The Guilt Trip(55)

“No,” says Paige brusquely. “You have to think of the bigger picture here. No one will thank you for ruining this wedding. Will and Jack will never speak again. The family will be torn apart. Do you really want to be responsible for that?”

Hot tears spring to Rachel’s eyes and she lets out a sob. “Oh God, this is such a mess.”

Paige pulls her into a hug and rubs her back. “I’m sorry to be so tough, but I’m only thinking what’s best for you. You’re going to put on your stiff upper lip and go out there today as if everything is under control.”

Rachel nods, but her bottom lip is quivering.

“I’m going to be by your side every step of the way,” Paige goes on. “And at the first sign of any trouble, I’m going to step in and deal with it.”

Paige’s palpable loyalty shakes Rachel to the core as she dares to wonder how duped she’s going to feel when she discovers that it wasn’t afforded to her in return.





17



“There you are!” exclaims Jack as he fiddles with the navy-silk cravat around his neck.

Rachel’s insides clench as she looks at the husband she loves in the mirror, unable to imagine how she’ll ever let him make love to her again if she finds out he’s sleeping with Ali. Though, she doubts he will ever want to, if he finds out she slept with Noah, even if it was twenty years ago.

“Here, can you give me a hand with this?” he says.

She walks toward him, her body battling against itself as it sways between wanting to throw her arms around him to beg for forgiveness and wanting to put her hands around his neck to throttle him for being so stupid.

Instead, she ties his cravat and arranges the fabric to sit nicely over his buttoned-up waistcoat. “You look very handsome,” she says, honestly.

“I look like I’m going to spontaneously combust at any moment,” he says grumpily. “Why on earth we have to wear all this ridiculous get-up when it’s so hot out there, I don’t know.”

“It’d be the same if it were a nice summer’s day in England,” says Rachel. “You might even be in a top hat there, so I’d count yourself lucky if I were you.”

“But isn’t that the whole point of getting married abroad?” asks Jack. “It’s supposed to be a more casual affair, with the men in linen suits and the ladies in summer dresses.”

“It’s their wedding,” says Rachel, stepping out of her dress. “It can be however they want.”

“It’s her wedding,” says Jack. “That’s why we have to have all this pomposity.” He shrugs on his jacket, with as much attitude as he can muster, as if the inanimate object is to blame for everything. “If it were down to Will, we’d be barefoot in shorts, drinking bottles of beer by now.” He absently looks at his wrist to check the time, but on seeing his watch isn’t there, looks at her blankly, momentarily stumped.

“Shit, where’s my watch?” he asks.

Rachel’s jaw tenses as she shrugs her shoulders as nonchalantly as she can. “When did you last have it?”

“Well, if I knew that, I’d know where it is,” he says tersely.

He makes a feeble attempt at looking around the room. Rachel follows him, lifting things up, even though she knows it’s futile.

“Do you remember having it on your run?” she asks.

“Mmm, no,” he says, rubbing at his chin. “I used my Apple Watch for that.”

Rachel watches as he goes into the bathroom.

“I definitely had it last night,” he says. “I was wearing it in the restaurant.”

Rachel wonders how it came to be in Ali’s possession between then and now. Had she and Jack got together after Will had gone back to the hotel? After Ali had already been seemingly satisfied in the pool by her husband-to-be. She wonders what time Paige had gone to bed, knowing she wouldn’t have wanted to if it meant leaving Jack and Ali alone together. Perhaps Jack had excused himself first to try to avoid suspicion, and had gone to Ali’s room.

Rachel imagines him lying on Will’s side of the bed, biding his time until he could be alone with his brother’s bride. Would he really be so bold? So desperate to be with her that he’d risk Will’s wrath should he unexpectedly come back. He must have been, because why else would his watch have been inadvertently left there? And why else would Ali feel the need to hide it?

“I’ll look for it,” says Rachel. “You should get up to the hotel, otherwise Will will be thinking he’s been stood up by his best man.”

“Shame it’s not his bride,” says Jack.

He huffs frustratedly as he leans in to give her a kiss. “I’ll see you at ‘the Ali show,’” he says, drawing speech marks in the air with his fingers. “And what a show it’s going to be.”

He says it with such bitterness that Rachel can’t help but wonder if he knows something is brewing. As if he knows that it’s going to be a party that no one’s ever going to forget.

Paranoia seeps through her, like a poison being injected into her veins, as she imagines herself as the star attraction. She pictures Ali standing up to deliver her speech—because there’s no chance she won’t—but instead of thanking her parents and being grateful for Will, her new husband, she points a finger at Rachel and calls her out for having a child with Noah and passing it off as Jack’s. The wedding party will all turn to look at her with sneering derision written all over their faces, but all she’ll see is Jack’s open-mouthed shock as he sits beside her, utterly bereft.