Free The Wedding Must Go On by Robyn Grady

as convinced about having you stay as I did five minutes ago.’
    On a logical level, she knew that at this point in their lives neither wanted anything as serious as marriage. But she simply couldn’t sleep with someone who made it sound as if she was little more than a release for sexual cravings. Yes, she’d been as turned on as Nate, but, now that she’d had time to take a breath, she knew this scenario was all wrong. She wasn’t after phone calls every night; however, neither would she accept,
Thanks for the hump. I’ll call if I call
. That was too darn close to the treatment her mother had accepted. She had more respect for herself than that.
    His grip and jaw tightened even as his grin grew andhe joked. ‘I could go with the curse turning me into a wolf if that’d help.’
    She couldn’t see anything would.
    Feeling flat but resigned, she slipped her hand away from his. ‘I need for you to go.’

CHAPTER FOUR
    S ITTING on the verandah of Marla’s third-storey apartment late the next day, Roxy slid another Scrabble tile onto the game board and in a supportive tone asked her friend the question that had hung in the air since she’d arrived.
    ‘How are you holding up?’
    ‘All things considered …’ Absently studying the board, which had been handed down through her family from the fifties, Marla shrugged. ‘It’ll take a while.’
    ‘Have you heard from Greg?’
    ‘Not since that slideshow.’
    Greg running slides of their most romantic moments from a projector onto a screen outside her apartment had been an inventive way to reach Marla when she wouldn’t take his calls. The upshot, however, was that the shots had reminded Marla of those despised pictures she’d seen on the Net. She’d been less than impressed.
    ‘Greg broke my heart,’ Marla went on. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever trust a man again. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, have children together.’ Shaking back her auburn locks, she put more steel into her voice. ‘I can’t believe he was groping a near-naked woman behind my back, and who knows what else? A lot more happens at those buck’s nights than some women might think. A
lot
more.’
    Surrounded by sweet-smelling umbrellas of Jacaranda blooms, Roxy mulled over Marla’s heartbreaking situation as well as Nate’s suggestion they ought to get the couple together to give them time to sort it out. When she’d asked Nate to leave last night, Roxy had been determined that would be the last she’d ever hear of him or that plan, and Marla’s response now only validated her decision. Her friend needed time to heal, not a web of lies that would hurl her into the face of the person who had shredded her heart.
    Good or bad, images stuck. Heck,
Marla
had never been snapped fondling another person’s private parts.
    Although.
    Roxy remembered at the hen’s night, as part of the show, a nicely built topless waiter had flirted with the bride-to-be unashamedly and Roxy had laughed and cheered as hard as the rest. What would Greg say if he were to watch a tape of that? Was it a once-in-a-lifetime situation, a bit of harmless fun or something best kept concealed? One day when the right man came along, no doubt she would enjoy a hen’s night too.
    But if what Nate said was true, a Sparks man didn’t care to celebrate a buck’s night so much as make a commitment to the woman he adored. And in truth, despite being annoyed, frustrated—hurt—Roxy had to wonder. When he got over his angst and did allow himself to fall in love, would Nate make a devoted husband? Someone a wife could be proud to have at her side? Would it be a case of ‘like Sparks father like Sparks son’?
    Each deep in their own thoughts, the women played a few more words before Marla spoke again.
    ‘I wasn’t going to tell you until plans were set, but it’s only a matter of a week or so now.’
    Curious, Roxy glanced up from collecting more tiles. ‘What plans?’
    ‘I’m leaving the country.