As strong as I have been, I also have this unshakable feeling silently festering away inside of me. Although everything is going so wonderfully right, I feel that something is worryingly wrong.

And I think I know what that something is. I think I know what it is but I can't tell Rex, at least not until I am completely sure of what that something might be. That's my dilemma, right there. I don't know whether I am imagining things or whether I am just so damn used to my life going suddenly tits up, I am paranoid that it will happen all over again? I keep second guessing myself and it's quietly making me a nervous wreck. I know I should confide in Rex, but how can I tell him that the something I am so silently afraid of, is his father?

The parting words of the very bitter Jonathan Ford, they persist in persecuting me. "I am watching you" poisons all that I think, say or do. Whether I am at home, work—anywhere, I always feel like he is somewhere around, distantly keeping his menacing promise. There have been many times that I have felt like I am being watched, even followed, but it's only ever a fleeting feeling that I have. I haven't actually seen Jonathan Ford, but his threat is everywhere that I seem to be or go. Although I am unbelievably happy, I am inwardly unbelievably afraid as well. Which is ridiculous, I know. I have so many wonderful things coming my way—Rex is moving in at the weekend and starting his new job on the following Monday. We are getting married in exactly six weeks time in a small and characterful Manor House in Tetbury.

His house back in London has been quickly sold, so we are going to start looking at some properties—such wonderful things are really happening, yet I still can't shake the fear from off my shoulders.

So when Rex gave me an affectionate goodbye kiss yesterday morning, I have been determined to fill my days and nights with all things wedding or property related. I should be walking around on an elated cloud nine, not around on nervy eggshells. Which is why I have decided to enrol the help of my darling younger sister, whose effervescent personality will no doubt be a positive influence on me.

I don't want to be thinking about Rex's fathers threatening last words to me, I only want to be thinking about tiaras, flowers, wedding dresses and charming little houses that we might buy. With that in mind, I decide to message Faith now.

Hey, do you fancy coming over to mine after work today? I will cook us dinner, crack open a bottle of vino and then we can look at Pinterest for some wedding ideas? You could stay over? I really need some help, Faith...I only have six weeks to get everything done! Arghhhhhh! Help me!!

Love from your slightly stressed but very loving sister, Angel xxxx

I know my text will make her smile. It will also make her see that I am quietly starting to freak out. I really do have so much to get organised. Even though Rex and I are only having a really small civil ceremony, with just our closest friends and family being invited, it still means that there is a small wedding to be organised.

My very lovely mum has excitingly offered to make us a simple but divine two tier cake. Angela's mother is kindly going to make my tulip bouquet and Faith and her super duper work colleague are going to do my bridal hair and make-up. Both Rex and I don't want a big and lavish wedding. We just want to get married in beautiful surroundings and be surrounded by the beautiful people who love us. Which is why I just feel so bad for him. His mum hasn't been in touch since the night she hurtfully closed her front door on us. He has tried to call her a number of times, but Elizabeth never returns his calls. I know it hurts him. He loves his mum. She should be involved with our wedding preparations. The fact that she isn't, deeply hurts Rex. Which is why I am going to send her a wedding invitation with an accompanying letter. I know she is upset, but Rex is her only son. Regardless of what she thinks of me, she will forever regret missing his wedding. Through all of his hurt, Rex is just too proud to beg his mum to come, but I am not.

If I have to beg Elizabeth Ford to come to our wedding, I will happily beg.

I love Rex, so I will happily beg if it means that his mother will come. I will do anything to make Rex happy, anything.

My mobile phone suddenly pings with an incoming message.

Hey Angel, I will get to you about 6.30!

Have the food, wine and some pj's ready...it will be a looooooong Pinterest night!

From your completely stressless, far more sensible but very loving sister, Faith xxxxx

With a museum tour to do this afternoon, I stand slowly away from my desk with a pleased smile hanging around the corners of my mouth as I quickly reply back to Faith.

Thank yooooooooou!

My love and lasagne is all yours!

Love Angel xxxxx

I am so glad that Faith is coming around tonight. She will come up with loads of fab ideas and will keep me company...as I really have started to hate being alone.

**

"I am thinking about wearing something like this, it would really compliment your wedding bouquet." Faith is eagerly pointing at her iPad, showing me a cute one shoulder, knee length dress in the palest of lemon chiffon.

