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Chapter Three

Francesca

It’s entirely possible that I’ve lost the plot a little bit, and I’m all too aware of that, but the truth is – I’ve never felt so alive!

I can see why they do it – all the heroines in romance movies.

I can see why they throw caution to the wind and put it all on the line, do something so wildly out of character just for the chance to make it work with the one they’re meant to be with.

I’m practically fizzing with excitement; this is my very own main-character moment.

Hopefully, I think, the first of many.

I can’t let myself consider what will happen if none of this works out. I’d surely just retreat into the shadows, humiliated, but … Well, I’m not going to be the side-character in someone else’s story any longer.

This is my story; this is my great romance.

My stomach flips just thinking about Marcus. His smile, his hugs, his sharp wit and no-nonsense attitude. His lovely, amazing laugh. Every time I’ve made him laugh like that, and it’s the best sound in the world, all rich and deep and infectiously charming.

The stomach-flip turns into a full-on series of Olympic-level somersaults when I think back to that night. That kiss. It’s been eighteen months, but I can still remember the warmth of his palm on my cheek and the taste of his tongue like it was yesterday.

It was the kind of kiss that people write songs about; the stuff of poetry, the epic scene in a fairy tale.

After months of flirting and dancing around each other in the office, it was just the two of us, alone outside a party, in the drizzle and beneath the lamplight, my body tucked into his as I stood on tiptoes and he bent to reach me, held me close, the hand he anchored in the small of my back that made me shiver …

We kissed for ages .

We fell into bed together after the party ended, cuddled close and whispering until sleep pulled us under.

But then he met Kayleigh, and we let what we had together get away from us.

Ships passing in the night, a chance of something truly wonderful lost forever.

Dissolved into a close friendship – but the possibility of something more glimmering in those smiles he gives me, in those long hugs and all the text messages we exchange every day …

It’s still there. That feeling. That tension. That spark . I know it.

And Marcus knows it, too.

I have to speak to him.

I have to tell him how I feel.

I have to stop this wedding.