Page 8 of The Brit and the Bridesmaid (Sweet Treat Novellas #1)

A bby wasn’t answering her phone. She came by to help Barney in his garden, but only when Matt was at work. She didn’t come to the market on Sundays or join him and his friends for their weekly football matches. He hadn’t seen her or talked to her in two weeks.

What had he done wrong? He’d talked through it with Barney and Mum and even his sisters, but no one had any idea what had happened. Mum finally told him, in a tone that brooked no argument, that if he couldn’t ask Abby why she’d suddenly decided to toss him off, he needed to ask Abby’s sister.

Caroline and her fiancé were scheduled to meet with him that week to finalize all the wedding details. He intended to get the business part of it all taken care of quickly so he could ask her what he’d done to make her sister run off.

Caroline’s intended, Gregory, wasn’t at all like Matt had imagined him. Where she was fussy and, honestly, a little high strung, Gregory was laid back. Looking at him, no one would guess he was only a few days from getting married.

They quickly wrapped up the wedding checklist. Matt closed the lid on his laptop and looked at Caroline, hoping she could see the earnest sincerity in his expression. “May I ask a nonbusiness question?”

She and Gregory exchanged quick, knowing glances. “About Abby?” She sounded very sure about the topic.

Matt nodded. “I don’t know what I did, but I can tell she’s mad at me, or doesn’t like me anymore.” He had broken the “no contractions” rule three times in one sentence, a clear sign Abby’s defection was getting to him. “I can’t get her to return my calls. I don’t know what happened.”

“Oh, I can tell you what happened,” Caroline said. “Dirk the Jerk is what happened.”

Though she spoke with conviction, the explanation didn’t help at all. Matt looked to Gregory, hoping for a guy-friendly translation.

“Up until about a year ago,” Gregory said. “Abby was dating this guy named Dirk. He was a total plague.”

“Then why was she dating him?” Another question came to mind immediately. “And what does that have to do with me?” He wasn’t a jerk, a bully, or a plague. He didn’t think so, at least.

“Abby didn’t see him the way we all did,” Caroline explained. “Not at first, anyway. When it was just the two of them, or around our family, he was okay. He treated her decent. But around his friends and family, or the public in general, she was never good enough.”

Matt didn’t like that sound of that at all.

“Dirk comes from money, if you know what I mean. His family’s very connected and rich and fancy.

” Caroline was growing noticeably angrier as she spoke.

“All dressed up like them, Abby looks like a million bucks. Dirk approved of her, kind of, when she was like that, but he looked down on who she really is. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone where she worked or where she grew up.

For the most part, she wasn’t supposed to talk at all when they were out together, just smile and look pretty. ”

“I actually heard him tell her to shut up once,” Gregory said. “I almost belted the guy.”

A simmering anger began in the pit of Matt’s stomach. How dare anyone treat Abby that way.

“She finally admitted that Dirk was, in fact, a complete jerk and found the guts to dump him,” Caroline said. “But that kind of thing leaves scars. She still wonders if she’s good enough, if she’s too poor or ordinary or plain.”

“How could she even think that?” It didn’t make sense at all. “Abby is amazing.”

Caroline smiled. “We think so too.”

“So why did you toss her out the other day?” Gregory asked.

“I never tossed her out.” What was he talking about?

They both looked instantly confused. Obviously Matt was missing something.

“She came by here,” Caroline said. “And, apparently, you were pretty insistent she make herself scarce.”

“What?” That was ridiculous. He remembered her visit.

The Carlisles were there, working out details of some stuffy dinner party they wanted to hold, and he’d been doing his best not tell them how idiotic they were.

The owners of Sainsbury House valued the Carlisles’ business and connections and had been quite clear that he was not to do anything to jeopardize that.

He’d managed to hold his tongue throughout the meeting, but not without effort.

“She said you kept trying to keep her out of sight of your clients,” Gregory added.

“Actually that part’s true.” He spoke the realization as he had it.

“The Carlisles are cold and cruel. They have no qualms about insulting or belittling people they think are beneath them. I couldn’t guarantee they would be civil to her.

” He had, in fact, been very much afraid they would be terrible to her.

