The Wedding Invite (Lakeview) (Lakeview Contemporary Romance Book 6) (28 page)

“
I
’ve always known
,” Laura repeated wearily slumping down on one of the kitchen chairs.

Helen stood rooted to the spot, unable to meet her friend’s eyes.

“Did you think really that Neil – my
husband
– would have hidden something like that from me? What kind of a sap do you think I am – both of you?”

Nicola tried to make amends. “Laura, it was nothing, really. I saw the whole thing – it was a long time ago …”

“I know,” Laura said wearily, her head in her hands. “I know all about it. Only unlike you two, Neil thought enough of me to tell me. What kind of a relationship did you think we had? Neil loves me; there was no way he would have kept it a secret from me. Helen, I’ve known since the very beginning.”

Just then, the door from the dining-room opened softly and Neil popped his head around it. “Is everything okay, love?” he asked.

Helen looked guardedly at him.

“Everything’s fine,” Laura answered stonily, not taking her eyes off Helen.

“Well look, the lads and myself might pop down to the local – get out of your hair for a while, okay?” he said softly.

“Okay,” his wife gave a tired nod as the door closed after him.

Oh no, Nicola thought. She should have told Laura at the time. She wanted to but it wasn’t her place and she had been torn …

N
icola remembered
the whole thing as clearly as though it happened yesterday. It was Christmas – not long after Jamie had abandoned Helen and six-month-old Kerry. Nicola was living in England at the time. She had come home to see her family, mostly to convince them she was doing OK, but also to attend a New Year’s Eve party at what had been Laura and Neil’s old rented house in Rathmines.

There was quite a crowd, and everyone had been drinking heavily with the exception of Nicola, who that night was feeling particularly sorry for herself. New Year’s Eve was often a very lonely night for single people, especially newly separated single people. Laura went to bed early while Neil stayed up mingling with the guests.

Despite her recent pregnancy, Helen looked absolutely stunning. She had a salon tan, and was wearing a jaw-droppingly sexy, gold, knitted dress, which clung to every curve and emphasised her newly flat stomach. Every inch the social butterfly, Helen flitted teasingly from one man to the other, flirting madly all night.

Feeling a bit of a headache and deciding she might just go to bed early, Nicola made her way to Laura’s spare bedroom, trying to remember if she had left her overnight bag there or in the living-room upon her arrival earlier. The party was already beginning to break up and she suspected Helen might have left already, as she hadn’t seen her in a while. Nicola opened the bedroom door and, switching on the light, stopped short.

There, on the bed, bodies moulded tightly together and kissing passionately, were Helen and Neil.

“What the …?” Nicola couldn’t contain her anger. “What the hell do you two think you’re doing?”

Eyes glazed, Neil sat up and, horrified, looked drunkenly at Nicola and then back to Helen. Immediately he pushed her off him. “Oh,” he gasped, “oh no, Nicola I … it’s not what you think … I would never –”

“Not what I think? Then what is it, Neil? Because I sure as hell don’t know what else it could be.”

Helen rolled onto the other side of the bed and casually rested her head on her elbow, watching Neil flounder.

“Nicola, I swear to you – I just don’t know what happened … I –”

“Get out of my sight, Neil,” Nicola ordered, ignoring his pleas. “I want a word with Helen.”

Neil stayed rooted to the spot.

“Out, Neil – now.”

“OK, OK, I’m going but …” He stood up and, quickly buttoning up his shirt, he looked directly at Helen. “There was nothing …”

Nicola flashed him another look and Neil bolted, swaying slightly as he went. Her hair and clothes greatly dishevelled, Helen swung her legs off one side of the bed and the two friends faced one another, daggers clearly drawn. Helen didn’t look in the slightest bit guilty – in fact Nicola thought she looked almost triumphant.

“What the hell are you playing at?” she spat, when Helen didn’t say anything. “Laura is your friend.”

Helen waved a hand in the air. “Laura, Laura, Laura,” she slurred. “Seems poor old Laura is just as messed up as the rest of us.”

“What?”

“Well, look at how things turned out,” she said, as if it all made perfect sense. “Y
ou
get messed up by Dan,
I
get messed up by Jamie – now we’re
all
quits.”

