ALMOST A BRIDE
Author:
Jo Watson
Series:
Destination Love, #2
On
Sale: January 31, 2017
Publisher:
Forever
Trade
Paperback: $14.99 USD
eBook:
$4.99 USD
**Newly revised and
expanded, Wattpad sensation Jo Watson's ALMOST A BRIDE is now available in
print for the first time!**
That
awkward moment you catch your boyfriend in bed with another woman and then
mistakenly get arrested #chargesdropped
Annie
knows life isn't always fair. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes
you get mistaken for a crazed intruder when you come home early and find your
boyfriend wearing nipple clamps with a coworker on the night you thought he was
going to propose to you.
The
important thing is to move on, and for Annie that means treating herself to a
tropical vacation. But when she runs into her ex and his new woman staying at
the same resort, reason is washed out to sea. Caught off guard, Annie pretends
she's with Chris, a cute screenwriter she meets on the beach. With his own
writing blocked, Chris is happy to help Annie craft a story to save face. Soon
Annie isn't just getting over her ex, she's getting under Chris. As her
fictional feelings grow increasingly real, Annie has to decide if she's ready
to risk her heart on a new relationship.
I knew something was wrong the second I walked up to my front door.
Call
it intuition. Call it a sixth sense. But I just knew.
I
blame the shoes. The shoes were undoubtedly the cause of all the
problems
that day. It was the shoes’ fault that I came home early, and
the
shoes’ fault I was fired.
I suppose I can’t blame the shoes for making me late, though—
that
was the alarm clock’s fault for rudely deciding not to do its job.
And
when I finally realized, through the thick haze of sleepiness,
that
it hadn’t gone off, it was too late. I was already late for work.
And
when I say work, I mean my brand-new job—job of my
dreams—as
a fashion assistant at Glamorous Girl mag.
I’d just made a total career change, leaving behind a successful
job
as a
stylist in advertising to pursue a job in the magazine industry. It
was
early days, so I was still desperately trying to impress by being
perfect,
polite, and oh so obliging. Whether it was the request for
the
latte to be served at 97.7 degrees with no sugar, soy milk froth,
and
a sprinkling of organic cocoa powder flown in directly from
the
foothills of the Andes. Or whether it was for the jasmine-and-lavender-
scented
candles to be burned in the office for exactly ten
minutes
before my boss arrived—that was me.
Little Miss Annie Obliging.
Because let’s face it, the word assistant
is just a glammed-up euphemism
for slave. But I was ambitious
and determined, so when I
realized
I wouldn’t be able to attend to the scented candles, or fetch
the
latte, I panicked. So much so, that I left the house without the
said
troublemaking, life-ruining,
world-annihilating shoes.
Let’s take a moment to talk about the shoes. They weren’t
ordinary
shoes, oh no, they were none other than the just-off-the-
Paris-catwalk-and-not-for-sale-to-mere-mortals-yet
Christian Louboutins.
They
also happened to be the centerpieces for that day’s
shoot.
The same rushed panic that had caused me to forget the shoes in
the
first place had also left me with barely enough time to scrape my
hair
back into a casual bun and slip on a creased T-shirt and pair of
jeans
from my floor.
The latter is a bigger sin than you think. Because where I
work,
wearing anything other than the most fashionable apparel
is
sacrilege. People practically throw holy water at you and start
wailing
in Latin for fear that you’ve been possessed by the demon
of
bad fashion. In fact, a real demon possession, complete with a
backward-rolling
head and the ability to speak in tongues, would
be
preferable to the demon of last season’s handbag and Crocs
sandals.
So when I finally got to work, underdressed, out of breath,
without
the
shoes, and over an hour late, I was in serious trouble.
My
boss was throwing a hissy fit, due to lack of flowery scents in
her
office, and her personal assistant Cedric was in the throes of an
overly
dramatic caffeine withdrawal, due to lack of latte.
And it kept getting worse.
Two hours later the panicky fashion director summoned the
Louboutins.
Those shoes had been troublemakers from the start. It
had
been an absolute trauma getting them in the first place. They’d
been
flown into South Africa late the previous night, and I’d been
tasked
with collecting them. Everyone was holding their collective
breath
for the grand arrival. So when I was forced to confess to their
absence…well, you can only imagine.
When lunch finally arrived, I jumped into my car and sped home.
I had exactly one hour to get in and out before the photo shoot,
more
than
enough time.
I pulled into my driveway at breakneck speed, ran for the front
door,
slipped my house keys into the lock, and turned—
But…
Something made me stop.
Something told me not to go inside.
Something was very wrong.
I looked around nervously. Everything seemed normal. Peter
across
the road was blasting his TV as usual, the ratbag Chihuahua
from
number 45 was running up and down the garden perimeter
yapping
at an unseen force, and Mildred, my neighbor, was outside
watering
her hydrangeas.
So why was I hesitating?
I took a deep breath and inched the door open.
Nothing looked out of place.
Everything was exactly the way I’d left it.
Yet everything felt wrong.
I slunk down the hallway toward the kitchen, where I knew I’d
find
the shoes perched next to the coffeepot. But once inside, I was
hit
by a terribly eerie sensation…someone
was in the house. A shiver
licked
the length of my spine when my suspicions were confirmed.
Creeeeaaakkk…A noise
was coming from my bedroom directly
above
me.
Shit, shit, shit, there was
an intruder in the house!
I launched myself at the cutlery drawer, grabbing the largest
knife
I
could find while simultaneously dialing the police and still managing
to
hold on to the shoes for dear life.