“There was no way on earth I was going to let her be mistreated. The only way to avoid that was to keep her from having to interact with them.”

Both Caroline and Gregory looked surprised, and maybe even a little relieved.

“Then it wasn’t that you were embarrassed to be seen with her in front of important people?” Caroline asked.

“The Carlisles are not important people, At least, not to me. And certainly not as important as Abby.”

Caroline leaned a little closer to his desk, lowering her voice. “Does she know that?”

Does she? “Considering how quickly she decided I was ashamed of her, I’d guess she doesn’t.”

“Show her,” Caroline added.

Show her. He meant to. He simply had to figure out how.

***

Caroline’s wedding was everything any hopeless romantic could wish for. The bridesmaids all wore their 1910s-inspired dresses and only complained about them when the bride wasn’t nearby.

The men looked, to coin Caroline’s phrase, “quite dapper” in their fancy suits and slicked-back hair.

The venue was perfect. The weather was perfect. Everything was nauseatingly perfect.

Abby was in a bad mood but couldn’t seem to shake it.

She was happy for her sister; she really was.

But watching Matt—she couldn’t bring herself to think of him as Matthew, wanting to remember the version of him she liked best—hover on the edges of every moment of that day only drove the knife of disappointment deeper into her heart.

She did her best to look the other way when he came in her line of vision.

As the event coordinator, he was everywhere.

He was also too busy to talk to her. For that, she was grateful.

She sat at the wedding party’s table through the unending dinner, pretending to enjoy the food and faking a smile. She didn’t hear half of what was said during the toasts. She raised her glass when everyone else did, laughed when the guests laughed. But her heart wasn’t in any of it.

You’ll kick yourself for this later, wishing you’d pulled yourself together for Caroline’s wedding. But all of the well-meaning pep talks in the world didn’t seem capable of pulling her out of her funk.

If Matt hadn’t seemed so great, so close to exactly what she was looking for in a man, she wouldn’t have been so disappointed.

He was kind and thoughtful. He got along with his mother, which she thought was a good sign.

He wasn’t obsessive about plants like she was, but he liked gardening with her and Barney.

He didn’t blow off her passion for flowers and plants and gardens the way so many people did. He’d seemed so... so right.

Maybe you’re blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Maybe you should have answered when he called.

She clapped mechanically as Caroline and Gregory began their first dance, but her mind was miles away.

Matt was likely in the kitchen checking on the staff or outside overseeing the pavilion takedown.

What she wouldn't have given to have been on Barney's balcony instead, letting the sweet old man cheer her up once more.

Despite her heavy heart, Abby could almost smile thinking of Barney and his stories.

She’d never heard anyone talk with as much love and adoration as he did about his late wife.

Maybe that was what had made her idealize Matt so much.

She’d started thinking of him as her Barney, a man who loved her, quirks and all.

The dancing became more general. With fewer eyes focused on the front table, Abby finally felt like she could escape for a moment.

She skirted around the room, making her way to the open double doors.

The entry hall beyond wasn’t exactly empty, but it felt far less suffocating.

She needed someplace quiet, somewhere she could be alone even if for a moment.

“Abby!”

She spun at the sound of her name spoken in an achingly familiar British accent. “Hey, Matt.” Her voice wasn’t entirely steady.

He stood outside the closed door of his office, looking earth-shatteringly handsome in a dark suit. She'd tried to avoid noticing that all day. But those green eyes. They got to her every time.

“I thought you would be... coordinating... something.” The pounding of her heart in her throat made words difficult to come by.

“Actually, I’ve been waiting for you.”

He was waiting for her? Why? That didn’t make sense, not when he had clients and important things to see to. Hadn't he made her place on his totem pole painfully clear?

“I don’t understand.”

“There hasn't been a chance to talk to you all day, and I didn't want to risk causing a scene during your sister's wedding,” he said. “But I can't let the entire night get away without seeing you. So I’ve been waiting here, hoping you’d step out.”

The few guests wandering the entryway gave her and Matt curious glances. Abby could feel her face heat with the attention.

“Can we talk in here?” Matt asked, motioning toward his office. “I’ll only take a minute, I promise.”