Almost a Bride Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Jo Watson

  Excerpt from Finding You copyright © 2017 by Jo Watson

  Cover image from Shutterstock; Cover design by Elizabeth Turner

  Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Forever

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  forever-romance.com

  twitter.com/foreverromance

  First Edition: January 2017

  Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing.

  The Forever name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBNs: 978-1-4555-9550-1 (pbk.), 978-1-4555-9549-5 (ebook), 978-1-4789-6730-9 (audio download)

  E3-20161206-DA-PC

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  An Excerpt from Finding You

  Un-Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jo Watson

  Newsletters

  To all my Wattpad fans who helped me write this book, all the women out there who’ve ever wanted to get sweet revenge, and to Depeche Mode. (When I sell 100 million books and become rich and famous, I hope you’ll play at my birthday party.)

  PROLOGUE

  D-day—A year ago

  I knew something was wrong the second I walked up to my front door.

  Call it intuition. Call it a sixth sense. But I just knew.

  I blame the shoes. The shoes were undoubtedly the cause of all the problems that day. It was the shoes’ fault that I came home early, and the shoes’ fault I was fired.

  I suppose I can’t blame the shoes for making me late, though—that was the alarm clock’s fault for rudely deciding not to do its job.

  And when I finally realized, through the thick haze of sleepiness, that it hadn’t gone off, it was too late. I was already late for work. And when I say work, I mean my brand-new job—job of my dreams—as a fashion assistant at Glamorous Girl mag. The quintessential magazine for the “fun, fierce, and fabulously stylish South African girlTM.”

  I’d just made a total career change, leaving behind a successful job as a stylist in advertising to pursue a job in the magazine industry. It was early days, so I was still desperately trying to impress by being perfect, polite, and oh so obliging. Whether it was the request for the latte to be served at 97.7 degrees with no sugar, soy milk froth, and a sprinkling of organic cocoa powder flown in directly from the foothills of the Andes. Or whether it was for the jasmine-and-lavender-scented candles to be burned in the office for exactly ten minutes before my boss arrived—that was me.

  Little Miss Annie Obliging.

  Because let’s face it, the word assistant is just a glammed-up euphemism for slave. But I was ambitious and determined, so when I realized I wouldn’t be able to attend to the scented candles, or fetch the latte, I panicked. So much so, that I left the house without the said troublemaking, life-ruining, world-annihilating shoes.

  Let’s take a moment to talk about the shoes. They weren’t ordinary shoes, oh no, they were none other than the just-off-the-Paris-catwalk-and-not-for-sale-to-mere-mortals-yet Christian Louboutins. They also happened to be the centerpieces for that day’s shoot.

  The same rushed panic that had caused me to forget the shoes in the first place had also left me with barely enough time to scrape my hair back into a casual bun and slip on a creased T-shirt and pair of jeans from my floor.

  The latter is a bigger sin than you think. Because where I work, wearing anything other than the most fashionable apparel is sacrilege. People practically throw holy water at you and start wailing in Latin for fear that you’ve been possessed by the demon of bad fashion. In fact, a real demon possession, complete with a backward-rolling head and the ability to speak in tongues, would be preferable to the demon of last season’s handbag and Crocs sandals.

  So when I finally got to work, underdressed, out of breath, without the shoes, and over an hour late, I was in serious trouble.

  My boss was throwing a hissy fit, due to lack of flowery scents in her office, and her personal assistant Cedric was in the throes of an overly dramatic caffeine withdrawal, due to lack of latte.

  And it kept getting worse.

  Two hours later the panicky fashion director summoned the Louboutins. Those shoes had been troublemakers from the start. It had been an absolute trauma getting them in the first place. They’d been flown into South Africa late the previous night, and I’d been tasked with collecting them. Everyone was holding their collective breath for the grand arrival. So when I was forced to confess to their absence…well, you can only imagine.

  When lunch finally arrived, I jumped into my car and sped home. I had exactly one hour to get in and out before the photo shoot, more than enough time.

  I pulled into my driveway at breakneck speed, ran for the front door, slipped my house keys into the lock, and turned—

  But…

  Something made me stop.

  Something told me not to go inside.

  Something was very wrong.

  I looked around nervously. Everything seemed normal. Peter across the road was blasting his TV as usual, the ratbag Chihuahua from number 45 was running up and down the garden perimeter yapping at an unseen force, and Mildred, my neighbor, was outside watering her hydrangeas.

  So why wa
s I hesitating?

  I took a deep breath and inched the door open.

  Nothing looked out of place.

