Needing Happily Ever After - Elena Aitken Page 0,66

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was still so hurt.

What was almost as bad as not talking to Damon was that nobody was talking about him. At least not to her.

It was bizarre.

Especially because they all knew that the wedding was a fake. Well, maybe they didn’t all know. But Logan had overheard her telling her mother, and of course he’d run off to tell Faith, whom, from what she understood, had talked him out of going to find Damon and punching him out. But beyond that little bit of information, no one had so much as mentioned Damon, the fact that they’d lied to everyone, or the fact that she was now living back at home.

And that’s what was bizarre. It wasn’t like her family not to push an issue, especially a major one. If she cared more, she might have asked them about it, but if she was being honest, Katie was enjoying the reprieve from reality when it came to Damon.

Except this.

She looked back to the mirror and once again took in the image of herself in her wedding dress, her hair done and her makeup carefully applied. This was a little too close to reality for her liking.

“You look gorgeous.” Katie caught Faith’s grin in the mirror’s reflection. “Thank you for doing this. It’s probably not the easiest thing to…” She let the thought drift away, which was probably for the best because there was definitely nothing easy about playing dress-up in her wedding gown—for a photo shoot, of all things—when her actual marriage was a complete and total train wreck.

To put it mildly.

“Well, I hope it helps,” was all Katie could say. “Let’s get this over with.”

Faith had called the night before and asked whether she’d help her out with the photos for a new marketing campaign she’d been thinking about, and considering Katie really had nothing else to do but sit around and feel sorry for herself, she’d agreed. It was a choice she was regretting, especially because putting on the gown had brought back way more feelings than she’d expected it to. The last tine she’d worn it, she’d married Damon. And despite the fact that it was all supposed to have been a big lie, it hadn’t felt like a lie when she’d held his hands, looked in his eyes, and vowed to marry him. And that’s because it wasn’t a lie. It was the most honest thing she’d ever done.

Tears threatened to spill, but Katie refused to let them fall. She blinked hard and forced a smile and turned to face Faith, who seemed oblivious of the emotional tornado taking place inside her.

“This is going to be the best ad campaign ever.” Faith grabbed her hand and led her from the room. “Hope will be so surprised when she sees it because I know she hasn’t even thought about marketing on social media yet, and I don’t understand why not.” She stopped to grab her folder from the kitchen table, and without letting go of her hand, kept half dragging, half leading Katie from the kitchen and out to her waiting SUV. The entire time, she yammered on and on about ads and images and slogans, and Katie was really only half listening as she got into Faith’s passenger seat.

Katie couldn’t help but be impressed as Faith kept up a stream of chatter all the way to Ever After Ranch, barely pausing for her to react to anything she was saying. Which was probably for the best, because Katie couldn’t imagine she would have much of a reaction at all. She was about to pretend that she was a bride, only days after her own marriage—real or not—had imploded. What would she say?

“Hey,” she did say a moment later. “Where are we going?” They’d just driven past the main gates for Ever After, and were still headed down the gravel road. She tried to twist around in her seat. “You passed the gates.”

“Oh, I know.” Faith grinned at her. “We’re going in the back gate. It’s closer to the river and I want to get some pictures down there. Logan is meeting us with the quad and he’ll take us around to the other sites after.”

“The other sites?”

“Just the ceremony site and the barn.”

Katie groaned.

“I know, I know. But it will be fun. I promise.”

Katie stared out the window. There was no way any of it was going to be fun. But a promise was a promise. And