Happily Never After by Lynn Painter EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Lynn Painter
- Language: English
- Genre: Contemporary Women Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 3 MB
- Price: Free
Sophie
THE MOMENT MY dad raised my veil, kissed my cheek, and handed me off to
Stuart, I wanted to throw up.
No—first, I wanted to punch my groom right in his besotted smile.
Then I wanted to vomit.
Instead, I took his arm and grinned back at him like a good bride.
The pastor started speaking, launching into his cookie-cutter TED talk
about true love, and my heart was racing as I waited. I swear I could feel
four hundred sets of eyes burning into the back of my Jacqueline Firkins
wedding gown as I heard nothing but the sound of my panicked pulse
pounding through my veins and reverberating in my eardrums.
Was he already there, seated among the guests? Was he going to burst
through the doors, yelling?
And—God—what if he was a no-show?
The photographer, kneeling just to my right, took a photo of my face as
I listened to Pastor Pete’s love lies, so I turned up my lips and attempted to
project bridal joy.
“You look so nervous,” Stuart whispered, giving me a small smile.
I honestly don’t know how I didn’t throat-punch him at that moment.
“Welcome, loved ones,” the pastor said, beaming at the congregation as
he spoke. “We are gathered here today to join together Sophie and Stuart in
holy matrimony.”
I felt my breath hitch, unsteady, as he kept yammering, leading us closer
to the moment. Something about the twinkling lights and evergreen boughs
that we’d painstakingly selected for our December wedding felt garish to
me all of a sudden, as if the hobo ghost from Polar Express was going to
show up in the back of the church and mock me for my foolishness.
And he wouldn’t be wrong.
Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please, I thought, panic tightening my chest.
With every word the pastor spoke, my anxiety grew.
Stuart squeezed my trembling hand, the ever-supportive fiancé, and I
squeezed back hard enough to make him look at me in surprise.
“Should anyone present know of any reason that this couple should not
be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your—”
“I do.”
A collective gasp shot through the large chapel, and when I turned
around, the man standing up was not at all what I expected. He was big and
tall and impeccably dressed: charcoal suit, white shirt, gray tie, and
matching pocket square. He looked like Henry Cavill’s stunt double or
something, but with darker hair and more intense eyes.
Honestly, I’d imagined he would be a party bro, like Vince Vaughn in
Wedding Crashers, but this man looked more like he belonged in a
boardroom.
“So sorry to interrupt,” he said in a smooth, deep voice, “but these two
should absolutely not be married.”
“Who is that?” Stuart hissed, daring to give me an accusing stare as a
low rumble of whispers emanated from the pews.
“Oh, she doesn’t know me, Stuart,” the man said, looking a hundred
percent comfortable in his uncomfortable role. He raised one dark eyebrow
and added, “But my friend Becca knows you.”
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