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

was too babyish. Instead she had stood by the side feeling left out and unloved, hating them for respecting her word and not forcing her to ride.
    â€˜You’ll always be able to answer that question from now on. The eighteenth of August, you can say confidently. In New York, around...’ He squinted at his wrist. ‘Around two-forty in the afternoon.’
    â€˜No, I can say the eighteenth of August is the day some crazy person tried to persuade me to go on one and I walked away.’ She swivelled, ready to turn away, only to be arrested by a hand closing gently around her wrist. She glared at Gael scornfully. ‘What, you’re going to force me to go on?’
    â€˜No, of course not.’ He sounded bemused and who could blame him? She was acting crazy. But she could still see them, the two forty-somethings cradling their precious toddler tight while their oldest child stood forgotten by the exit.
    Only she hadn’t been forgotten. They had waved every time they passed by, every time. No matter that she hadn’t waved back once. Hope swallowed, the lump in her throat as painful as it was sudden. Why hadn’t she waved?
    Gael leaned in close, his fingers still loose around her wrist. His breath was faint on her neck but she could sense every nerve where it touched her, each one shocking her into awareness. ‘Doesn’t it look like fun?’
    Maybe, maybe not. ‘I’ll look ridiculous.’
    â€˜Will you? Do they? Look at them, Hope.’
    Hope raised her eyes, her skin still tingling from his nearness, a traitorous urge to lean back into him gripping her. Stop it , she scolded herself. You’ve known him for what? Two days? And he’s already persuaded you to pose nude, holds your career in his rather nicely shaped hands and is trying to make a fool of you. There’s no need to help him by swooning into him.
    But now he was so close she could smell him, a slight scent of linseed and citrus, not unpleasant but unusual. It was the same scent she had picked up in his studio. A working scent. He might be immaculately dressed in light grey trousers and a white linen shirt but the scent told her that this was a man who used his hands, a physical being. The knowledge shivered through her, heating as it travelled through her veins.
    â€˜Hope?’
    â€˜Yes, I’m looking at them.’ She wasn’t lying, she was managing somehow to push all thoughts about Gael O’Connor’s hands out of her mind and focus on the carousel, on the people riding it. Families, of course. The old pain pierced her heart at the sight; time never seemed to dull it, to ease it.
    But it wasn’t just families riding; there were groups of older children, laughing hysterically, a couple of teens revelling in the irony of their childish behaviour. Couples, including a white-haired man, stately on his golden steed, smiling at the silver-haired woman next to him. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘They don’t look ridiculous. They look like they are having fun.’
    â€˜Well, then,’ and before she could formulate any further response or process what was happening she was at the entrance of the building and Gael was handing over money in crisp dollar bills.
    â€˜Go on, pick one,’ he urged and she complied, choosing a magnificent-looking bay with a black mane and a delicate high step. Gael swung himself onto the white horse next to hers while Hope self-consciously pulled her skirt down and held on to the pole tightly. He looked so at ease, as if he came here and did this every day, one hand carelessly looped round the pole, the other holding a small camera he had dug out of his jeans pocket.
    â€˜Smile!’
    â€˜What are you doing?’
    He raised an eyebrow. ‘Practising my trade. Watch out, it’s about to go. Hold on tight!’
    The organ music swelled around them as the carousel began to rotate and the horses moved, slowly at first, before