The Same Wedding Dress, Two Different Brides novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: The Second Dress

I read the texts twice, sitting in a tailor's van at Castle Island with ketchup on my thumb.

Then I turned the phone face down on my knee.

"What," Aidan said.

"Her mother's telling the receiving line I tried to stop the wedding."

"Did you?"

"I walked out a side door with an empty bag."

"Then she's a liar with a good hat." He started the engine. "I'll take you home."

By Monday, half of Beacon Hill had heard it.

The lavender lady called the shop at nine.

She whispered.

"They're saying you ran up the aisle," she said. "They're saying you screamed. I told them I was there and you didn't, but nobody wants to hear it from me."

"Thank you for trying."

"I'm going to keep trying," she said, and hung up before anybody caught her.

At eleven, a bride from Wellesley cancelled her fitting.

At two, her mother came in for the deposit.

She didn't look at me.

She said she'd heard things.

Gran gave her the money from the till in small bills, counted out slowly, one at a time, while the woman stood there and waited.

"Tell your daughter we're sorry she'll be getting married in something else," Gran said.

The woman left.

Shauna kicked the bottom of the counter.

"I'm going to go to Beacon Hill," she said, "and I'm going to stand on that woman's steps, and I'm going to..."

"You're going to cut the satin for the Dorchester bride," I said. "And I'm going to sit down."

I sat down.

I sat down at my own cutting table in the workroom.

I took the muslin toile off the form, the one I'd started at midnight five weeks ago, and I laid it out flat.

It was time to cut the real thing.

I had a bolt of silk faille on the top shelf from a Fall River mill end.

← Chapter 13 · All chapters · Chapter 15 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend