Read Online Unveiling the Bridesmaid by Jessica Gilmore - Free Book Online

good thing you’re about to get some fresh air. There’s no time to slack, not with your schedule.’
    â€˜Fresh air?’
    â€˜Central Park. I spoke to a couple of contacts yesterday and they might just be able to accommodate your sister.’
    Central Park! Of course. One of the few iconic New York landmarks she had actually visited and spent time in. Hope obediently slid off her stool, pressing one hand to her full stomach as she did so. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d indulged so much. The last time she’d felt free to indulge, not set a good example or worry about what people thought.
    Central Park was barely a ten-minute stroll from Gael’s studio. Hope had spent several hours wandering around the vast city park but it felt very different walking there with Gael. He clearly knew it intimately, taking her straight to a couple of locations that had availability on Thursday in two weeks’ time.
    â€˜What do you think?’ he asked as they reached the lake. ‘Romantic enough or did you prefer the Conservatory Garden?’
    â€˜The garden is lovely,’ she agreed. ‘It’s a shame the floral arch is already booked. I think Faith would love it. But with such short notice she’ll just have to be grateful we found her anywhere at all.’
    â€˜Why on earth is it such short notice? Is it a religious thing? Is that why your sister wants to marry Hunter on six weeks’ acquaintance? Why you are still a virgin? You’re waiting for marriage? For true love?’ She could hear the mockery inherent in the last phrase.
    The small bubble of happiness she’d carried since the moment she’d seen the bags heaped with ice cream burst with a short, sharp prick. He thought she was odd, a funny curiosity. ‘I don’t see that it is any of your business.’
    â€˜Hope, tomorrow, or the day after or the day after that, the moment I think you are ready, that you can handle it, you are going to pose for me for a painting which is supposed to symbolise sex. If this is going to work I need to understand why you have made the choices you have. I’m not going to judge you—your body, your decisions. But I need to understand.’
    Hope stopped and stared out over the lake, watching a couple in a boat kissing unabashedly, as if they wanted to consume each other. Her stomach tightened. ‘Honestly? Is it that unbelievable that a twenty-seven-year-old woman hasn’t had sex yet? Does there have to be some big reason?’
    â€˜In this day and age, looking like you do? You have to admit it’s unusual.’ Happiness shivered through her at his casual words. Looking like you do. It was hard sometimes to remember a time when she had felt like someone desirable, bursting with promise and confidence, confident in her teeny shorts and tight tops as only an eighteen-year-old girl could be.
    â€˜It’s no big mystery. It’s not like I have been saving myself for my knight in shining armour.’ She didn’t believe in him for one thing. ‘It just happened.’ Hope turned away from the lake, dragging her eyes away from the oblivious, still-snogging couple with difficulty. For the first time in a really long time she allowed herself to wish it were her. Oblivious to everything but the sun on her back, the gentle splash of the water, his smell, his taste, the feel of his back under her hands. She had no idea who ‘he’ was but she ached for him nonetheless.
    â€˜I told you I raised Faith after our parents died. My aunt offered to help. She had a couple of kids Faith’s age and would have been happy to have had her. But I wanted her to grow up where I grew up, in the family house, stay at her school with her friends.’ She twisted her hands together. It all sounded so reasonable when she said it but there had been nothing reasonable about her decision at the time. Just high emotion, bitter grief and