Nicola was so angry at her she could hardly speak. She knew Helen was finding things hard in the last few months but to deliberately …

“You’re telling me that you set out to seduce Neil tonight, just to get back at Jamie?”

“Nope.” Helen slumped drunkenly back onto the bed. “To get back at Laura.”

“What? But why? What has Laura ever done to you? She’s your best friend, for goodness sake.”

“Oh, she’s so bloody perfect.” Helen hissed, sitting up. “Everything always goes so well for our Laura. She has her nice little job, and her nice little boyfriend and she never loses her temper, everyone loves her and I’m just so bloody sick of it.”

Nicola resisted the urge to strangle her. “Just because you’re jealous of Laura, just because your life is a mess right now doesn’t mean that you can go around messing things up for her. She loves Neil and, despite what I saw just now, I’m sure he loves her too. What kind of a person are you, Helen? If we all went around doing things like that, just because our own lives weren’t going according to plan –”

What had happened to her? Was she so full of bitterness towards Jamie that she was no longer able to feel compassion for anyone else?

Helen had given her a look that would cut diamonds before picking up her shoes and exiting the room.

Things changed the next day though. The next day, a clearly mortified Helen turned up at Nicola’s parents’ house in Crumlin.

“I’m sorry,” she bawled, a sleeping Kerry in her arms. “I don’t know what I was trying to prove. I didn’t want to hurt Laura … I was just so lonely and screwed up and … I’m sorry for what I said about you.”

Nicola wasn’t having any of her self-pity. “Just promise me that you will never
ever
do anything like that again. Grow up and start taking responsibility for your actions. You’re an adult, and now you have a child to look after.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m just finding it hard. I miss him so much, and I’m terrified that I won’t be a good mother.”

Nicola had sat Helen down and told her that it was early days, that she had just been through a tough time, that she was still in mourning for Jamie and that everything would eventually fall into place.

And, Nicola thought, it had. Helen seemed genuinely contrite, had afterwards stayed away from Neil and Laura, and began to pick up the pieces after Jamie’s departure. Neil had phoned her too, beside himself with remorse and begging her not to think badly of him.

Nicola had agonised for a while, but eventually decided not to tell Laura anything about that night, perceiving it to be a drunken lapse by Neil, who in fairness was pretty out of it and suffering badly now as a result.

There was no point in upsetting Laura by telling her that her best friend and her boyfriend had had a drunken, meaningless fling on New Year’s Eve. Not wanting to think about what might have happened had she
not
interrupted them, Nicola had thought it the right thing to do.

Apparently, Neil hadn’t felt the same way, yet the thought had never crossed Nicola’s mind that he would come clean with Laura. She had always thought he would be much too afraid of losing her. Yet now that she thought about it, it wasn’t too surprising he had confessed. Neil Connolly was a kind decent man, who was prepared to sacrifice his relationship, and possibly Laura’s trust in him by being honest with her. Although, she had had her doubts, and it had taken her some time to trust him after that night, Nicola now had to admit that he had behaved admirably.

N
ow Laura looked
at them both, her expression stony. “I know you two thought ‘Oh poor Laura, we’d better not tell her, she couldn’t handle it – no need to upset her.’ Why does everyone think that? Why is Neil the
only
one who gives me any credit? You,” she said, pointing at Helen, “my supposed best friend tried to undermine my relationship like that and, Nicola, you knew about it but never told me.”

“Laura, it wasn’t like that,” Nicola began. “We were only trying to protect you …” She trailed off when Laura held her hand up.

“I’m sick of it,” she said. “I’m sick to the teeth of it all. Why does everyone think I need protecting?”

“But at the time …”

At the time, Nicola had been placed in a horrible position, dealing with doubts in her mind about Neil, trying to cover up for Helen and feeling bad about keeping secrets from Laura.

What had happened to the three of them? What had happened to trust, loyalty, support – all the things that should be taken for granted in friendship,
real
friendship? How had they let one another down like this?

