Redeemed By Her Innocence. Bella Frances

eyelashes, all while Martin looked miserably at his salad.

      She felt more and more desperate and in a haze of self-pity she began to cast around the room, looking for Tim. At the back of the hall she found him, his once boyish good looks now paunchy, his blonde hair thin.

      He could have been her husband. They could have been sitting together at that table, waiting to collect awards, gossiping about how everyone was fawning over Nikos Karellis. At one point any other future would have been completely unimaginable.

       Jacquelyn Jones not married to Tim Brinley? Don’t be ridiculous—it’s written in the stars...

      But strangely enough she didn’t feel wistful. And she didn’t blame him for the mess of Ariana. She blamed herself. Funny how a crisis could put everything into perspective. And this was a crisis. For all she played it down with everyone, especially her parents, she was in a full-blown state of emergency.

      She pushed the food about on her plate, unable to eat, and words seemed to stick in her mouth like cardboard. All she could focus on were the minutes ticking by and the location of Martin Lopez.

      She sat through the tables being cleared, the lights being dimmed, and then the award hosts, two TV presenters she recognised from a breakfast show, arrived on stage to start the ceremony.

      And then in a never-ending series of announcements and applause she sat through the awards, from Best Florist to Best Accessories, Best Cake to Best Make-Up, Best Venues to Best Stylist. When the Best Photographer names were called out, she prepared herself.

      Suddenly there was the image of the winning photograph. A bride and groom on a horse. It was Tim’s—it had to be. He loved to ride and he loved to use the riding motif in his photographs. It looked so phoney to her now.

      The compère boomed out his name.

      As the crowd burst with applause, she lifted her hands from her lap and tapped them together briefly. Most people wouldn’t know what he’d done to her, but some of them would, and she couldn’t let herself down by acting so childishly.

      She forced herself to watch him accept his award, and she realised then that there was nothing there now other than the memory of a man she’d once loved, an outline of something once vivid. A bare-branched tree in winter, once so full of leaves.

      She had so much more to worry about now.

      The final award was Best Wedding Dress, and to announce it Nikos Karellis bounded athletically to the stage.

      ‘He was her tennis coach,’ she heard the woman beside her whisper.

      ‘Ooh, he could coach me in anything he wanted,’ said someone else, and giggled.

      Jacquelyn tried not to roll her eyes, but she couldn’t help looking closer, measuring his stature with her own innate sense of proportion. He was quite physically perfect. Exceptionally physically perfect. In the pit of her stomach something awoke, a swirl of longing, a primal feeling that tugged and shocked her, and she squirmed and moved in her seat. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but everyone’s face was turned to the stage, eyes wide with interest.

      The finalists were announced. The winning dress displayed on the screen and then the flushed and jubilant face of the designer, a pretty brunette. Nikos delivered the glass trophy, kissed her warmly on each cheek and gave her an affectionate squeeze.

      Nice, thought Jacquelyn.

      She had barely had a peck on the cheek in the three years since Tim. She was never the most physical person, but she liked affection, as much as everyone else. She liked being held close; she liked her hair being stroked and all the intimacy that came with being with someone you cared for.

      Another wave of self-pity washed over her.

      Was she destined to be single her whole life? Would she ever meet someone else?

      She looked around the room. She might not be the youngest person here, but she was almost certainly the only one who was still a virgin.

      She wondered if anyone knew. Sometimes she felt as if she were wearing a sign. And sometimes, there were moments she wished she could just go out and find someone and have sex and be done with it.

      Those months after Tim left she’d tortured herself thinking she’d been wrong, stupid, blindly falling in with Nonna’s views, not thinking for herself. She’d almost considered tracking him down to tell him she’d changed her mind. But he’d gone. And that was that. And now she was glad. She really was.

      The ceremony was over. The audience was applauding. The final comments were being made. Some people had already started to move. The lights came up. She spun back round to see if Martin was still there, but he’d gone.

      She threw down her napkin and pushed back her chair. It caught on the carpet. She struggled to right it as she looked up. Where on earth had he gone? Everyone was heading off to the bar, but where was Martin?

      Panic gripped her. What if she lost sight of him? What if he disappeared and she couldn’t find him?

      Then she saw him, heading off in the opposite direction. She picked up speed, almost stumbling over the parquet dance floor in her heels, desperate not to lose sight of him. But then suddenly from nowhere Tim appeared!

      ‘Jacquelyn, wait,’ he called, and he reached a hand around her arm.

      She turned, confused, wondering what on earth to say.

      The days she’d spent longing for the tiniest glimpse of him, five seconds of his time so that they could ‘work it out’. Yearning to see his face, feel his hands, just be in the same room as him, again.

      Now all she felt was embarrassment. All she could think was that he was holding her back from the one thing she had come here to do.

      ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ she said, tugging her arm away. His face, the one she had once thought handsome, twisted as if she had slapped him.

      ‘I know this isn’t the right time,’ he said, grabbing for her arm again, ‘but you have to know that I’m really sorry about the way I treated you. I’ve grown up, I’ve moved on...’

      ‘Look, I’m not interested.’

      People were crowding at the opposite doors; thankfully no one seemed to be looking this direction. But he was right in front of her, blocking her view of the door to the hallway where Martin had disappeared.

      ‘I thought I could do it but what you wanted was unnatural, Jacquelyn,’ he whispered. ‘I’m a man. I have needs and you wouldn’t listen.’

      ‘We made a promise!’ she hissed. ‘You never once said that you couldn’t do it. Instead you just vanished! So you’ll have to live with that. Now let me go, I’m in a hurry.’

      ‘You made the promise for both of us. Your martyrdom is wasted, you know. That whole “pure as the driven snow” act is so last century.’

      ‘Look, get out of my way. I couldn’t care less what you think.’

      She tried to step past him, but someone else was there.

      ‘Is everything OK here?’

      A deep Australian drawl, a strong unflinching presence.

      ‘I’m trying to find Martin. Is he still here?’ she asked desperately, smoothing her hair. The last thing she wanted was him to hear any of this.

      Nikos’s eyebrows were raised over dark eyes that flashed concern.

      ‘I need to see him.’

      ‘Yes, he’s here,’ he said, and he came towards her, reading the situation with a frown. Then he turned to Tim, bearing down on him with his six-foot stature.

      ‘Don’t you know any better than to crowd a woman?’ he said, stepping further into the space, his body telegraphing masculinity, strength, power, the like of which she’d never experienced