Read Online Three Weddings and a Baby by Fiona Harper - Free Book Online

he had to remember not to goad and trap as he usually did during cross-examination. These days he had enough seniority in his chambers to pick and choose his cases, and he no longer immersed himself in defence work, as he’d done when he’d been married to Becky and had believed that every underdog had deserved its day in court. Nowadays, he only took prosecution cases if he could help it. Protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves also involved punishing those who preyed on them. But he’d got used to being suspicious, of seeing the lies everyone tried to hide behind. He’d have to snap out of it now and act as if he were conducting a defence—gently guide her, lead her and hope she’d give the right answer on cue. It wasn’t so long since he’d last done that. Surely he could remember how?
    He kept his voice low, coaxing. ‘I know you were upset when I asked you to join me in London, but why did you disappear? Why didn’t you come home? ‘
    ‘Men,’ she muttered. ‘They never understand anything.’
    ‘Explain it to me, then.’
    Jennie stared at him for a few seconds, then took a big gulp of her champagne. ‘You have to understand, Alex. Spending days on my own, pacing round a hotel room only to slope off back to London without my groom wasn’t exactly the fairy tale I’d pictured when I’d imagined my honeymoon.’
    He knew that. Of course he knew that. But it had been an emergency. Something he hadn’t asked for and hadn’t been able to control. What else could he have done? It had broken his heart to phone her and tell her there was no way he could come back yet, that they’d have to postpone the rest of their trip. There were things he needed to tell her—things he’d really needed to say in person, not over a dodgy mobile connection.
    ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t how I wanted it, either.’
    He could imagine how disappointed Jennie had been, how much the reality had differed from her fairy tale. His reality hadn’t been any rosier, and there were memories from that time he wished he could wipe from his consciousness: Becky, grey and lifeless in a hospital bed. The awful silence after the life support machine had been switched off, much worse than the hiss of the ventilator orthe increasingly regular alarms. The clawing sense of regret over how things might have been different, if only she’d let him help her.
    ‘I thought I’d done the best I could, given the circumstances, Jennie. I didn’t have much choice. If it hadn’t been important, I wouldn’t have asked it of you.’
    Jennie made a strange little laugh under her breath. ‘My father used to give me that excuse all the time,’ she said forlornly, then she dropped her voice to a low rumble. ‘“Not now, Jennie. This is important!”.’ She finished her impression and gave him a smile that wasn’t in the least convincing, then began talking too fast and endlessly creasing the stiff bow on the front of her dress. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever hear that excuse from you. It took me by surprise. Normally, if I know that kind of thing’s coming, I can prepare myself, cushion myself against it. But with you, there was no warning! I just. I didn’t…’
    He didn’t say anything. His mind was too busy stretching to accommodate the flurry of words.
    ‘You want to know why I didn’t race to your side the moment I left Paris?’
    He nodded. Of course he did.
    Jennie pursed her lips, then nodded backat him. ‘Well, I needed time. And I supposed you needed time, too.’
    Time for what?
    ‘To decide what you really wanted,’ she added, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d switched a word at the last moment. Not
what
, but
who. Who
you really wanted. And suddenly he started calculating mentally, adding up hours and minutes, doing the kind of maths Jennie must have done.
    The clock had never been anything but a way of carving up the day to Alex. He hadn’t realised that seconds could be as precious as