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.
No, he’d never been scared of committing to Grace. But he’d been petrified of not being good enough to deserve her. Even now she was gone, the idea of not living up to the man she’d believed he could be kept him awake some nights.
Sometimes, he wondered if it was only Grace’s belief in him, in what he could become, that kept him going after her death. That, and Zoey’s blind determination to drag him out of the pit he’d buried himself in the moment the doctor had told him the news.
But that was him. It was all so different for Zoey. For her, it was the commitment she was terrified of. The idea of forever with one person.
Not that she’d ever told him that. But Grace had tried to explain it to him once, back when they were blissfully happy in their extended honeymoon period, and Zoey had just run out on her latest fiancé.
‘It’s not that she doesn’t want to get married. She does, desperately, I think. It’s just that after so many years of watching her parents perform the perfect How Not to Be a Happy Couple show, she’s terrified of getting it wrong.’
That had been three fiancés ago and now, sitting in a tiny storeroom of a luxury hotel, watching Zoey eye up the too-small window as a viable escape route again, Ash had to admit that his wife had been right. As usual.
Hardly surprising, he supposed. Grace had known Zoey better than anyone in the world. Almost as well as she’d known him.
And now he and Zoey were all that was left, trying to muddle through together. She’d literally picked him up off the floor after Grace was pronounced dead following a frantic ambulance ride from the scene of a multi-car pileup that stole three other lives. In return, he tried to be the best friend he could to Zoey, to make up for the much better one that she’d lost that day.
Some days he was better at it than others. He hoped today was a good day. Zoey looked as if she needed it.
And she was still waiting for him to explain his fears.
‘It never occurred to me not to marry Grace.’ Ash stretched out his legs along the table, turning so he could see Zoey as he 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!