“Police! Help, there’s an intruder in my house. Forty-Seven
Mendelssohn
Road,
Oaklands. Quick.”
Now what? I’d never been in a situation like this before. What
was
the correct protocol? Should I hide, evacuate the house, attack
the
intruder, scream loudly? Or perhaps a combination of the above?
I
thought for a second before deciding to get the fuck out of there!
But
just as I had one foot safely installed outside the front door, I
heard
another noise. This time it was different. It was…
It sounded like…
My blood ran cold.
But it couldn’t be. Trevv was at work. Trevv had a very important
day
in court, he told me. His client’s final hearing was today. Right
now,
in fact. I’d called him from my office about an hour ago and
he’d
told me he was in court.
He was in court, dammit!
I started climbing the stairs.
More noises.
Two voices?
But that was impossible…wasn’t it?
The noises grew louder and louder the farther up the stairs I
went.
I’m not really sure at what point I knew what the noises were
or
knew what I was going to see when I opened the door. But I just
knew.
It’s one thing walking in on your boyfriend having sex with
another
woman,
but it’s another thing entirely walking in on him the
second
the other woman is coming. She was facing the door but was
bouncing
up and down so vigorously that her face was a blur. And
then
suddenly her body stiffened, she threw her head back, opened
her
mouth, and let out a high-pitched wail. As if that wasn’t self explanatory
enough,
she decided to toss in a few words for good
measure.
“Yes, Trevvy, yes. Oh my God, oh my God, oh Trevvy. Harder!
Ah,
ah, ah.” *Pant, pant, pant* “I’m coming!” *Long
high-pitched
scream*
Now…there were several things wrong with this picture, aside
from
the obvious. Firstly, who the hell screams like that in bed? No
one
does! Sex is not so good
that you have to break the sound barrier
with
your squealing dolphin sounds. Secondly, what the hell was
she
wearing? She was clad in some kind of leathery studded number
that
looked like it had been worn by one of the Village People. And
to
make matters worse, Trevv was blindfolded with the tie that I had
bought
him two Christmases ago and…OH MY GOD…were those,
were
those…nipple clamps?
I felt sick to my stomach.
And thirdly, who was
this mystery woman without an ounce of cellulite,
without
the slightest smidge of fat, and with boobs that seemed
to defy
all known natural laws of gravity and motion? Which
woman
can be that damn perfect…
…and
then her features came into focus and the answer dawned
on
me.
Tess.
Tess Blackman.
My boyfriend’s “coworker.” The woman I’d invited into
my
home on several occasions for dinner. The woman that I always
phoned
when I couldn’t get hold of Trevv, because I knew they
were
probably together working on a case, tired and exhausted and
burning
the midnight oil when they’d rather be at home with their
significant
others. She had a fiancé after all.
Poor overworked Trevv and Tess.
God, I was naive.
But the show didn’t end there. Tess’s eyes were still closed when
Trevv
started making some delightful grunting-moaning-squeaking
sounds.
He’d never made sounds like that with
me before. His sweaty
hands
reached up and grabbed at her hungrily.
Faster.
Harder.
Loud, long moan.
I was frozen. It’s hard to know what to do when you watch your
partner
of two years with his penis somewhere you wouldn’t even
like
to imagine, let alone witness in full blinding daylight.
Once all their postcoital panting had tapered off, Tess opened
her
eyes
and saw me standing in the doorway. The look on her face was
indescribable.
Shock and horror and fear all at the same time. And
then
she opened her mouth and screamed.
Trevv then turned his head toward the door and whipped off his
blindfold.
Our eyes locked and then he did something truly bizarre.
Unexpected.
He grabbed Tess by the hand and dragged her to the
other
side of the bed.
“Anne, please…you don’t want to do this.” Trevv threw his hands
in
the air defensively. He looked terrified. She was bleating hysterically
by
this stage.
What was going on? Wasn’t I the jilted one? Wasn’t I the one
that
was supposed to be upset? I started walking toward them, which
seemed
to only make matters worse.
“Anne, please. Please.” He seemed to be begging now. “Think
about
what you’re doing. I know this is bad, but this isn’t the way to
handle
it. Please don’t do this.”
Things happened pretty quickly after that. Suddenly, the room
was
filled with armed police officers. I was about to tell them they
could
all go home, when Trevv cut me off.
“She has a knife. She’s going to kill us!” he shouted, pointing
at me.
What knife? I glanced
at my hands, and that’s when I realized I
was
still holding the large knife, and it was pointed in their direction.
I quickly turned to explain. “I wasn’t going to—”
“Ma’am…” One of the police officers cut me off and started
creeping
toward
me as if I was a feral pit bull that hadn’t eaten in a week.
“Put down your weapon.”
“I swear, this isn’t what you think, I was just trying to—”
BAM! Face on floor,
handcuffs around wrists.
Three really painful things happened at that point: One, the
knife
slipped
and cut the entire length of my palm. Two, some of my
newly
acquired, gorgeous nails snapped off. And three, the crystal-encrusted,
six-inch
heel of the priceless Louboutin snapped off,
rolled
across the floor lifelessly, and disappeared under the bed.
Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Google Play * iBooks * Indiebound * Kobo * Book
Depository
THE DESTINATION LOVE SERIES
BURNING
MOON, #1
ALMOST
A BRIDE, #2
FINDING
YOU, #3
Jo Watson is an award-winning writer of romantic
comedies. Burning Moon won a Watty Award in 2014. Jo is
an Adidas addict and a Depeche Mode devotee.
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FOREVER ONLINE
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