The Wedding Dress Read Online Free PDF Page A

you really believe Jasmine Turner isn’t your sister, then you should prove it before this case gets out of hand.”
    “Gets out of hand how?” Anne asked. She had visions of bailiffs showing up at the front door to take everything away from her.
    They couldn’t do that. Could they? The world had to be fairer than that.
    Gareth reached out as if he would take her hand, but then, at the last second, he put his hand in his pocket instead. “Do you want all of this in the public eye? Because if you don’t come to the mediation, that’s what will happen.”
    Anne froze at that thought. The idea of someone dragging her parents’ names through the press like that was almost too much to bear.
    “Are you saying you’d tell reporters?” Anne asked incredulously. “You wouldn’t really do something like that, would you?”
    “No, I wouldn’t do that to you, but if this goes to trial, people will find out. Edward Farleigh wasn’t the biggest author in the world, but he was big enough that people will be interested, and we won’t be able to stop that.”
    As he spoke, Anne tried desperately to make sense of the way her life had turned upside down in the last twenty-four hours.
    “Even though you’re certain that your father couldn’t do this, you should still go to the mediation. I’ll be right outside, Anne, I promise. It will just be you, Jasmine, her lawyer, and a professional mediator. Go there and prove your case. Show Jasmine and the mediator that you’re right. Please at least talk to them. It’s the best thing to do.”
    Part of her knew that Gareth was right. Going to this meeting would be the only way to deal with the situation before it ruined her father’s reputation. Yet it seemed so unfair that someone could just show up and start questioning his marriage and behavior.
    Just as unfair as her parents’ sudden deaths. They shouldn’t have been snatched away like that. And now, she thought as her eyes filled up with tears, someone was trying to take away her memories of them, too.

Chapter Seven
    Gareth’s gut clenched tight as Anne started crying. Even if another investigator might have tried to ignore the pain of this sweet, funny, beautiful woman, he couldn’t do it. Instead, he had to reach out to try to soothe her by putting a comforting arm around her.
    He honestly expected her to flinch at his touch. He was the enemy, after all. So when she surprised him, yet again, by putting her head on his shoulder and sinking down onto the couch with him while she cried, he couldn’t stop himself thinking about how perfect it felt to hold her like this.
    “It’s going to be all right,” he promised.
    She turned her face to his so that he was looking into the depths of those perfectly blue eyes…close enough that their lips were just a few inches apart.
    “Gareth,” she said, his name barely more than a whisper.
    He had dated plenty of beautiful, intelligent, talented women. Yet not one of them had made him feel the way Anne was making him feel right now. What was more, not one of them had made him want to open up to them; to let them into the parts of himself that he kept hidden.
    Maybe it was because, even after having known her only a day, he sensed that Anne would never take advantage of him in any way.
    So when she started to close the rest of the distance between them, her lips moving closer slowly, almost imperceptibly, Gareth wanted to pretend that he couldn’t see it coming, so that he could stay there and let this wonderful woman kiss him.
    But he couldn’t.
    Not when she was on the other side of a case from him.
    The rules for a situation like this were clear. And he’d always lived his life strictly by the rules.
    Pulling back, taking his arms from around her, and standing up was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. But he did it anyway.
    “I need to give you these again.” He took the envelope of legal papers out of his pocket and handed them to her.
    Gareth’s gut