Page 40 of Her Fake Island Wedding

Chapter Nineteen

Lucy struggled to pay attention as Luke spoke. She and Bryce had opted to go with the simplest, shortest version of the marriage ceremony and standard vows. Bryce’s look of horror when Luke asked if they were going to write their own had been enough for Lucy to immediately veto the idea.

“I do,” she said at the appropriate moment, surprised by how clear and definite her voice sounded. Her gaze locked with Bryce’s, she felt strong and confident, somehow certain she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Suddenly, it was all over and Luke was pronouncing them to be man and wife.

“Kiss the bride, mate!” Cory yelled loudly, and Bryce laughed, slipping his arm around Lucy’s waist and dipping her backwards. She found herself giggling too, reaching up to hook her arms round his neck and hold on tight as his mouth came down on hers.

“Save that for later,” Luke said in a gently reproachful tone about a minute later, amid loud cheers and shouts of;

“Get a room!”

Lucy was laughing as Bryce lifted her back upright, her eyes sparkling with joy, and he very nearly kissed her again right then. They were being swarmed by their friends, though, separated and both hugged and congratulated loudly. Accepting a surprisingly tearful embrace from Olivia, Bryce spotted from the corner of his eye Juliette edging in to embrace Lucy.

“Danger incoming,” he muttered in Olivia’s ear, and she promptly released him, in time for him to get back to Lucy as Juliette spoke.

“You look beautiful, my darling,” Juliette gushed, “although…”

Bryce spoke loudly, before Juliette could make whatever backhanded compliments or outright criticisms she’d undoubtedly spent the whole ceremony thinking up. “Doesn’t she, though? I’ve always known you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever met,” he spoke directly to Lucy, “but today… well, you take my breath away.”

High colour staining Lucy’s cheeks, she ducked her head a little and laughed shyly. “It’s the dress.”

“It’s a pretty dress, but it’s the woman wearing it I can’t stop staring at.” Very conscious of Juliette standing by, lips pursed as though she’d just sucked on a lemon, Bryce tucked his arm around Lucy’s waist, holding her possessively close.

“Could I get a photo of you as the mother of the bride, Juliette?” Gemma asked at that moment. “Love that hat, by the way!”

Juliette preened, lifting a hand to touch the brim of the angled, super-fashionable scarlet hat she wore, a stunning foil for her designer white silk gown printed all over with huge red poppies. “I took a trip over to Hamilton Island to get it. There are some quite nice shops there.”

Bryce saw Lucy roll her eyes, grinned. ‘Quite nice’ was a very understated description for the upmarket boutiques Juliette had spent a day touring. She’d had to buy an extra suitcase to take all her new purchases back to England in.

Luke touched his arm then, drew them both aside to sign the wedding certificate and the resort’s wedding register. Then it was time for Lucy to have some pictures with her ‘bridesmaids’, and Terry and Jerome became Gemma’s willing assistants, chivying everyone into the perfect positions for photos.

Lunch was booked for the party atLa Sirène, the resort’s Michelin-starred restaurant, and even Juliette could find no fault with the incredible food served to them by unobtrusive staff, nor the superb wine Jace had provided from his private cellar.

Anticipating that Juliette would, given the opportunity, stand up and say any number of unkind things about Lucy in the guise of reminiscing about her childhood, Bryce had already put his foot down and declared there weren’t going to be any speeches, because he quite simply didn’t want to give one. Cory presented a toast to the bridesmaids, grinning besottedly at Olivia as he did so, and then Luke proposed one to the bride and groom, and that was the sum total of the formalities at the meal.

Bryce was pretty sure Juliette was gritting her teeth to keep her smile firmly fixed in place, but he’d deliberately asked Terry and Jerome to seat her in between Luke and Jace, so she could hardly complain she wasn’t given a place of honour. Bryce just had no intention of allowing her to belittle Lucy on their wedding day.

Once again, he had to remind himself the wedding wasn’t real. Lucy would have a real wedding one day, to some lucky bastard Bryce already hated without knowing a thing about him. The mere thought of her walking down the aisle to some other man, her eyes glowing with love for someone who wasn’t him, made him feel sick to his stomach.

After the luncheon was when Bryce and Lucy really had to earn their keep, or at least earn back the cost of putting on the wedding, by letting Gemma photograph them at every scenic spot on the island, including in the honeymoon cabin they were getting for the night, complete with a beautiful feast of cold foods laid on for them, before another quick trip out for sunset photos on the beach. Lucy blessed the speedy tropical sunsets as darkness finally fell and Gemma regretfully lowered her camera at last.

“That’s all, folks,” she said with a smile. “You can drop the glued-on smiles now.”

“Good, because my face feels like it’s about to crack,” Lucy joked, sagging against Bryce.

“You’ve been a trooper,” Bryce praised, putting his arm around her. “We done, Gemma?”

“Consider your dues paid. I’m off to lock myself in my office and spend the next few days buried in Photoshop and Instagram.” Gemma grinned wickedly at them and said teasingly “I’ll let you know if we need any reshoots.”

That prompted Lucy to flip her the bird, which made Gemma burst out laughing before she hopped in her golf cart and headed back to the resort. Bryce had long since commandeered one to drive himself and Lucy around, and he helped her back in now before getting into the driver’s seat.

“Do you want to check in with everyone else?” he asked.

“Absolutely not.”

He grinned at her definitive answer. “Leaving them to their own amusements it is, then. Let’s go see if there’s any of our feast left.”

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