Through gritted teeth Paige muttered, ‘That’s it. I hereby promise to throw myself upon the mercy of the next man who smiles at me. I need to get myself some man-time and fast. Deal? Deal.’
‘Hold the door,’ said a deep male voice.
He loomed into view—a stranger, his bulk blocking her view of the foyer entirely. Head down, brow pinched into a frown, he stared intently at the shiny smartphone in his spare hand.
As she pressed herself deeper into the small lift her eyes flickered over a well-worn chocolate-brown leather jacket, with dark hair curling over the wool-lined collar, over dark denim clinging tight to masses of muscle, down to huge scuffed boots. Big and brawny, he was, with dark shadowed eyes and stubble long past designer on a jaw that could have been cut from granite.
The raw and unadulterated impact of the man sent her stomach into freefall, and the colour rushed into her skin with a whoosh she could practically hear. She had to swallow down the sudden absurd urge to growl.
Then a husky voice inside her head sent the stranger a silent plea: Smile.
About the Author
In her previous life Australian author ALLY BLAKE was at times a cheerleader, a maths tutor, a dental assistant and a shop assistant. In this life Ally is a best-selling, multi-award-winning novelist who has been published in over twenty languages with more than two million books sold worldwide.
She married her gorgeous husband in Las Vegas—no Elvis in sight, though Tony Curtis did put in a special appearance—and now Ally and her family, including three rambunctious toddlers, share a property in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane with kookaburras, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets and the occasional creepy-crawly. When not writing she makes coffees that never get drunk, eats too many M&Ms, attempts yoga, devours The West Wing reruns, reads every spare minute she can, and barracks ardently for the Collingwood Magpies footy team.
You can find out more at her website: www.allyblake.com
Recent titles by the same author:
THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
THE WEDDING DATE
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
The Secret Wedding Dress
Ally Blake
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For Deb.
For your imagination, your encouragement, your friendship.
And for the bit about the lift.
CHAPTER ONE
PAIGE DANFORTH didn’t believe in happily ever afters.
So it was a testament to how awesome a friend she was that she stood freezing her tush off outside a dodgy-looking Collingwood warehouse in the grey half-light of a misty Melbourne winter’s morning with her best friend Mae who was there to buy a wedding dress.
Wedding Dress Fire Sale! Over 1000 new and used dresses, up to 90% off! read the massive hot-pink banner flapping dejectedly against the cracked brown bricks of the old building. Paige wondered if any of the other women in the line, which by that stage snaked all the way around the corner of the block, saw the irony of the hype masking the depressing reality. By the manic gleams in their eyes they all bought into the fantasy, for sure. Each and every one of them convinced they were the ones for whom the love songs and sonnets rang true.
‘The door moved,’ Mae whispered, grabbing Paige’s arm so tight she knew it would leave a mark.
Paige lifted her long hair out of the way so that she could loop her thick woollen scarf once more around her neck and stamped her boots against the pavement to get her sluggish blood moving. ‘You’re imagining things.’
‘It jiggled. Like someone was unlocking it from the inside.’ Mae’s voluble declaration spread up and down the line like wildfire, and Paige was almost pushed over in the sudden surge of bodies.
‘Relax!’ Paige said, prying her friend’s ever-tightening claw from her arm while glaring at the rabid-looking woman pressing close behind her. ‘The doors will open when they open. You will find the dress of your dreams. If you can’t find yourself a dress in a thousand, then clearly you’re a failure as a woman.’
Mae stopped twitching to glare at her. ‘I should rescind your Maid of Honour duties for that alone.’
‘Would you?’ Paige begged.
Mae laughed. Though it was short-lived. Soon she was jogging on the spot like a prize fighter seconds from entering the ring, her usually wild red hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail, her focus fixed, as it had been since the moment her boyfriend had proposed.
All of a sudden the flaky wooden doors were flung open with a flourish, the mixed scents of camphor and lavender spilling into the air with a sickly sweet rush.
A tired-looking woman in skinny jeans and a T-shirt the same hot pink as the sign above yelled, ‘No haggling! No refunds! No returns! No sizes bar what’s on the floor!’ The words echoed down the narrow lane, and the line of women mushroomed towards the doors as if she’d announced Hugh Jackman would be giving free back rubs to the first hundred through the door.
Paige barely kept her feet as she pressed forward into the breach, and then grabbed Mae by the shoulders as she screeched to a sudden halt. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, waves of women poured around them.
‘Holy moly,’ Mae said.
‘You’re not wrong,’ Paige muttered, as even she was impressed with what she saw.
Sweetheart necklines by the dozen, beaded corsets as far as the eye could see, sleeves so heavily ruched they made the eyes water. Designer dresses. Off the rack dresses. Second-hand dresses. Factory second dresses. All massively discounted. Every last one of them to be sold that day.
‘Move!’ Mae cried out as she came to and made a beeline for something that had caught her now frantic eye.
Paige quickly tucked herself in a corner in the shadow of the door. She waved her mobile phone in the air. ‘I’ll be over here if you need me!’
Mae’s hand flapped briskly above the crowd of heads and then she was gone.
What followed was a lesson in anthropology. One woman near Paige who wore an immaculately tailored suit squealed like a teenager when she found the dress of her dreams. Another, in a twin-set, glasses, and tidy chignon, had a full-on temper tantrum, complete with stamping feet, when she discovered one didn’t come in her size.
All for the sake of an overpriced dress they’d only wear once at a ceremony that forced people to make impossible promises to love, honour, and cherish for ever. In Paige’s experience it was more