CHAPTER ONE
THISWASIT. In an hour she’d be married.
Thadie Le Roux glanced at her elaborate wedding dress on the double bed and touched the platinum-blonde micro braids threaded into her hair and twisted into an elegant knot at the back of her neck.
After numerous setbacks, insane press attention and her two brothers falling in love during the process, they were almost at the finish line. In a couple of hours, she’d be Mrs Clyde Strathern.
Was Clyde, ensconced in another suite down the hallway of this house, excited?
She wasn’t. Not particularly. Then again, the last time she’d felt butterflies-in-her-stomach, gut-churning, light-headed excitement had been that night in London four years ago, when she’d, uncharacteristically, allowed a gorgeous stranger to join her in her hotel room and take her to bed.
He’d been a once-in-a-lifetime collision, and their coming together gave her the best gift of her life, her twin sons, Gus and Finn. You can’t think about Angus, Thadie, not on your wedding day.
Tightening the belt of her short dressing gown, she sat down on the edge of the huge bed, staring at her stupidly expensive wedding dress. The doubts she’d had over the past three months rolled over her and her breathing turned shallow, her skin prickling with dread. What was she doing? Clyde didn’t love her, she didn’t love him...
Thadie forced herself to calm down, pushing her doubts and concerns away.You know why you are getting married, Le Roux, it was a carefully thought-out decision, remember?
On a practical level, Clyde had agreed to pitch in with her boys, which meant more ‘me’ time for her. For years she’d been glued to the twins and she, maybe, wanted to return to work, and start designing again. Part-time, of course.
And yeah, providing her boys with a dad made her feel a little less guilty about wanting to do something for herself. They needed a father, and rugby superstar and national hero Clyde, both sporty and smart, was a good choice.
They moved in the same circles, had met at an event. She couldn’t even remember what for now. And, unlike her tempestuous, volatile parents, Clyde was laid-back, nothing ever ruffled him. Being around him felt as if she were sailing consistently calm waters.
It was a simple transaction: Clyde liked her high profile and wanted to be part of the famous Le Roux family. She wanted a father for her boys, to shed the loneliness and responsibility of being a single mum. She knew she’d never crave his love and, provided he kept his promise to help raise Gus and Finn, he’d never disappoint her.
Could she be blamed for wanting her boys to have a stable, old-fashioned, two-parents-who-were-involved-in-their-lives upbringing? Clyde had agreed to take on that challenge.
She winced, thinking that Clyde hadn’t spent much time with the twins lately, and she suddenly wondered whether helping her raise them was something he still wanted to do. No, she was overreacting. Clyde would’ve said something if he had any doubts about marrying her.
Admittedly, the last few months had been horrible. She’d had her first wedding venue cancelled by an unknown person, and for a while they’d been without a venue to host what wasbeing dubbed South Africa’s Wedding of the Year. She’d had journalists publicly questioning their commitment to each other, people trolling her on social media, and she’d had to ask Clyde’s stepsister, Alta, to step down as a bridesmaid due to her constant negativity. Despite a few arguments, and many tears caused by stress and frustration—hers, not Clyde’s, he’d been unfazed by all the drama—they’d made it to their wedding day.
She was just stressed, being overly dramatic. It was fine, they were fine.Everythingwasfine.
Thadie lifted her head as her best friend, Dodi, walked into the room. As the owner of a bridal salon, Dodi had helped her choose her wedding dress. Thadie was, if she was honest, a little jealous that Dodi worked in the fashion industry when she had studied fashion design and had once had big plans to be the next Stella McCartney or Vera Wang.
Instead of making garments, she’d made babies.
‘Is Liyana here?’ Thadie asked her, thinking of her glamorous mother. ‘She promised she would be.’
Dodi frowned and shook her head. ‘She sent a message saying she’d go directly to the church.’
Despite having known Liyana would let her down, Thadie still felt disappointed, a little wounded. Her mum had never kept a promise in her life, and had never really been a mum to her in the traditional sense, so why did she expect something different on her wedding day? It would never occur to the ex-supermodel that her wedding day was one of those iconic mother-daughter moments that was supposed to be treasured.
‘Stupid of me to think that she’d put herself out,’ Thadie murmured. ‘Then again, if my dad was still alive, he’d probably forget he was walking me down the aisle and he’d have to be dragged off the golf course.’
Or out of one of his many mistresses’ beds. Her father being a serial cheater was another disappointment. Then again, her mother hadn’t been that hot on monogamy either.
Between her parents, not knowing Angus’s surname and losing his unexamined business card—resulting in her not being able to contact him after their mind-blowing night together, or when she’d found out she was pregnant—she was done with being disappointed. It was far better to keep her expectations low and, above all, realistic.
‘Dammit,’ Dodi muttered, her attention on something happening outside the window.
Thadie stood up. ‘What’s going on?’
When Thadie moved to stand next to her, Dodi threw out her arm, keeping her back. ‘There’s a commotion at the gate. It’s a fair distance away but I can see photographers, some with long-range lenses.’
No, that couldn’t be right. To keep the press away, she’d arranged for a text message to be sent to their guests at the end of the church service telling them where to head for the reception.
Only a few people knew the location of the reception and she trusted most of them with her life. Thadie, still dressed in her short, silky dressing gown, crossed the room and yanked open the door to the adjacent living room. Her boys, thankfully, were with Jabu, Hadleigh House’s long-term butler and the twins’ honorary grandfather.