Impressed, my brows rise pleasingly high. "That's gorgeous." I happily tell my dear sister. Going along with the informal theme for our wedding, Rex and I just want people to wear what they want. Although my dad is going to be walking me down the aisle, and Aidan is going to be best man and Faith will be my maid of honour, we have told them that they can wear what they feel comfortable in. For us, getting married isn't about everyone all looking fancy and posh, it's about officiating our love for one another. It's about standing in front of those who deeply care about us, both individually and as a couple, and let them be part of our lifelong commitment to one another. "I think it's a beautiful dress." I smile at Faith, just so glad that she is here with me.

"You don't think the one shoulder would be too much?" She cutely frowns back at me, her hazel spheres pensively narrowed.

Chuckling softly, I emphatically shake my head. "As my maid of honour, you will look stunning in that dress."

Faith squeals, clapping her hands in an overexcited and girly way. "I'm sooooo happy you like it...because I've already ordered it!"

My soft chuckle changes to a full laugh. "Why does that not surprise me?"

With her squealing now tailing off and her clapping no more, Faith sits taller beside me on the sofa, adopting a far more serious expression. "Now we have my dress all sorted, and mum has already chosen hers as well, what about you?" Her eyes are firmly locked on me now, widening with deepening curiosity. "Have you picked out a dress yet?" She impatiently asks with her head slightly tilted.

Lifting the iPad from off her lap, I grin. "I have narrowed it down to two." I type in the name of the online retailer Wedding Belles, from where I have found two exquisite dresses. With my poised finger, I start scrolling through the many beautiful dresses on the screen. When I spot the first of the two divine dresses, I excitedly point it out to Faith. "There's this one." I keenly show her an ivory strapless mermaid dress, with a small lace and tulle train that would gorgeously just sweep across the ground.

Studying it hard, Faith is smiling and nodding over and over. "It's wonderful, but I now need to see the other one." She quickly hands me back her iPad, so I can find the second divine dress.

My fingers, once again, scroll at speed to find it. Once I do, I promptly show it to Faith. "Here it is." There on the screen, is a romantic looking off-the-shoulder long sleeved lace dress with a simple court train in a sensuous shade of champagne.

Faith eyes it endearingly. "This is more you, Angel. It's beautifully understated and classically chic, just like you." Her loving eyes slowly lift, searching for mine to lovingly look back at. "It has to be this dress." There's a sweet urgency to her voice. "It just has to be."

My mouth erupts into the widest of smiles. "I'm glad you've said that...because I've already ordered it!" I am excitedly bouncing up and down on my sofa, suppressing my inner squeal.

Faith does it for me, frantically clapping and squealing. "Oh my gosh! You totally had me there!" She then hugs me, sisterly hard. "You will be the beautifulest bride ever." She hugs me some more, making her iPad slip down onto the floor with a thud. "Oh bugger!" She suddenly lets go of me, carefully lifting her tablet up. "It's okay, it's still alive." She announces with a light and relieved giggle. "So what else do you want to look at?" She swipes the screen, bringing up Pinterest again.

Snuggling in closer beside Faith and holding my wine between my hands with an intrigued little smile, I say. "Well, I know the Manor House will be dressing the reception tables, but they said we could personalise things if we wanted to." I already have an idea in my head, but I just want to show my sister to get her valued opinion. Typing in shabby chic wedding favours, I start scrolling through the many lovely ideas on offer. When I find what I am looking for, I point it out with yet another smile. "Rex loves Parma Violet sweets, so I was thinking of making up some pretty shabby chic jars and filling them up with them." I keep on scrolling, just to show Faith the many designs of cute little jars that there are on Pinterest.

Moving in closer, she scrolls back on one particular design. "These are adorable." She blinks, cooing profusely at a tiny jar that has a pretty bit of fabric covering it and cutely secured with natural twine.

I lean in, totally falling in love with the sweet jar design as well. "They would be perfect. I would only need about six of them, because we only have twenty five wedding day guests coming."

Finishing off the last of her wine, Faith reaches for the half-full bottle of white Zinfandel. "I will do the jars for you." She kindly tells me as she refills her glass and carefully tops up mine. "And it's Parma Violet sweets, right?" She asks, clutching her chilled drink between her relaxed fingers.

Thinking of my very wonderful man and his love for the horrid little sweets, I contently smile. "Yes, thank you." My smile is now extended to my equally as wonderful little sister. "Thank you for being here." And I really was. With her here, I feel less afraid and more excited, which is exactly how I should be feeling.

Faith places her iPad down on my coffee table in front of us, then sits more comfortably back on the sofa. "I'm always here for you, Angel...you know that." She takes a big sip of her wine, smiling just over the rim of her glass. "Will Rex have any of his hunky and single work colleagues coming to the wedding?" She asks as the last of her wine has gone down her throat.

