I blink rapidly a few times in some sort of attempt to erase everything that's just happened.
Ash is still staring at me, waiting for an answer. Behind him, I pick out a few other familiar faces looking curiously in my direction. The mothers, Diane and Jill, are whispering something to each other. Diane's probably trying to defend her daughter's honour. The groom's friends are still in their battle stance, with only Damien lagging behind them. He's looking at me the way that Lela had. And Emily looks a bit concerned too.
They think this is my fault. They think I've set this up. And I can't explain it. I've got no idea what Josh is doing here. Lela said it was over between them.
"I...I don't know," I finally say, more to Damien and Emily's accusing looks than as an answer to Ash's question. "I don't know what's going on."
"Lela hasn't said anything to you about Josh?" Ash says.
I can't lie to him. I just can't do it.
"She hasn't said anything to us," Kerry says, holding her head up high. "Why would she tell Jade?"
I wish I could slap the smirk from her weasel face. Everything must be so amusing to her. Of course she thinks it's hilarious that Lela would share something so personal with me. We haven't exactly been acting like best friends recently.
"Kerry's right," Steph chimes in. "We don't know anything about this."
Ash looks at all three of us in turn, accepting that we don’t have anything to tell him about Josh. I sink backwards into the group of people in the hope that nobody else will talk to me.
Kerry and Steph are talking quietly to each other. I hear one of them mention my name and they cackle in that irritating way of theirs. I have to stop myself from going over there and telling them exactly what I know about Lela and Josh, proudly emphasising how it was me Lela chose to confide in, and not either of them.
But I shouldn’t feel proud about any of this situation. It’s not like I asked to keep Lela’s dirty secret. And what sort of person does it make me if Ash finds out that I knew all along and never said a word to him?
He’s standing next to Emily now, interrogating her. I know she’s no expert liar but she’s holding firm on this. Lela’s her sister and she’s going to remain loyal to her no matter what.
I hunch my body over the bar, wishing I could just disappear. Someone slides in next to me. I assume it’s Damien and turn to defend myself. But it’s not the person I’m expecting to defend myself to. Instead of Damien, I turn to face Emily.
She must have given Ash enough answers to get him to back off for now, and he’s standing in a circle with his friends at the end of the bar. Damien is with them, but he’s standing with his back to me.
I tear my gaze away from the group of men, and look up at Emily with an inpatient sigh. It’s obvious from the way she’s standing particularly close to me with narrowed eyes that she’s got something to say, and I know that it isn’t going to be anything good.
“So,” she hisses, “I suppose this was your doing, was it?”
“Of course not!” I bite back. “Why would I have anything to do with Josh being here?”
“You must have told him where we were,” she declares. “Now you’ve totally humiliated Lela without having to do any of the dirty work yourself.”
“I’ve humiliated her? I think Lela’s quite capable of doing that herself, don’t you? I’m not the one who cheated on her fiancé.” I turn my body away from her, looking for a way to escape this situation.
She presses her face even closer up to mine. I can smell her floral perfume, one that she probably borrowed from Lela. “Oh, because you’re so perfect, aren’t you, Jade?” She annunciates her words clearly, letting the venom spill over each syllable.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look at you! You go around acting like you’re the perfect bridesmaid and everything in your life is just so rosy, isn’t it? You wouldn’t dream of ruining your loyalty to Lela, so you’ve got Josh to do that for you.”
The look on Emily’s face is pure fire. Growing up, she was always the mature and sensible older sister I never had. I even envied Lela for having someone like Emily to look out for her. She’s always been much more reserved than her younger sibling, rarely speaking her mind and only ever doing so in that quiet manner of hers. For her to attack me like this is completely out of character, fuelled only by her fierce protectiveness for her sister.
I consider her angry words before I reply. Whatever I say, she’s not going to accept that Josh turning up is not my responsibility. “You talk about loyalty, but what about Ash? Am I not allowed to want to stay loyal to him too?”
“That’s why you care so much about Ash, isn’t it? You don’t want him to marry Lela because that means he can’t marry you.” Emily smirks and folds her arms across her chest triumphantly.
“Really?” I say with a laugh. “That’s your clever theory?”
“I never said it was clever. It just seems a fairly obvious solution to me.”
My brow wrinkles in confusion. “A solution to what?”
“As to why you’re so desperate to wreck your best friend’s wedding.”
I’m about to fight back when someone else steps in to defend me. “That’s not what Jade’s doing,” Damien announces, looking Emily directly in the eye.
“How would you know?” she says. “You’re probably part of her plan.”
“This isn’t fair, Emily,” he tells her.
“No, what she’s done to my sister isn’t fair.”
Damien sighs and turns to look at me for the first time since Josh walked in. “Jade, do you have anything to do with Josh’s arrival?”
I shake my head firmly.
Emily laughs. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“It does to me,” Damien replies. “Look at her face. If she were lying, she’d be bright red and shaking like a leaf right now.” He turns back to face me. “No offence, Jade, but you’re a terrible liar.”
Unable to argue with him, Emily simply focuses in on me, saying, “I know you’re behind this. And if Lela doesn’t walk down that aisle tomorrow, I’ll be holding you personally responsible.” Then she swivels on her heels and marches off.
“You really believe me then?” I ask Damien. “You know I didn’t do this, don’t you?”
