‘Lily? Everything OK?’

‘Yes, absolutely,’ she replied, trying to shake off a bit of the surprise. She’d expected Henry to answer the door. ‘Is Henry here? I … wanted to thank him for the hen party.’

‘No, hun. I’m sorry. He left a few hours ago.’

‘Left?’ The word nicked her heart. ‘Did he say when he’d be back?’

Annabelle shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, my love, he had a packed bag with him and …’

‘Oh,’ Lily replied, suddenly completely lost. All the giddy happy excitement soured and made her nauseous. And lost. Completely lost.

‘Do you want John to give you a lift back to town?’ Annabelle asked. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.’

‘No, it’s OK, I’ll walk,’ Lily whispered.

‘Are you sure? It looks like it might rain.’

‘No, but thank you, Annabelle.’

Lily didn’t see Annabelle’s worried look as she turned away from the closing door. She barely saw the gravel driveway as she walked back down the path towards the road that would lead her home.

As the heavens opened and rain split the air, falling to the ground and covering her in a light fine haze, Lily gave no thought to the wedding or the weather, or the way that once again her clothing was soaking wet and clinging to her body.

As she reached the fork in the road, all she could hear was the pulse thudding in her ear to the beat of can’t promise, can’t promise, can’t promise.

And as she finally crested the hill back towards her apartment, she told herself that it was rain, not tears, falling against her cheeks.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WHEN LILY WOKE ON the morning of the wedding, she was confused. Couldn’t quite account for the ache that she felt, the tear that had escaped and run down her cheek during the night. And then she remembered.

Henry.

He had gone. The burst of hurt cut through her shakily inhaled breath and she turned in her duvet and pressed her face into a pillow to stifle the low moan rising in her chest.

It hurt. More than she had tried to prepare herself for the night before. How had he come to mean so much to her in such a short space of time?

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

It blared through her mind in time with the buzz of the alarm she had set for 6.30. But then she stopped as surely as she stopped the screech of the alarm.