Hand On Heart: Sequel to Head Over Heels Read Online Free

not.  I mean, it’s a tricky one, isn’t it?  How many women could say they had been bridesmaid to their ex-boyfriend’s new wife?  And if you didn’t mean so much to me – well, to us both of course – then I’d never have dreamed of asking.’ 
    Alex knew she was babbling, but she was terrified.  Odd though the situation was, she wanted Grace as her Matron of Honour, not from a sense of duty to a good friend who had stood by her in times of trouble, but simply because she loved her friend to bits.  Grace had seen Alex through the hardest of times when Peter died, and beyond.  It was a real dilemma.
    ‘Oh Alex, really, it’s lovely of you to ask,’ Grace replied, racking her brains for the right thing to say to let her friend down gently and without causing offence.  Much as she loved Alex, she couldn’t think of anything worse than being her Matron of Honour, as her friend married the man she had once been engaged to.  Just imagine, having to hold the train of Alex’s dress, and delivering her to the man who had never quite managed to commit to marriage with her.  Grace had to do the let-down quickly, to avoid any more embarrassment on either side; both of them were squirming with the awkwardness of it all, but the last thing she wanted to do was accept, and then feel uncomfortable about the whole thing and wish she hadn’t.
    All vestiges of love for Mark were long gone; there was nothing left at all, nothing beyond the realms of friendship and wishing him happiness in his life.  But in an ideal world she would have planned never to see him again.  She had never kept in touch with any of the other men from her past, and that was how she preferred it.  She was glad for him that he had managed to find in Alex whatever it was that had been lacking with her, even if that did sting a little.  Alex was a beautiful and very special lady, no doubt about it, but she couldn’t help feeling second fiddle to her, even though she didn’t actually want Mark.
    Grace and Mark had evolved their present day relationship – if you could call it that – into a kind of tacit friendship at arms’ length.  Months, and then years on, each still avoided being alone in a room with the other, although they were quite happy to chat in a group, in public, and put a pleasant face on things.  Surely it had to be worse for Mark, though, didn’t it?  Whenever he set eyes on Tom, did he not just see the man who had started an affair with his girlfriend, a man who had ‘stolen’ her from him and then got her pregnant?  Or had so much water passed under the bridge since then that none of that mattered anymore?  Grace thought that actually both men handled the situation in a very mature fashion.  Outwardly they seemed like friends, although they would never be best mates, and that was understandable.  Even if their so-called friendship was an act, for the sake of their womenfolk, and neither could actually forget what had happened in the past, then they made a pretty good job of getting on with their lives and putting it all behind them.
    ‘I’m honoured, really I am,’ Grace replied to Alex, stalling for time and hoping the right words would just pop into her head.  If only Alex hadn’t asked her.  Surely she couldn’t have thought Grace would expect it, just by virtue of being her best friend?
    Fortunately Evie came to the rescue: ‘I’ll do it!’ She piped up excitedly.  ‘I never got to be a bridesmaid when I was a kid, and Alex, just look at Grace, she’s squirming!  You can’t do that to her!’  Bless her, Evie couldn’t help but blurt out the honest truth which was staring them all in the face, but it saved everyone’s blushes and brought the three of them to giggles of relief instead.
    ‘Oh, thank you, Evie,’ Grace and Alex chorused together, and the three women hugged one another, two of them mightily thankful to have been rescued from an awkward situation so quickly, and the third simply