“Laura, it was all my fault,” Helen began. “It was New Year’s Eve and I was feeling lonely and I just wanted someone … to hold me and to comfort me and –”

Laura’s tone was hard. “It wasn’t just any man, Helen – it was Neil. And he wasn’t fair game. Okay, he wasn’t actually innocent either but at least he had the guts to come and tell me about it, at least he respected me enough to let me decide what to do about it. I know you two think I’m too soft, too emotional. Oh, believe me, I know you’ve always thought that. But I’m not as stupid as you seem to think. I said nothing to Helen, because I had heard Neil’s side of the story, and I believed him when he said it was nothing but a drunken fling that had got out of hand. After all, I know full well what Helen can be like.”

At this Helen hung her head, clearly ashamed.

But then Laura’s tone softened. “But I also knew that you were suffering, and I tried to be there for you. I’ve always tried to be there for you, but in the last few years you and I have grown apart. You’re different, Helen. Ever since you had Kerry, you’re different.”

“I know,” Helen said softly. “I know that. I just … I just feel so lonely sometimes.”

“Helen, from where I’m sitting, you have everything. A wonderful job, designer clothes, a fantastic apartment and, more importantly, a daughter any mother would be proud to have. What more do you want?”

“I want someone,” Helen said in a low voice. “You two are so lucky with what you have and you don’t know what it’s like to be on your own, without someone to love.”

“And what about Kerry?” Laura asked impatiently. “Don’t you love her?”

“Of course I do – but not – not the way I’m supposed to – not the way other mothers do.”

“Other mothers?”

Helen looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think I feel the way I should – I – I just don’t know.”

Nicola studied her friend’s expression. She hadn’t seen Helen let her guard down like this in a very long time. And she certainly had never seen Laura behave so coldly towards her, towards
anyone
.

“And how should a mother feel, Helen?” Laura asked.

“I don’t know,” Helen cried. “That’s part of the problem. I don’t know how I should feel. I love her but I’ve never felt as though she was the most important thing in my life. I should feel that, shouldn’t I? I should want to kill, to
die
for my child?” Helen put her head in her hands. “But I don’t feel that way, I just feel ... lonely.”

Nicola looked at her. She had no idea Helen had been battling with her feelings like this. Yes, she was selfish, Helen had always been selfish – but lonely? Nicola would never have used that word to describe her. Not when there was an army of male admirers ready and waiting at every turn.

Laura’s tone was firm. “Helen, I’m not trying to be cruel, but with the way you’ve been behaving recently, it isn’t surprising that you feel lonely.”

“I know.”

Helen looked lost, Nicola thought. She looked as though she had been landed in a strange, unfamiliar world, a world from which she desperately wanted an escape. She couldn’t handle confrontations,
real
confrontations whereby she had to give a little and admit her true feelings. Helen was dying a slow death in front of Laura – her inadequacies and shortcomings laid bare for all to see.

Although always great for a laugh, she had never been able to handle trouble. When Nicola was going through the darkest period of her life, a time when she needed her friends and as much support as she could get, Helen couldn’t be seen for dust. She just wasn’t comfortable around her and it showed. Granted, Helen had her own problems, with her relationship deteriorating, so Nicola couldn’t be too critical.

Still, despite Helen’s faults, and seeing her standing there shamefaced in front of Laura, Nicola’s heart went out to her.

“Look, I think I should go,” Helen said quietly, her head bent low.

“Perhaps you should.” Laura was stony.

She and Nicola watched in silence while Helen retrieved her coat and bag from the cloakroom.

She turned back. “Laura … I’m very sorry and I really mean that,” she said, unable to meet the other girl’s eyes. “Not just for the thing with Neil but … but for everything.”

“So you should be.” Laura gave an almost imperceptible nod of the head, and closed the door firmly behind her oldest friend.

T
he following Monday morning
, Chloe was sitting at her office desk, depressed. She knew now that she had made a very big mistake.

She stared at her screensaver, a picture of Dan and her taken last Christmas at her mum and dad’s. Chloe loved that picture. She knew she looked particularly gorgeous in it and, looking at it now, it struck her that she really should wear purple more often. It seemed to complement her skin tone and highlight her cheekbones. She sighed. Of course, Dan was always equally striking in photographs, his attractive features lit up by that amazing grin. Their wedding photos would be truly spectacular, better than anything seen in
Hello
magazine.

