Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen) - By Sierra Dean Page 0,86

fill it, so she carried on. “The current time is seven forty-five, and I am sitting outside your apartment with Owen, because you are expected at Columbia at eight o’clock sharp.”

I held the phone back and looked at the date. April 28th.

I don’t know how I was the only fucking person in the world who needed to be reminded about my own wedding. But here I was, still in bed two hours before I was supposed to walk down the aisle. I was dreaming about another man and waking up sad because yet another wasn’t beside me in bed.

“I’ll be out in five minutes,” I promised her.

“Don’t fancy yourself up too much, there are people for that.” This was said in a voice eerily similar to Kellen’s, and I couldn’t help but laugh. She wasn’t wrong though, Kimberly was bound to have dozens of the best hair and makeup artists waiting to paint me, pluck me and groom me into the best version of myself.

A version I didn’t feel I deserved to be right then.

I mumbled a “See you soon” and hung up.

Fifteen minutes later I was sitting alongside Kellen, Brigit and Mercedes in short-backed chairs while a team of beauty experts went to town on us. They cooed over Bri’s perfectly straight blonde hair so much I was convinced they wanted to do a scalp transplant and put her hair on my head to save themselves the trouble of making order out of the messy ponytail I’d worn to the hotel.

Eugenia had come along with Kellen and was sitting on a small loveseat looking as uncomfortable as humanly possible. I guess when you take a girl who has lived in the swamps of Louisiana for half her life and throw her into a city like New York, there was bound to be a fair bit of culture shock.

“Eugenia?” I said.

Her attention snapped to me. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want you to feel you have to, but, um…do you want to stand up with me?”

Kimberly, who had been texting up a storm on her BlackBerry, was suddenly all ears. I had to give her points because she didn’t shoot the idea in the foot straightaway and instead waited to hear what we were going to say. Her fingers primed to send another text at any second.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Eugenia was blushing a fierce shade of red. “It’s so last minute, I don’t have anything to wear. I’m sure I’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

I had yet to be a demanding bride, and given how much I suspected Lucas was paying Kimberly, surely finding a single yellow Alfred Angelo bridesmaid’s dress couldn’t be too much to ask. Without a word my gaze drifted from my sister to the frozen wedding planner.

“Kimberly?”

For one long second she just batted her false lashes at me until she registered I was now asking her something. Then she was a flurry of motion and efficiency. “What size are you?” she asked Eugenia.

“I…” The poor girl looked down at her borrowed dress. “This is a six?”

Kimberly didn’t say another word to her, she was too busy tapping away on her BlackBerry muttering, “Sizes run high… Best to get an eight too… Wonder where Nancy got to…” She walked from the room with her head down, and for a moment I was afraid she might run straight into the wall, but the woman was obviously a pro at text-walking because she sidestepped the doorframe at the last second and marched her Manolo-clad feet out into the hall.

“She’s scary,” Eugenia said.

“You think she’s scary? You lived on an island in the swamp populated with feral werewolves and were raised by a witch,” I reminded her.

That got everyone’s attention, including the totally human beauty team, whose curling irons all stopped in unison.

Eugenia’s eyes bugged out.

I winked. “In a manner of speaking.” Then I laughed. “Geez, everyone. Did we not budget for senses of humor?”

My sister let out the breath she was holding, and Brigit joined the prep team in laughing, while Kellen and Mercedes shook their heads, incredulous that I would use two verboten W words in one sentence.

“Oh, honey, we were all raised by witches.” This from my stylist, Carter, whose dark hair was styled into a hip-looking pompadour with the sides shaved short. He had a habit of winking at me in the mirror whenever he spun the chair so I could see his progress. In the grand tradition of male hairstylists everywhere, I found it impossible to