Smirking, I nod with my eyes bright and relaxed. "A few." I playfully tell her.

Faith's eyes darken with delight. "Mmm, I can't wait." She audaciously states with pursed and sultry lips. "Any joy with Rex's mum?"

With my chin low, I shake my head. "No." Is my disappointed reply.

"Angel?"

"Yes?"

"What really happened between you and Rex?" For some reason, Faith unexpectedly drops that bombshell of a question right into my lap.

Trying to not overly react, I calmly answer her. "You know what, I just wasn't ready to settle down with him. Losing mum and dad affected me long after their deaths, it messed me up in many ways." My lie flutters around inside my stomach, making me feel like I need some more Zinfandel to calm them down. "I was a mess and I messed up." I sadly add just before having a large gulp of my freshly poured wine.

Faith suspiciously squints at me, before bringing her knees up on the sofa. "I know it was a long time ago, but I do remember the first time that you were with Rex. You were the happiest I had ever seen you. I always knew you had struggled with losing mum and dad, but Rex always made you happy. Then all of a sudden, you pushed him from out of your life. I always respected your decision to do that, but I never understood why. You pushed him out, yet you always loved him. Then when you and Rex got back together again after all that time apart, I could see with my very own eyes that your happiness had been returned to you. Which got me thinking, why would you have given all of that happiness up? What made you do that? And now Rex's own mother won't come to her only child's wedding, I just don't get that either. I know you don't think I notice these things, but I do. You are hiding something. For a while now, you've not been yourself. You seem nervous all the time, but you're trying to mask it with a smile. Something is bothering you, Angel...I just know it." She leaves her suspecting words to settle in the silence between us.

I have always wanted to tell Faith the truth, but never found the courage to do so. I have tried to bury it, deeper than deep. She never pushed for any answers and I never wanted to give them—so it was never discussed. She never asked and I never told. But now that we are older, I don't feel like I want to lie to Faith anymore. When I painfully told Rex all that had happened, it was oddly a comfort to me. To carry around such a weighted burden is just too much for one person. The burden I now carry, are my fears about Jonathan Ford.

I don't want to tell Rex, because I fear he will do something stupid. We are literally within arms length reach of spending the rest of our lives together, which is why I don't want to do anything to jeopardise that. With my sisters eyes still very much on me, willing me to unburden myself to her, I lean over to put my wine down onto the table. As I sit back, I breathe in deeply before beginning my tragic tale. "What I'm about to tell you, Faith, must never be told to a single soul...do you promise me that?" She nods, assuringly slow. Nervously fiddling with my fingers, I quietly continue. "Do you remember the time that I ran away?" Again, Faith slowly nods. "During that time, I did something really stupid and dangerous...something really awful." As hard as it is, it absolutely feels like the right time to tell Faith. I never thought the day would come when I would want to tell her, but now that I have started, it now feels strangely right. "When I was in Bristol, these older girls helped me. They took me in and were trying to show me how they made their money."

Faith's eyes suddenly widen, knowingly widening with shock. "Oh no, they were selling themselves to make money, weren't they?"

Twiddling the top corner of my cushion that I'm now holding in my lap, I weakly nod my head. "They were."

Breathing in really hard, my sisters face screws up with dread. "What happened next?"

So I decide to tell Faith, every single ugly part. I am going to tell her it all. "They told me I could make easy money by giving oral sex, they even used a banana to show me how to do it. With no money, I was desperate. I was worried that if I didn't agree, the girls wouldn't help me anymore, so I said I would do it. I remember them watching me from around a street corner, when this man slowed down in his car. As he pulled up beside the kerb, they were urging me to get in, so I did. The man took me somewhere quiet and then stopped his car, waiting for me to go down on him." Faith swallows hard, looking more and more upset with the more I tell her. "I started doing it, but couldn't finish. I ended up opening the car door and throwing up everywhere. I felt so ashamed and dirty. I fell to my knees and just cried because I couldn't believe what I had just done."

"What did the man do?" Faith quietly asks.

"He was furious, he threw a twenty pound note at me and just drove off." My sister leans a little forward, needing to hear all that happened next. "I used that money to get back home." I tell her, pushing the cushion from off my lap because I now really need my drink again.

Faith watches me taking large sips of my wine. "So how does Rex fit into all of this?"

Sighing loudly, I reply. "I'm just getting to that part." Needing just one more little sip of my drink before continuing. "Rex quickly became the love of my life. We wanted to marry, live together, have babies...the whole shebang."

