Always the Bridesmaid. Nina Harrington

she was swept up the steps before she knew it. Thereby missing her own big entrance.

      Jared helped Amy stagger through into a narrow corridor packed with anxious and crying women who had jumped to their feet as one, each female fighting to make her voice heard, competing in decibels and speed to get attention. Any attention.

      The noise was deafening.

      Amy squeezed Jared’s hand—a signal to reposition the pillow, which was starting to bulge over her trousers—before stretching up to whisper in his ear.

      ‘Let’s make a deal. If I can persuade Elspeth to give me the box, then I will allow you to help with the wedding. But only on one condition. You do the work yourself. Not your PA, not your events planner, not your brilliant admin team. You. Or is the great Jared Shaw scared of getting his hands dirty?’

      She looked up at him with the sweetest, most adoring, open-mouthed smile, complete with fluttering eyelashes for the benefit of the onlookers.

      ‘Do we have a deal? Squeeze once for yes, and twice for no.’

      Jared tightened his grip on Amy’s waist. The way back to the car was already blocked by a formidable-looking older woman and a younger weeping girl.

      There was no backing out.

      He squeezed. Once.

      Still clutching Jared’s hand, Amy dragged him towards the flustered-looking receptionist’s desk. The pillows and picnic blanket had created a surprisingly effective eight-month baby bump.

      ‘Hi. I’ve heard about Clarissa’s unplanned holiday.’ Amy addressed the girl behind the desk, glancing around the room, taking in the tears and the emotional tension, until every other woman stopped talking.

      ‘My fiancé and I have our wedding next weekend.’ She looked at the stunned Jared and gave him her most adoring smile. ‘This is our last chance before little Jarella is born, so I hope you understand that I have an urgent appointment in—’ she glanced at her watch ‘—three minutes.’

      Before the receptionist could answer, Amy leant backwards and shuffled up to the office door, drawing a red-faced Jared with her. She knocked once, did not wait for an answer, flung open the door, and then closed it behind them.

      A slim, middle-aged woman in a tight pink bouclé suit was crouched down low, her elbows resting on a pink desk. Her head was in her hands, and the desk was covered with yellow sticky notes. A loose telephone lead trailed from her finger. Disconnected. There was a bottle of cream sherry and a small glass by her hand. And not much sherry left in the bottle.

      ‘Hello, Elspeth. Remember me?’

      ‘You can do this,’ Amy said, looking into the terrified eyes of Clarissa’s personal assistant, who was still nibbling on buttery flaky pastry courtesy of Edlers Bakery. ‘You can take over these weddings. You were doing most of the work yourself, weren’t you?’

      Fragments of pastry scattered onto the paperwork as the older woman’s hand paused in midair. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Clarissa was so busy entertaining clients she relied on me to make the actual bookings and talk to the suppliers—like yourself. Boring things like that.’

      ‘Not boring,’ Amy insisted. ‘Important. Especially to the brides-to-be out there with their mothers.’

      Amy sat down next to the terrified woman on a pale pink sofa, and tried to ignore the fact that the icing blobs on the back of her trousers would probably ruin the pink silk.

      ‘You want to be a wedding planner, don’t you? Was that a nod? Right!’ She reached across and took shaking but beautifully manicured hands in her still-sticky, grubby paw. ‘This is your chance. You have the power to give those girls the weddings they have always dreamed of. You created the files. You did that. Not Clarissa. You. Now all you have to do is to convince your clients that it’s business as usual. The plans are in place and on track. What do you say?’

      ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ve only been working here two years. Until then Clarissa organised everything herself. I’ll need to go through each box…’ The panic came back into her eyes as she gasped. ‘The Shaw-Gerard wedding! You’re making the cake! That’s next weekend, and I haven’t even looked at the file. The box is still here. What if…?’ There was terror in the unspoken words as she reached for the box, only to find that Amy had got there first.

      ‘Don’t you worry about that. I’m going to take Lucy’s file home with me. I’ll go through the plan myself, check the details, and meet you back here during the week. Okay?’

      ‘Well, I don’t know. I mean, Clarissa is pretty strict about the files not leaving the office without the client’s permission.’ She paused, gulped, and looked into Amy’s face.

      ‘That’s not a problem. Mr Shaw here is the person who signed the contract—so he is the client, after all.’

      Elspeth looked up at Jared, who was guarding the door, and gave a faint smile. ‘Well, that’s true. We have met before. How about four p.m. Thursday?’

      Amy smiled back. ‘Done. And you can do this. Seriously. You can. You’re the new wedding planner. Ready to face the music? Head up, shoulders back. Show them who is in charge here.’

      She leapt to her feet, helped pull the woman up from the sofa, and watched as she tugged at her pink pencil skirt. With one single nod, Amy took a firm grip on Lucy’s pink-flowered box file, clutched it to her chest, flung open the door with her other hand, and beamed a smile to the cluster of women who leapt to their feet and started crowding in at the door.

      Jared seized the opportunity to take back control of the situation, and he rested his arm lightly on Amy’s back before calling back casually to the terrified-looking PA.

      ‘Thank you so much! We have every confidence in you. See you on Thursday!’

      Amy was so startled that she looked up at him in awe. And in that moment her heart skipped a beat. No wonder Lucy boasted that her brother could charm the birds from the trees.

      He was grinning the kind of grin toothpaste manufacturers would kill for, his white teeth contrasting with his blue eyes against a light natural tan. His mouth creased up at the corners, creating what could almost pass as dimples. If hard-nosed CEOs were allowed to have dimples. She could almost hear the women around her swoon as his gaze fell on the lucky girls at the front of the pack.

      She didn’t blame them.

      Jared Shaw truly was gorgeous.

      And then he did it.

      He casually turned his spotlight smile on her, bent his head a few inches, and kissed her. On the brow. Just a light pressure of hot lips on her skin, before he dropped his arm a few inches lower and stepped forward.

      Her knees turned to jelly.

      She was caught in his embrace with nowhere for her spare arm to go except around his middle, against the fine linen cloth that covered an impressively taut muscular lower back.

      There was nothing for it but to breathe in the aroma that only a man who had been on a hot pavement followed by her hot kitchen at the end of a long day travelling could generate. It was sweet, spicy, and intoxicating.

      For a second—just for one, precious moment—Amy luxuriated in the illusion that they were trying to create and made herself believe that Jared was her fiancé, and she was carrying his baby—that his relaxed lover’s kiss had been real and for her.

      Dangerous. Way too dangerous.

      She forced herself to glance up at that handsome strong face, and the icy-cold realisation that this was a man who could have any woman he wanted sent her tumbling back to earth from dreamland.

      That dream was for other women. That chance had been snatched away from her. She was an idiot for daring to think otherwise. And an even bigger idiot for thinking back to that moment when they’d been getting into the car. The feeling of his warm shirt under the palms of her hands. The beating chest