Inked Ever After Read Online Free PDF Page A

to be able to
pass the three-date mark with any half-decent guy, and I just had a one-night
stand with a gigolo.”
    “As I said, the stuff of legends.”
    “No, our girl here marrying James Bowen under the moonlight
is the stuff of legends,” Annie, the hopeless romantic, replied.
    Holly wasn’t that easily derailed. “Right. Are you bringing
him to the wedding?”
    “Hello, one-night stand, remember? Besides, I didn’t get his
contact details.”
    “Can’t be that difficult to find him. How many studs named
Luigi can one escort agency have, huh?”
    “Holly has a point,” Elle mused.
    “We should Google it up.” That was Sophie.
    Annie groaned. “You and your Googling is what got us here.
We should—”
    Tate let her mind wander off, the girls’ relaxed banter
calming and dulling the sharp emotions racing through her to somehow manageable
proportions. Until Annie catapulted her back to reality.
    “Tate?”
    “Sorry, what?”
    “I asked, where are you spending your last night as an
unmarried woman?”
    That caught her off guard. “What do you mean?”
    “You can’t spend it with James.”
    Oops. She hadn’t really thought of that.
    “Can’t I?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
    Her bridesmaids all shook their heads, and her heart skipped
a beat. Several dozen beats actually. Any relaxation she might have achieved by
listening to the girls chatting about gigolos and fairy tales flew out the
window.
    Elle turned to her, concern etched in her face. “Mom called
yesterday. She wanted me to remind you to get the dress delivered to the house.
She wants us to spend the night before the wedding there.”
    Oh frigging hell. This was getting worse and worse.
    How hadn’t she seen this one coming? After all, it was
tradition for the bride to leave for her wedding from her childhood home.
    She cleared her throat and made a conscious effort to keep
breathing and seem unaffected by the news.
    “Okay.”
    When James and Tate had told her mother about the wedding,
she’d jumped the gun and assumed they’d have it at home in Boston, in the
backyard of the house, like Tate had always dreamed. The little fact that the
wedding she’d always dreamed of was a total impossibility because her dad and
brother were dead and she had trouble staying upright when she was in her
parents’ house, her mom kind of ignored. Well, Tate seldom ended up with her
head in between her knees anymore—which she had James to thank for—but still,
hardly the most appropriate place for the ceremony. Tate had completely
blanched at the idea, and James had known that was a no-go. He’d pushed for
them to get married in Alden, in his father’s backyard, and he’d won. Her mom
hadn’t been too happy, but in charm and arrogance, no one beat James. That had
allowed Tate to breathe easier, although only marginally.
    Short of orchestrating an alien abduction, she didn’t know
how to bail out from spending the night before the wedding at her parents’ place
without her mom being deeply hurt. Not to mention that if Tate knew the woman,
she had already arranged for the car, the makeup artist, and the hairdresser to
come to the house on the wedding day.
    Elle broke the deafening silence. “Sure?”
    She nodded, forcing a smile on her face.
    Elle wasn’t that easily fooled, Tate knew, but she let it
slide. “Are we set on this dress, Sis?”
    She nodded again.
    “Good. What if we tackle the bridesmaids’ dresses next? I
think red could be a good color. What do you think, Tate?”
    “Sure,” she got out. “That would be great.”
    And so the conversation dissolved into colors and textures
and hats, for which she was damn grateful because she was about to pass out.
Or, more specifically, about to hyperventilate and then pass out.
    “I’m gonna go and take this off,” she said to no one in
particular. Doing her best to ignore the fact that the whole place was spinning
and closing in on her, she turned toward the fitting room, her