  Everything was exactly the way I’d left it.

  Yet everything felt wrong.

  I slunk down the hallway toward the kitchen, where I knew I’d find the shoes perched next to the coffeepot. But once inside, I was hit by a terribly eerie sensation…someone was in the house. A shiver licked the length of my spine when my suspicions were confirmed.

  Creeeeaaakkk…A noise was coming from my bedroom directly above me.

  Shit, shit, shit, there was an intruder in the house!

  I launched myself at the cutlery drawer, grabbing the largest knife I could find while simultaneously dialing the police and still managing to hold on to the shoes for dear life.

  “Police! Help, there’s an intruder in my house. Forty-Seven Mendelssohn Road, Oaklands. Quick.”

  Now what? I’d never been in a situation like this before. What was the correct protocol? Should I hide, evacuate the house, attack the intruder, scream loudly? Or perhaps a combination of the above?

  I thought for a second before deciding to get the fuck out of there! But just as I had one foot safely installed outside the front door, I heard another noise. This time it was different. It was…

  It sounded like…

  My blood ran cold.

  But it couldn’t be. Trevv was at work. Trevv had a very important day in court, he told me. His client’s final hearing was today. Right now, in fact. I’d called him from my office about an hour ago and he’d told me he was in court.

  He was in court, dammit!

  I started climbing the stairs.

  More noises.

  Two voices?

  But that was impossible…wasn’t it?

  The noises grew louder and louder the farther up the stairs I went. I’m not really sure at what point I knew what the noises were or knew what I was going to see when I opened the door. But I just knew.

  It’s one thing walking in on your boyfriend having sex with another woman, but it’s another thing entirely walking in on him the second the other woman is coming. She was facing the door but was bouncing up and down so vigorously that her face was a blur. And then suddenly her body stiffened, she threw her head back, opened her mouth, and let out a high-pitched wail. As if that wasn’t self-explanatory enough, she decided to toss in a few words for good measure.

  “Yes, Trevvy, yes. Oh my God, oh my God, oh Trevvy. Harder! Ah, ah, ah.” *Pant, pant, pant* “I’m coming!” *Long high-pitched scream*

  Now…there were several things wrong with this picture, aside from the obvious. Firstly, who the hell screams like that in bed? No one does! Sex is not so good that you have to break the sound barrier with your squealing dolphin sounds. Secondly, what the hell was she wearing? She was clad in some kind of leathery studded number that looked like it had been worn by one of the Village People. And to make matters worse, Trevv was blindfolded with the tie that I had bought him two Christmases ago and…OH MY GOD…were those, were those…nipple clamps?

  I felt sick to my stomach.

  And thirdly, who was this mystery woman without an ounce of cellulite, without the slightest smidge of fat, and with boobs that seemed to defy all known natural laws of gravity and motion? Which woman can be that damn perfect…

  …and then her features came into focus and the answer dawned on me.

  Tess.

  Tess Blackman.

  My boyfriend’s work “coworker.” The woman I’d invited into my home on several occasions for dinner. The woman that I always phoned when I couldn’t get hold of Trevv, because I knew they were probably together working on a case, tired and exhausted and burning the midnight oil when they’d rather be at home with their significant others. She had a fiancé after all.

  Poor overworked Trevv and Tess.

  God, I was naive.

  But the show didn’t end there. Tess’s eyes were still closed when Trevv started making some delightful grunting-moaning-squeaking sounds. He’d never made sounds like that with me before. His sweaty hands reached up and grabbed at her hungrily.

  Faster.

  Harder.

  Loud, long moan.

  I was frozen. It’s hard to know what to do when you watch your partner of two years with his penis somewhere you wouldn’t even like to imagine, let alone witness in full blinding daylight.

  Once all their postcoital panting had tapered off, Tess opened her eyes and saw me standing in the doorway. The look on her face was indescribable. Shock and horror and fear all at the same time. And then she opened her mouth and screamed.

  Trevv then turned his head toward the door and whipped off his blindfold. Our eyes locked and then he did something truly bizarre. Unexpected. He grabbed Tess by the hand and dragged her to the other side of the bed.

  “Anne, please…you don’t want to do this.” Trevv threw his hands in the air defensively. He looked terrified. She was bleating hysterically by this stage.

  What was going on? Wasn’t I the jilted one? Wasn’t I the one that was supposed to be upset? I started walking toward them, which seemed to only make matters worse.

  “Anne, please. Please.” He seemed to be begging now. “Think about what you’re doing. I know this is bad, but this isn’t the way to handle it. Please don’t do this.”

