Hopelessly Devoted To You - Jill Steeples

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If her mum were here to talk things through then maybe she wouldn’t be struggling with these doubts.

      Was she looking for something that didn’t even exist? Waiting for something that was never going to turn up? Something ridiculously unattainable? That whole bosom-heaving, heart-swelling, pulse-racing gig was the stuff of soppy romance novels and made-for-TV movies. And what she had with Finn was much more solid and dependable and long-lasting. And the only reason she’d found herself recoiling from his touch these last few weeks and avoiding staying over with him was because of all the pressure she’d been putting herself under just thinking about the wedding. And marrying Finn.

      That would be it.

      Absolutely.

      Only that wasn’t her only problem.

      If agreeing to marry Finn was her biggest mistake, her second big mistake was admitting the tiniest of her doubts to her best friend, Laura, who had no intention of letting Ruby off the hook quite so readily.

      ***

      Ruby didn’t dare count the number of missed calls, unanswered emails and ignored texts she’d had from Laura in the past few weeks. They had been easy-ish enough to ignore, but now that Laura was banging loudly on Ruby’s front door at nine-thirty on a Thursday night, threatening to camp out in the communal hallway if she had to, she knew she couldn’t put off the inevitable moment any longer. She pulled open the front door and plastered a big smile on her face.

      ‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ Laura said, narrowing her eyes in a look of admonishment as she breezed past Ruby and into the kitchen. She deposited the bottle of wine she’d been clutching onto the worktop, pulled open a cupboard, finding two glasses, and proceeded to peel off the foil. Talk about making yourself at home.

      ‘No, I haven’t. It’s just that I’ve been incredibly busy. With work and the restaurant. And…you know, with everything else that has been going on. It’s been manic.’ If she didn’t mention the wedding then perhaps Laura wouldn’t either. Maybe that whole topic would slip their minds this evening.

      ‘Obviously! Too busy even to remember about your best friend in her moment of need. For all you care, I could have been shipped off to the white slave trade tonight or murdered even!’

      ‘Oh, God! I am so sorry. Was it tonight? Your date? How did it go?’

      ‘Terribly! Thanks for asking. I was ready to leave after ten minutes, but it didn’t matter because I thought my friend would come to my rescue and ring me at the prearranged time. How wrong can you be?’

      ‘I am so sorry,’ she said again, groaning. ‘It completely escaped my mind.’ That was the one text she had replied to, the one from Laura asking if she’d call her at eight p.m. to give her an escape clause from her latest date. After a series of bad experiences, Laura had decided she needed a get-out-of-jail-quick card and had enlisted Ruby’s help. Only Ruby had let her friend down big-time. She’d been so preoccupied with her own love life she hadn’t given a second thought to Laura’s, which was struggling to even get off the ground.

      ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Laura, seeing Ruby’s horrified expression. ‘I told him I was about to throw up—that’s always a good one! He couldn’t get rid of me fast enough after that.’ She sighed, a rueful smile on her lips. ‘I could do with this though.’

      She handed Ruby a glass of the wine she’d just poured and took a sip of her own. Ruby took a much larger mouthful than was probably necessary and wandered into the living room before sinking down onto the sofa. Laura did the same, sitting on the armchair opposite, her pert bum perched on the edge of the seat as though she didn’t actually intend staying. Or as if she was about to fire off a hundred pertinent questions. Ruby sighed, knowing it was probably the latter.

      ‘So, how did things go with Finn? I’m guessing you still haven’t told him?’

      No chance of that slipping their minds, then.

      ‘Huh?’ Ruby developed a sudden fascination with her cuticles.

      ‘Finn! The wedding? Remember? The last conversation we had, you said you were going to tell him the wedding was off. Have you forgotten that? Or are you telling me I just imagined that whole conversation?’

      ‘Oh, right, yes. That conversation! I do remember that.’ She shifted in her seat and took another glug of wine just so as to avoid Laura’s penetrating gaze. A small pathetic laugh escaped her lips and she waved an arm in front of her face in what she hoped was a nonchalant gesture, although she suspected it only made her look as manic as she was beginning to feel. ‘That…that was just a few last-minute nerves. I’m sure that’s perfectly normal. I suspect lots of brides-to-be have a bit of a wobble, some doubts as to whether they’re doing the right thing or not. All perfectly normal.’

      Laura sat back in her chair and dropped her head back onto the cushion, a huge sigh escaping her lips. Ruby felt one of her own rise in her chest.

      ‘Come on, Ruby. This is me you’re talking to. You don’t need to put on an act, pretend everything’s okay, when we both know that it isn’t. Don’t tell me you’re actually going through with the wedding, after all?’

      ‘I am, yes! Why shouldn’t I?’ she said, with a spirited show of defiance. ‘I’m a very lucky girl to be marrying a man like Finn.’

      ‘You know why not! Because you don’t love him. You’ve admitted it yourself. It’s just wrong, very wrong to marry someone you don’t love. It’s not fair on Finn and it’s not fair on you.’

      ‘Well, I’m sure I’ll get to love him.’ Ruby tried hard to ignore the stirring of disquiet in her chest. She shifted in her seat, grabbing the cushion from behind her and clutching it to her stomach. ‘Finn is a very lovely man who just so happens to love me. He will make a wonderful husband and father. What’s so wrong about that?’

      ‘Nothing would be wrong with that. If you felt the same way about him too. But you don’t. And you’ve been with Finn for, what is it, a zillion years? If you haven’t fallen in love with him yet, what makes you think you’re ever going to fall in love with him? How long are you prepared to wait, Ruby? Six months? Six years? A lifetime?’

      ‘Does it have to all be about love, Laura? Finn is a great guy, caring, loving and generous. We get on fantastically. He’s got a great career, with a great future ahead of him. We want the same things from life, we’ve had that conversation, the whole marriage and babies thing, and we share the same values. We are a match made in heaven. Some things transcend love, you know? We’re singing off the same song sheet. Isn’t that enough?’

      ‘Well, it might be.’ Laura shrugged, her mouth curling in distaste. ‘I know it wouldn’t be for me because I’d want to know that the person I was marrying loved me just as much as I loved them. Now it may be that Finn would still want to marry you knowing that you don’t love him in the same way, but I do think he has the right to know the truth about your feelings. Don’t you?’

      Ruby felt her skin prickle with shame under Laura’s intense steely-eyed gaze. Tears stung her eyes. Her heart pounded in her chest, reverberating in her ears so loudly she thought her head might explode. If she could just close her eyes and shut it all out. Everything: her own tormented thoughts, Laura’s accusatory words running around her head and Finn, oh, God, the image of Finn’s smiling, unsuspecting face taunting her mind. She clutched her hair in fists, the pain at her temples a welcome distraction.

      What kind of person was she? To go ahead with a wedding just because she was too lily-livered to do the decent thing and tell her fiancé she didn’t know if she loved him. Was that it? Was she prepared to go ahead and marry a man she didn’t love simply because she didn’t want to lose face in front of Finn and all her family and friends? It looked as though she might be.

      If she broke off the engagement, she’d be vilified, she knew. Ex-communicated. She might need to get away for a while, lie low until all the fuss had died down. But she couldn’t imagine a time when that would happen. No one would understand why she didn’t

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