Last-Minute Bridesmaid. Nina Harrington

      She had made her delivery. Her job was done.

      The moment her legs started working again she could take off back to the studio and lock the door and laugh about what a silly teenage crush she had once upon a time on a man who turned out to be not worth it after all.

      This was so totally crazy it was mad.

      Heath had never looked on her as anything else than Amber’s funny little school friend. Someone he had never taken seriously. Someone he humoured because he loved Amber and wanted to make her happy.

      Part of her respected that.

      Shame that the rest of her wanted to get home as fast as she could and cry her heart out over a bucket of ice cream.

      This was not just futile but ridiculous and pathetic. She had finally had the rose-tinted spectacles whipped from her eyes so that she could see Heath for who he was and not the boy she had kissed on her doorstep all of those years ago.

      Strange. She should be used to being disappointed with men, but she had always hoped that Heath would be different. That he would be the caring man that Amber adored.

      She had dated fashion designers, artists and musicians who all claimed to be creative and experimental—but in the end they all turned out to be bland and conformist, too willing to change their ideas to fit in, and she had walked away from every one of them.

      Hoping for something better. Hoping for someone who liked her exactly the way she was and loved what she did and did not want to change her or ‘shape her talent’ as one agent had called it.

      No, thanks. She decided what she did. She set the standards and followed her dream and nobody, not even Heath, was going to stop her from keeping her fashion designs alive.

      No. She would stay as she was. Amber’s little friend. That way, Heath would never know how much effort it took for her to get back to her feet and look at him crossing the room through the raging sea of confused emotions and regret that were still roiling inside her.

      ‘Fine,’ she replied, and folded the tissue paper over the dress, closed down the lid on the box and popped it under her arm before staring up into his face with a clear serious expression. ‘I’ll take this dress. But you have to understand something. This might be your father’s third marriage, Mr Sheridan. But this will be my fifteenth. Yes, that’s right; so far fourteen brides have trusted me to be creative with their wedding garments and by the end of the season that will be twenty.’

      She took a tight hold of the box, which seemed outrageously large compared to her tiny frame. ‘You know where to find me if you change your mind. Good luck on the big day. You’re going to need it. Because right now your precious girlfriend Olivia doesn’t have a bridesmaid dress—and try explaining that to the bride. End of.’

      And with that she turned on her heel and walked straight out of the door, her hips swaying, her high-heeled boots clicking on the hardwood floor and her seriously annoyed nose high in the air.