Sipping her own wine, Faith then holds her glass between her fingers as she looks at me with confusion settling on her pretty features. "So what went wrong?"

It still stings when I remember the night that Rex's mother happily opened their front door, with her husband standing close beside her. It freshly churns over in my mind like it only happened yesterday. With a wave of braveness spurring me on, I lock eyes with my very attentive little sister. "Rex's father is what went wrong, Faith." My answer hovers somewhere between our stony silence. It invisibly hurts me and invisibly has my sister frantically thinking.

My eyes stare at Faith, who is looking at me but is still making sense of all that I have just told her. Ever so slowly, the bitter truth starts to dawn on her. Her hazel orbs start bulging with the awful enlightenment. "Rex's father was the man who picked you up when you were in Bristol, wasn't he?"

With deep shame, I reluctantly nod. "Yes."

Faith suddenly grabs my hand, wanting to hold it. "Jesus, Angel! Why didn't you ever tell me this? I can't believe that you've been carrying around all of this shit for all of these years, and you never told me." She is upset, angry and confused. "It all makes sense now. Why you never talked about running away. Why you suddenly left Rex. It all finally makes sense." She still has hold of my hand, but her eyes are darting everywhere. "God, what a bloody mess!" Her fingers squeeze mine, then she looks right at me. "Does Rex know the truth?"

I smile and nod again. "Yes, now he does."

Faith doesn't stop looking at me, her anger and confusion make it hard for her to stop staring. Grasping my hand just a little tighter, she gently asks. "Why are you only telling me now, Angel?" Her voice is gentle but her stare is anything but.

This is where I tell her the next part of my torrid tale, the darker side to my tale. "A few weeks ago, Rex and I went to see his mother after he had told her we were getting married. It had been a lovely evening and she was genuinely happy about us being together. As we were leaving, Rex's father just suddenly showed up. Things got really bad. He was saying horrible things about me, so Rex hit him. He had this awful look in his eye and was about to tell Rex's mum everything. I couldn't let him do that, so I told her what happened. I told her it all."

Faith blinks back her sadness as she quickly starts to understand. "Which is why she isn't coming to the wedding, right?"

With a straight mouth, I shrug. "Right. Elizabeth divorced Rex's father because of his lies and all the prostitutes...that and the alcohol. Which is why she now finds it so hard to accept Rex and I being together."

"Shit, it really is such a bloody mess." Faith mutters with quiet disbelief. She then quickly flicks her stare back onto me, realising something else. "Is that why you've been on edge these past few weeks? Is it because of Rex's father?"

Nodding, with my stomach rolling with the same fear that his threat had induced, I need to let that fear out into the open. "He told me that he was watching me, Faith...and I honestly feel like he might be." I try to put my paranoia into rational words. "I can't explain it, but I feel like he's around. I constantly feel scared whenever I am alone and I don't know why."

My sweet sister lunges forward to earnestly hug me. "That is exactly how he wants you to feel, Angel. But until Rex moves in, I will stay with you." She squeezes me tighter. "We can't let that bastard win."

Settling back in her seat on the sofa, Faith still has sweet hold of my hand. "No one is getting away with threatening my sister, no one." She possessively grumbles, her anger deeply reverberating in her throat. Her angered eyes slowly lift to mine, softening as they rest on me. "Everything will be okay, Angel. I am here now and Rex will be here at the weekend. After everything you have both been through, this is now your time to be happy. You mustn't let Rex's mum or dad taint your happiness. You and Rex are meant to be together. After all that you have told me, I honestly believe that." Her sisterly love is expressed by the affectionate little strokes that her soft fingers deliver across the back of my hand. "You both deserve to be happy, no matter what they think, you have earned your happiness." Her hazel spheres become full of glassy emotion, full of tearful love. "I love you, Angel." Then she cuddles me so very tight, wrapping her arms around me with the promise that everything is going to be okay. With her assurances and her presence, I feel like everything might be.

Rex's parents have both got to me in very different ways.

Elizabeth, I have every sympathy with, but I am still determined to do all that I can to get her to come to our wedding. I really do understand her hurt, yet I am still disappointed by it.

Rex's father, his insidious words and his insidious stare, crawled right under my skin and has frighteningly just stayed there. But Faith is absolutely right, that is exactly what he wants. He wants to mar mine and Rex's being together. He wants to mar our forthcoming marriage and our living together—but he won't.

He may have scared me, but he won't win.

He may not be happy, but Rex and I are.

Not even Jonathan Ford will ever change that.