Leigh smiled again. Though her mother promised to quit smoking nearly as often as she lit up. “There’s other stuff that needs to change, once I’m back.”
Her mother feigned ignorance, fussing with some invisible imperfection in the satin. “Oh?”
“About you and Dad? Maybe going on a trip of your own, away from all this?”
“I don’t know, Leigh. I’ve got a hundred things going on, all that stuff with the charity ball coming up in June.”
Leigh opened her mouth, then closed it, realizing she didn’t have the stamina for this argument. But once she got back from her honeymoon she’d be putting her own marriage first, instead of acting like a smoke screen in theirs. Once today was behind her, she’d be in the clear. Marriage would render her blissfully boring to the press, and she couldn’t wait to fade into obscurity for a year or two, maybe permanently. Fame had never been her dream. Just another role she’d stumbled into, trying to make people happy.
She stared out the huge window across the city. What would Dan be doing, right now? Probably sleeping in, after his bachelor party. Not that Dan was much for getting wasted and crazy. He was a pretty low-key guy. Or he used to be a pretty low-key guy. Who he was wasn’t so clear anymore.
She missed his passion. Their hectic, high-profile engagement had done a number on their sex life, and Leigh suspected he was readjusting how he saw her, no longer his girlfriend, but his soon-to-be wife.
When the fitter got to her knees to fuss with the hem, Leigh leaned close to her mother’s ear to whisper, “I don’t think Dan and I have had sex in nearly a month.”
“You’re very busy people.”
“No one’s that busy. We’re not even newlyweds yet. That can’t be normal, can it?”
“You and Dan aren’t normal people. And Dan is very ambitious. You’re lucky to have such a driven man, Leigh, really. Not like your father—”
“Ma.”
“A lot of girls in your position have husbands who don’t expect to do a thing after they get a nice tight grip on those celebrity coattails. Dan’s not one of them. You’re very, very lucky.”
Leigh knew she ought to feel lucky. The man she was marrying was her best friend. Or had been. She prayed they’d get some of that back, being away from everyone for two weeks. No, they would get it back. She needed to think positive. Still, a bit of reassurance wouldn’t hurt.
When the fitter excused herself to make a call, Leigh thought she ought to do the same. She padded back down the hall to her own room, shut the door and stood before the windows, holding down a button on her phone to speed-dial Dan.
He answered just as she was about to hang up, and his voice alone reminded her to breathe. “Hey, you. What’s up?”
“Hey. I, um… Oh God, I don’t know.” She laughed, already calming.
His tone was warm, but tight as well. “Everything okay? You sound kinda spastic, spazzy.”
She smiled at his teasing. “I guess I’ve got jitters, but I wanted to hear your voice, before I saw you. You know, at the altar.”
“You’re sweet. I’ve got jitters, too. Goes with the territory, right? Especially with the audience we’ve got watching. You’ll be fine.”
Leigh waited a beat for something more—an “I love you,” perhaps. It didn’t arrive, but Dan was stressed, same as her. And like her, he didn’t really know what he was doing. No script, just two young people nervous before their vows. Normal. The thing Leigh ached most to be. She glanced at her ring, its diamond blinking in the morning sunlight.
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks. I just needed to talk.”
“Just breathe, and I’ll see you before you know it. I better go. I’ve got my brother on the other line.”
“Tell him hi. See you soon.”
“Bye.”
Leigh nearly hung up, but after a pause Dan added, “Babe?” He hadn’t called her that in months, and the name flooded her with relief.
She held back an impulsive plea—that they run off and elope, skip all the staged drama. “Yeah?”
“Sorry about that. It was her.”
Leigh’s brow furrowed. “Her?”
Dan laughed. “It was Leigh. She’s got bridal nerves.”
She went dead numb, head enveloped by an echoing, unnatural calm as she realized he thought he was talking to someone else.
“Babe?”
This time the pet name hit her like a slap. “Yeah?” her mouth replied, disconnected from her brain.
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
“No,” Leigh murmured.
“I know right where you’ll be today. Every chance I get, I’ll try to catch your eye. I mean, this might be us in a few years. We have to be patient. If it’s supposed to happen, it’ll happen. You never know.”
The numbness faded, and in its place Leigh felt hot in her dress, constricted, felt tears boiling up to sting her sinuses. Her heart pounded in her ears, loud as a gong. “You never know,” she whispered.
“Don’t cry. I know the timing’s awful, but it’s not like we planned this. It’s worth it, we both agreed. You and me, we’ll have our time. Last night wasn’t goodbye, I told you.”
Leigh didn’t reply.
“Okay? Allie?”
She sucked in a breath. Allie. Allie. Her mind was too blank to supply a face, a remembered mention… not that it would help. “Okay,” she breathed.
“I’ll miss you while I’m away. You know that.”
No words came.
“I love you.”
That did it. Those words Leigh needed so badly, offered to comfort some mystery woman. Some Allie. Her hand shook as she pushed the end button.
She stared at herself in the mirror that ran behind the marble bar, at this stranger with her face, draped in a beautiful dress. Thoughts flashed and jabbed, but the numbness reduced them to abstract concepts. There was an Allie, who’d stolen Leigh’s pet name. Who’d kept Dan from taking Leigh’s call for four rings, on their wedding day.
The shock lifted, and behind the numbness was pure pain, so sharp it seemed her heart must be coming apart, cell by cell. Strange white sequins danced before her eyes and she leaned against the bar, feeling heavy and awkward, as though suspended on strings. The dress was shrinking, an invisible corset binding her too tight to take a full breath. The room blurred, and for a moment she knew it was just a dream. She’d jerk awake and everything would be as it should be, spinning walls and strangling dress all vestiges of a nightmare.
The room did come back into focus. The dress relented enough for her to catch her breath, and the spots abandoned her vision. She pushed up from the bar to find the bride in the mirror peppered with red blotches, eyes wild. Leigh saw only a stranger staring back, a scared woman of twenty-seven as ignorant as she’d been at seventeen, playing dress-up in yet another glittering identity.
She clutched the phone and raised her hand, drew it back… but no. Her posture crumpled. Now wasn’t the time to start smashing up hotel rooms like some out-of-control celebutante. Actually, perhaps this was the perfect time for that, but Leigh wasn’t that girl, no matter what the tabloids yearned to report.
She pressed a palm over her thumping heart, scared by the sheer pain of feeling this angry, this