“I’ll be honest,” he says, holding his hands up, “I did think you had when I first saw that Josh guy, but your reaction just then proves that you didn’t.”
“Because you know I can’t tell lies?”
“Exactly,” he says with a smile.
I turn back to lean against the bar in front of us, resting my head on my hands in despair. “Oh God. What if Ash asks me directly about Josh and Lela? He must have known something was up when I told him that I don’t know what’s going on.”
Damien slips an arm around me comfortingly. It’s easy to forget what he said about us just being friends when we’re like this. Maybe I took his words the complete wrong way anyway. Men can’t be that stupid, can they? They know when something’s a date.
I ease into the embrace as he mutters something reassuring. I can almost forget where I am and what’s just happened if I stay here long enough.
“What are you two talking about?” Ash asks, appearing out of nowhere, and causing Damien and me to dive apart like teenagers caught kissing by their parents.
My mind has come back to reality from the serenity bubble I was just in, and I remember exactly what we were talking about. We were talking about the possibility of Ash finding out what either of us knows about Josh.
I look away, knowing there’s no way I can blatantly lie to him.
When Damien remains silent too, Ash says, “Are you sure Lela hasn’t mentioned Josh to you recently? You know her better than either of those two.” He nods his head towards Kerry and Steph, who are still giggling away to each other.
I swallow and rub my sweaty hands on my dress. Damien is looking at me, but he isn’t giving me any indication of what to say.
“Jade?” Ash demands an answer of me.
“Why don’t you talk to Lela?” I suggest.
He frowns. “What do you know?”
“She’s your fiancée, mate,” Damien backs me up. “You need to ask her what’s going on.”
“Don’t you think I would if she was here?” Ash yells. He pauses for a moment, looking between the two of us. “Are you hiding something from me?” he finally asks. “Either of you?”
But we don’t have to answer him. Because Lela is walking towards us. She’s alone, no Josh following behind her, and her head is held high with her blue eyes fixed firmly on Ash.
“Sorry about that,” she says casually when she reaches us. Her hand is touching Ash’s arm, but he brushes her away.
“What’s going on, Lela?” he demands. “Why was Josh here?”
“Oh, you remember Josh?” she says innocently. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”
Ash slams his left hand down on the bar. “Don’t mess me around! Tell me what he was doing here.”
“I…I’m sorry,” she stammers. “He came to see me.”
“What for?”
Her head tilts towards the crowd of guests, who are slowly closing in on us, eager to eavesdrop. “Can we talk in private?” she asks.
As the couple leave the room, Lela turns and gives me one last look. I don’t know quite how she manages to convey it through her slightly narrowed eyes, but it’s a look that says she’ll never forgive me if this doesn’t go her way.
“That’s it then,” I say, turning to Damien. “It’s over.”
“You don’t know that,” he reassures me.
“She thinks it’s my fault, but I never said a word! Whatever Josh was doing here, it’s nothing to do with me.”
“I’m sure Lela knows that. Anyway, she’s probably got some perfectly reasonable excuse ready to tell Ash.”
“He won’t believe her now,” I say, shaking my head. “He knows that something’s up. Worse than that, he knows that you and I are hiding something.”
It isn’t just Lela who acts like a character in a soap opera. I feel like one of those horrible ‘Bad Girl’ characters. The one who nobody likes, but who has an explosive secret about the soap sweetheart.
“Look,” he says, grabbing me by the shoulders. “It won’t come to that.”
He’s barely finished his utterance before everybody around us turns in the direction of raised voices.
Ash is storming towards the bar with Lela desperately chasing after him. She never was any good at running in heels, and soon one of her pastel pink stilettoes snags against the plush carpet, pulling her down to the floor in a pathetic heap of tears and ruined makeup.
A few people hurry to help her. I assume it’s her minions, and probably her mother, but I’m not paying any attention to them. Ash is getting closer and closer, and I know what he’s going to say.
I cling to Damien’s arm as though that will protect me.
But Ash doesn’t say a word to anybody when he gets to the bar. He whistles at the bartender, orders a shot of straight whisky, and downs it before he even looks at me.
“You knew then?” he says, his voice flat.
Damien squeezes my hand, and I know that I’ve got to tell Ash the truth.
“About Josh? I knew something was going on, but I swear to you, it wasn’t me who told him where we were tonight.”
“I know that,” Ash says, staring into his empty shot glass. “Lela had already told him herself.”
“So she doesn’t think it was me?” I ask, looking across the room to where she’s still sitting on the floor, rubbing her ankle and drowning in self-pity.
“I don’t blame you for trying to protect her,” he says quietly, following my gaze. “She was your best friend before any of this ever happened.”
I shake my head sadly. “I wasn’t doing it to protect her. I kept quiet to protect you.”
“I guess I appreciate that.” He nods at me, before turning to Damien and saying, “Do you think anybody will mind if I just want to be alone tonight?”
“Of course not,” Damien answers.
A small group of people try to approach Ash as he walks away, but he ignores them, heading for the lifts back to his hotel room. Luckily superstition prevents the bride and the groom from being together on the night before the wedding.
As I watch the crowd of people surrounding Lela growing bigger and bigger, I suddenly realise that Anna was right. I should never have agreed to be a part of this wedding in the first place.