dressed when she tossed him the extra key and asked him to lock up on his way out and give the key back at the wedding. He answered with a silent glare, and she turned and hurried out the door.

Jane sped across town trying to focus on the freshly brewed coffee the salon would surely offer her when she got there, but her thoughts kept volleying between saying goodbye to Luke and having to deal with Heather and Michael. By the time she arrived at the sleek, upscale salon full of stylists dressed in black, she’d decided she would need at least three cups of coffee to survive the morning.

She spotted Jennifer and Lacey undergoing some kind of facial treatment on the spa side of the salon, and as a platinum-blond buzz-cut receptionist led her back to the waiting area, she looked around for Heather, but her sister was nowhere in sight.

“Has Heather Langston arrived yet?” she asked the receptionist.

“No, but she was scheduled for eight o’clock.”

Jane puzzled over her missing sister as she flipped through a Cosmo magazine and pretended to look interested in it. What if Heather had decided to run off with Bradley, or she and Michael had gotten into a big fight, or she had decided to call off the wedding but hadn’t told anyone yet, or—

“Hi, Janie.”

Jane looked up to see Heather standing a few feet away, looking for all the world like a woman who hadn’t slept all night. “Heather, we need to talk.”

Her sister’s expression fell and she nodded as she sat down next to Jane.

“I haven’t tried to stop your wedding yet, but I feel dirty knowing about the affair and saying nothing, when Michael is about to commit his life to you.”

Heather stared at the ground for several moments. When she turned to Jane, she had tears in her eyes. “I love Michael, and I want him to be my husband.”

“You should have realized that before you started screwing his friend.”

Her sister shook her head and buried her face in her hands.

Jane put down the magazine and steeled herself to tell Heather that she was going to talk to Michael unless she did it herself.

But then Heather looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks, and said, “I told Michael about the affair last night, after the rehearsal dinner.”

“How did he react?”

“He’s furious, of course. At first he wanted to break up, but we had a really long talk. Now he’s not sure if he wants to go through with…” Her chin began to quiver and her voice broke. “….the wedding.”

Jane blinked at the news. Heather had just demonstrated a surprising amount of backbone—unless she’d told Michael the truth to ease her own guilty conscience, as was the case with most confessions.