Page 18 of The Brit and the Bridesmaid
“Both,” he said. “They have very particular... standards.”
She didn’t like that word choice at all.
“Let me put it this way—they are not the sort of people to know what a gardening shed is, let alone go inside one.”
There was no mistaking that. She didn’t belong here among his important, highbrow clients. She couldn’t have been more out of place in her jeans and t-shirt, the smell of potting soil clinging to her the way the aroma of money hung off the couple seated by Matt’s desk. He didn’t want them to see him with the “garden shed girl.”
Dirk’s words echoed in her mind, but in Matt’s voice:Everyone has their level.
Once again, she’d given her heart over to a guy who looked down on her. He was ashamed to be seen with her in front of his snobby clients. Abby wasn’t about to go through that again. If he was embarrassed by her, hiding her away from the fancy, important people in his life, then so be it. But she wouldn’t hang around, enduring the humiliation of it all.
She nodded then turned and walked away. If she kept her shoulders and head up, he might not realize her heart was breaking.
Chapter Eight
Abby wasn’t answering her phone. She came by to help Barney in his garden, but only when Matt was at work. She didn’t come to the market on Sundays or join him and his friends for their weekly football matches. He hadn’t seen her or talked to her in two weeks.
What had he done wrong? He’d talked through it with Barney and Mum and even his sisters, but no one had any idea what had happened. Mum finally told him, in a tone that brooked no argument, that if he couldn’t ask Abby why she’d suddenly decided to toss him off, he needed to ask Abby’s sister.
Caroline and her fiancé were scheduled to meet with him that week to finalize all the wedding details. He intended to get the business part of it all taken care of quickly so he could ask her what he’d done to make her sister run off.
Caroline’s intended, Gregory, wasn’t at all like Matt had imagined him. Where she was fussy and, honestly, a little highstrung, Gregory was laid back. Looking at him, no one would guess he was only a few days from getting married.
They quickly wrapped up the wedding checklist. Matt closed the lid on his laptop and looked at Caroline, hoping she could see the earnest sincerity in his expression. “May I ask a nonbusiness question?”
She and Gregory exchanged quick, knowing glances. “About Abby?” She sounded very sure about the topic.
Matt nodded. “I don’t know what I did, but I can tell she’s mad at me, or doesn’t like me anymore.” He had broken the “no contractions” rule three times in one sentence, a clear sign Abby’s defection was getting to him. “I can’t get her to return my calls. I don’t know what happened.”
“Oh, I can tell you what happened,” Caroline said. “Dirk the Jerk is what happened.”
Though she spoke with conviction, the explanation didn’t help at all. Matt looked to Gregory, hoping for a guy-friendly translation.
“Up until about a year ago,” Gregory said. “Abby was dating this guy named Dirk. He was a total plague.”
“Then why was she dating him?” Another question came to mind immediately. “And what does that have to do with me?” He wasn’t a jerk, a bully, or a plague. He didn’t think so, at least.
“Abby didn’t see him the way we all did,” Caroline explained. “Not at first, anyway. When it was just the two of them, or around our family, he was okay. He treated her decent. But around his friends and family, or the public in general, she was never good enough.”
Matt didn’t like that sound of that at all.
“Dirk comes from money, if you know what I mean. His family’s very connected and rich and fancy.” Caroline was growing noticeably angrier as she spoke. “All dressed up like them, Abby looks like a million bucks. Dirk approved of her,kind of, when she was like that, but he looked down on who she really is. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone where she worked or where she grew up. For the most part, she wasn’t supposed to talk at all when they were out together, just smile and look pretty.”
“I actually heard him tell her to shut up once,” Gregory said. “I almost belted the guy.”
A simmering anger began in the pit of Matt’s stomach.How dare anyone treat Abby that way.
“She finally admitted that Dirk was, in fact, a complete jerk and found the guts to dump him,” Caroline said. “But that kind of thing leaves scars. She still wonders if she’s good enough, if she’s too poor or ordinary or plain.”
“How could she even think that?” It didn’t make sense at all. “Abby is amazing.”
Caroline smiled. “We think so too.”
“So why did you toss her out the other day?” Gregory asked.
“I never tossed her out.” What was he talking about?
They both looked instantly confused. Obviously Matt was missing something.