  Things happened pretty quickly after that. Suddenly, the room was filled with armed police officers. I was about to tell them they could all go home, when Trevv cut me off.

  “She has a knife. She’s going to kill us!” he shouted, pointing at me.

  What knife? I glanced at my hands, and that’s when I realized I was still holding the large knife, and it was pointed in their direction.

  I quickly turned to explain. “I wasn’t going to—”

  “Ma’am…” One of the police officers cut me off and started creeping toward me as if I was a feral pit bull that hadn’t eaten in a week. “Put down your weapon.”

  “I swear, this isn’t what you think, I was just trying to—”

  BAM! Face on floor, handcuffs around wrists.

  Three really painful things happened at that point: One, the knife slipped and cut the entire length of my palm. Two, some of my newly acquired, gorgeous nails broke off. And three, the crystal-encrusted, six-inch heel of the priceless Louboutin snapped off, rolled across the floor lifelessly, and disappeared under the bed. As I was being dragged out, I glanced up and saw that Trevv was clutching Tess in his arms. He gently planted a kiss on her forehead.

  “It’s going to be okay, baby, it’s going to be okay.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  A broken Louboutin is not a pretty sight.

  A naked woman on top of your boyfriend is not a pretty sight.

  Your boyfriend wearing nipple clamps is definitely not a pretty sight.

  But, do you want to know what’s worse?

  Try the inside of a holding cell.

  I was trembling from the shock. My heart was thumping from the surging adrenaline. I felt physically sick, and strange, and utterly confused…My brain felt like a little hamster sprinting at full speed on his little wheel.

  What had just happened? Had he really? With her? Like that? Surely it wasn’t possible. It had to be some kind of misunderstanding, because last time I checked, Trevv was not just my boyfriend. Trevv was my soon-to-be fiancé. Not that he’d asked me yet, but I knew it was very imminent. There were signs…

  One, we were scheduled to have dinner at my favorite restaurant tonight (clear sign). Two, I’d found a receipt in the trash can for the purchase of a very expensive piece of jewelry (red, flashing sign). Three, he didn’t know this but I’d seen a massive bouquet of red roses on the backseat of his car this morning. (How much bigger does the sign need to be, for heaven’s sake?)

  Trevv was going to ask me to marry him. Tonight! And I was going to say yes because even though we’d been going through a little slump lately, I loved him and this engagement was exactly
what we needed to get the romance back. I was so ready to marry him.

  My friends had confirmed my suspicions, too. As had my waxologist (who works miracles down there), my hairdresser, the woman that plucked my brows, and my manicurist who’d done my nails yesterday so that I could Instagram the perfect pic of my new ring later today. Everyone agreed—he was definitely going to ask me to marry him. So why, why oh why oh fucking why, was he having sex with someone else?

  I slapped my hand down on the bench and winced in pain. The bandage did little to protect me from the intense stinging now emanating from where the blade had sliced into me.

  But it wasn’t just my hand that hurt; my head was throbbing from being smashed into the floor by a couple of heavier-than-they-should-be police officers. To make matters worse, I was sandwiched between what appeared to be a crack addict on a bad comedown, an old leather-skinned woman who was babbling about “the invasion” (whatever that was), and what was clearly a working girl (either that or Halloween had come early this year).

  I was desperate for a moment alone, but there was no privacy. The toilet was completely open and reeked of urine and sour vomit. A chipped concrete basin, solitary dripping tap, and a makeshift toilet roll holder completed the minimalist decor.

  “What ya in for, babe?” a raspy voice suddenly piped up.

  I turned and came face-to-face with a barely covered boob.

  “Um…”

  “I’m Angel, by the way.” She extended her hand, and not wanting to offend—I wasn’t au fait with the finer points of criminal etiquette—I shook it.

  “I’m not really sure actually.”

  She scoffed loudly. “I know what ya mean, babe. Sometimes I think they harass me for the sake of it. This is the third time this month I’ve been here.”

  “Me too,” said the older woman. “And all I’m trying to do is warn people about the impending invasion.”

  Angel looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, Margie, we know. The flying saucers and little green men—”

  “They’re not green, they’re gray!” Margie cut her off angrily.

  “Pink, purple, blue, whatever.” The sarcasm in Angel’s voice was undeniable.

  And then without warning, Margie jumped up, rather nimbly for a woman who looked like she was on the wrong side of a hundred. “This is what I’m talking about. You mock me now, but wait until they’re here with their probes and their mind control devices. Wait until they assimilate our DNA and turn us into drones and—”