To Wear His Ring Again by Chantelle Shaw Read Free Book Online Page B

mischievous grin. She could not imagine him as an adult. For her, Simon would always be fourteen, always laughing and fooling around. ‘You know what a daredevil Simon was. He wouldn’t have listened to you. I know you did everything you could to try and save him, and you have to stop blaming yourself.’ She squeezed Ryan’s arm. ‘You and my brother were best friends. He would be glad that you’re going to marry the woman you love.’
    Ryan nodded slowly. ‘I guess you’re right. Thanks, Izzy.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘Hey, we’d better get moving. We’re due on stage in ten minutes. How do you feel?’
    â€˜Nervous,’ Isobel admitted. ‘I always am before a performance, but I’ll be fine once I start singing.’ She was about to follow Ryan out of the room when her phone rang, and she walked back over to the dressing table where she had left it. Because she was in a hurry, she unthinkingly answered it without checking the identity of the caller, and she tensed when a familiar voice spoke.
    â€˜I’ll be watching you tonight, Izzy. It is written in the stars that we are destined to be together for ever.’
    She cut the call and the phone slid out of her trembling fingers. Was David here at the hotel? Could he be a guest at the charity fund-raising event?
    â€˜Come on,’ Ryan called from the doorway. He frowned when he saw how pale Isobel had gone. ‘Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ He glanced at her phone as she dropped it into her bag. ‘You haven’t had any more nuisance calls, have you?’
    It wouldn’t be fair to share her worries about the stalker with Ryan tonight, when he was clearly ecstatic that his girlfriend had agreed to marry him. There was probably nothing to worry about anyway. She was being silly to let the mysterious David bother her.
    She shrugged. ‘I told you, I’ve just got a bit of stage fright, that’s all,’ she said as they took the lift down to the ground floor of the hotel. ‘In a strange way I find it more daunting to perform in front of an audience of five hundred guests who paid a fortune for tickets, than at an arena in front of thousands of fans.’
    Keen to take her mind away from the unsettling phone call, she changed the subject. ‘Are you and Emily going to announce your engagement tonight?’
    â€˜No, I only proposed yesterday, and she’s gone to her parents’ country estate in Suffolk to break the news to them first.’ As they walked backstage to wait until it was time for the band’s performance Ryan caught hold of Isobel’s hand. ‘Thanks for helping me and Emily to keep our relationship out of the media. The speculation that you and I are romantically involved has allowed Emily to stay out of the limelight.’
    They were interrupted by one of the sound technicians. ‘You’re on in two minutes, guys and girls. Do you want to check your mic, Izzy?’
    As the host for the evening walked onto the stage to introduce the Stone Ladies, Isobel peeped through a gap in the curtains and felt a sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach. The glare of the footlights meant that it was impossible for her to see the audience clearly, but even if she could make out people’s faces she would not recognise David. He had told her in one of his phone calls that they had met after a Stone Ladies concert and she had given him her autograph, but since the band had become famous Isobel had met hundreds of fans and signed her autograph countless times. She assumed David must have asked her to write ‘to my darling’—fans often made strange requests—but she had no recollection of him.
    Was he out there in the audience? She shivered as she remembered his most recent phone call. What had he meant when he’d said that they were destined to be together for ever? Was it her overactive