If the wedding took place, that is.

Last weekend, Chloe had spent what
should
have been her wedding day alone in front of the television, while Dan went in to the office. He didn’t have to go in, but Chloe knew that he was trying to avoid her. He was hardly talking to her.

And to top it all off, this Nicola thing wasn’t such a big deal after all.

Chloe sighed, and checked her in-tray to see what fascinating gems her father’s partner had given her today. Johnson looked after probate estates and transfers so no doubt everything would be mesmerizing.

Why had she bothered? So what if Nicola had a miscarriage, so what if she had a little fling? Dan was right, what did it all have to do with anything now?

Her life was a mess, and she knew that most of her so-called friends were laughing behind her back. So much for the wedding of the century in The Four Seasons Hotel. So much for the Sharon Hoey wedding dress, the exotic honeymoon and the supposedly wonderful Amazing Days wedding invites.

The wedding invites. If it wasn’t for the stupidity of that crowd in Lakeview she wouldn’t be having any of these problems now. Well, maybe the wedding would still be postponed, but at least her fiancé would be talking to her, and probably just as eager to marry her.

She was losing him and Chloe knew it. Dan was hardly at home anymore and most of the time she didn’t even know where he was. They rarely spent any time together these days – she couldn’t remember the last time they had gone out for a meal, or to the cinema or any of the things he loved doing. She had apologised and explained and tried to make it better, to make him see why she felt the need to go behind his back, but Dan no longer trusted her, Chloe knew he didn’t.

She had hurt him, had displayed a complete lack of faith in him.

And because of it all, things were no longer the way Chloe wanted them to be.

Maybe that was it, though. Maybe it had all been about the way Chloe wanted it to be. If she was being completely honest with herself, did she ever once think about Dan in all of this? Had she ever been able to see past her own suspicions, worries and distrust?

No, Chloe had never once, throughout this whole – this whole hunt, search, whatever – she had never once thought about the consequences. She had worried only about what she might find, not about how it would affect her relationship. In fairness, she hadn’t expected Carolyn O’Leary to tell her as much as she had, considering the woman was supposed to be Nicola’s friend. And considering what Carolyn had told her about Shannon chasing Dan, she certainly hadn’t expected the PA to send her packing! She knew now that it was probably Shannon that had spilled the beans on her digging. At the time, it was a chance Chloe had been willing to take. She really needed to know what had happened back then to make Dan so covert about his previous marriage.

But now, she wished she hadn’t bothered. Although, if Dan hadn’t been so bloody secretive about it all in the first place, she
needn’t
have bothered. The way he carried on, you’d swear the reason for his marriage break-up was the third secret of Fatima! No, Chloe decided, why the hell should she beat herself up about this? Dan was as much at fault she was. Actually, if she really thought about it,
none
of this was her fault. What could he expect? He wouldn’t tell her anything, so what else could she have done?

Well, there was no point in thinking about it now, Dan was mad at her and she’d already done enough damage as it was.

Chloe tried to clear her mind and to read the note Johnson had attached to a current file. It was so bloody intelligible; it was like transcribing the book of Kells. Didn’t Johnson learn how to write in school all those years ago? Obviously not.

After a while, Chloe gave up and rested a hand on her chin.

There was one thing that was still bothering her about the entire situation, and try as she might she couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was in the back of her mind all the time and she couldn’t leave it alone.

Why, she asked herself, if Nicola had done the dirt on Dan, had he fought so hard to keep her? As far as she knew Nicola and Ken Harris hadn’t run off into the sunset immediately afterwards – at the time it had just been a stupid, one-off fling.

So what else had gone wrong?

In her heart of hearts, Chloe knew that there
was
something else. Why else had Dan so readily agreed to the terms of the separation and divorce – most of which were in Nicola’s favour? Why had Nicola gone to London?

And, more importantly, why had Dan always said that
he
felt guilty?

After all, Chloe reasoned, if Nicola had been the one at fault and Dan had done nothing wrong, well, what on earth would he have to feel guilty about?