Page 2 of The Surrender

“Rachel doesn’t get nervous.”

He’s right, come to think of it. In the seven years they’ve been together, I’ve never seen her flustered or awkward. She just gets on with things. It was a novelty to see her a little apprehensive.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Clark checks the vicinity before leaning in closer. “You can’t tell a soul.”

My eyebrows rise over my glass. “What?”

His lips press together briefly. “We’re pregnant.”

I cough over my sip. “Fuck.”

“I know!”

“Oh my God, Clark, that’s amazing.” My glass lands on the bar with a loud clink, and I haul him in for a hug. “Congratulations.” Then I quickly push him away, scowling. “I knew there was something afoot when I walked into the bathroom and Rachel pulled a hand towel off the rack to cover herself. How far gone is she?”

He chuckles. “Only a few weeks. She’s not even showing. She’s just paranoid she won’t get into her dress. And you know Dad. She’s worried he’ll think less of her.”

I snort. “She doesn’t need to worry about that when I’m around to continuously disappoint him.”

My brother’s face softens, and he takes my hands, squeezing. “How are you doing?”

“You mean because you’re a total shitbag and neglected to tell my ex he’s been uninvited to your wedding?”

He winces. “I couldn’t do it.”

I can’t be too pissy with Clark. I couldn’t do it either. Or, more like, I just didn’t have the energy to spare. So I will be spending my day avoiding Nick. “Don’t worry,” I say over a tired exhale. “It’s not like you didn’t have other things on your mind.”

“Correct. As do you, obviously, and it isn’t the fact that Nick’s here today. You’re not alright.”

“Okay, let’s not do this today.”

“No, wewilldo this today, and you have to listen to me because it’smyday.”

“You look very handsome.”

“Thanks.” Clark peeks down his front and grins. Then scowls, returning his attention to me when he’s figured out my strategy. “Jude turned up at our flat again this morning.”

I shrink, feeling the walls closing in. “On your wedding day?”

“He didn’t know it was my wedding day until he saw my suit hanging on the hook in the hallway and I explained.”

“So now he knows.”

“Yes.”

“Therefore he’ll back off and let me be with my family.” Stop texting? Stop calling? Stop trying to reach me through my friends and loved ones? No, he won’t, as demonstrated with his latest message. I don’t know what he intends to say if I give him the grace of my time. Regardless, I don’t want to hear it.

“Amelia, I—”

“Not today.” I stand, releasing myself from his hold. Notanyday. Clark doesn’t know the circumstances of my and Jude’s demise. Charley and Abbie do, but that’s only because I turned up at Abbie’s soaked to the bone, barefoot, and crying rivers. She was straight on the phone to Charley. Not to FaceTime, but to tell her to get her arse there immediately, which she did. I then sobbed my way through the whole hideous, embarrassing story while they fed me wine and gasped their disgust. I can’t tell my family. I feel like a big enough fool without them knowing I was taken for a complete mug. “Today is about you.”

Clark sighs. “I just don’t get how you went from seriously besotted to ... nothing.”

“I never said I was besotted.”

His expression is full of impatience. “You were seeing a lot of him, Amelia. You told Mum and Dad you were seeing him too. Then the next day you’re suddenly not? What happened? Did he do something? Because the crap you fed Mum and Dad about him being a bit too keen was utter bullshit, and you know it. You were keen too. I saw it in you, and now it’s like you hate him.”

I do.