Always the Bridesmaid Read online

  I was literally two minutes from home when the heavens opened and of course I didn’t have an umbrella.

  ‘Shit,’ I muttered, holding my handbag over my head as my bouncy curls started to flop and running through the puddles as fast as my gin-soaked legs could carry me.

  And right there, huddled up next to my front door, was Will.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ I asked, handbag falling to my side, all thoughts of protecting my hair forgotten.

  ‘What do you mean, what the fuck are you doing here?’ He looked gone out. ‘I’ve been waiting twenty minutes and now I’m piss-wet through.’

  ‘I was at the pub,’ I shouted. Was shouting at a man on your first date proper in The Rules? Probably not. ‘Waiting for you.’

  ‘But I was at the pub,’ he said, pulling his suit jacket around himself as an especially big raindrop ran off the end of his nose. ‘I was waiting for you.’

  Clearly he was not at the pub I was at, otherwise he would also be quite drunk and reconsidering all his life choices.

  ‘At the Butcher’s?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Round the corner.’

  Oh fuckknuckles.

  ‘You were at the Jolly Butcher,’ I said. ‘On Cambridge Street.’

  ‘Yeah, the Butcher’s round the corner,’ he said, annoyed. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘The Butcher’s Arms,’ I said, equally annoyed and wiping mascara out of my eyes. ‘In Holborn.’

  Will looked incredulous. ‘Why were you there?’

  ‘Because that’s the Butcher’s, not the Jolly Butcher,’ I replied, sanity snapping. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘My phone’s dead,’ he said, wiping the rain off his face. ‘I was ten minutes late, I thought you might have left already, so I came round and stood on your doorstep in the pissing-down rain.’

  When you thought about it, pub fuck-up aside, it was actually quite romantic.

  ‘How long would you have waited?’ I asked, fighting a smile. ‘Just out of interest.’

  ‘All night,’ he replied. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll pop back out and see if you’re still here when I get back,’ I said. He grabbed hold of my hand and pulled me in for a long kiss, his mouth warm against the cold rain.

  ‘Maybe you’ll open the door and we’ll get out of these wet clothes,’ he said, kissing me again. ‘Christ almighty, woman, what have you been drinking?’

  ‘It was supposed to be gin,’ I said, rummaging about in my bag for my keys while Will kissed the back of my neck. ‘But you might need to check I haven’t gone blind in the morning.’

  ‘Is that an invitation to sleep over?’ he asked, grinning.

  ‘Well, I did leave you standing on my doorstep in the pouring rain, didn’t I?’ I said, holding up the keys with a triumphant flourish. ‘I suppose I could see my way to putting you up for the night.’

  As the rain started to slow, he cupped my face in his hands and wiped away the smudged make-up under my eyes, pressing his lips to mine once more.

  ‘That’s very decent of you,’ he said. ‘Now unlock the door before I get carried away and have to give you one on the doorstep.’

  ‘Such a romantic,’ I whispered. ‘Get your arse inside, I’m freezing.’

  Rules, after all, were made to be broken.

  9

  Friday May 22nd

  Today I feel: Like a bit of a knob.

  Today I am thankful for: Sarah Bloody Hempel.

  When Shona stopped by my desk on Friday morning, I couldn’t help but feel slightly faint. The look on her face suggested she had been informed of my special project. That or she’d finally found out about the Shona Matthews versus Joffrey Baratheon meme that had been flying around Facebook for the last month; it was tough to say.

  ‘Matilda sent me an email about you applying for Victoria’s job,’ she said. ‘How exciting.’

  ‘Exciting?’ I asked, my fist closing around my biro. I know they say the pen is mightier than the sword, but what I wouldn’t have given for a machete at that exact moment.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘I’m sure you think I overreacted when you brought it up at the McCallan wedding, but I was just testing you.’

  ‘You were?’ She was?

  ‘Honestly, Maddie, I think it’s a fantastic opportunity.’ Shona looked intently at me with her best sincere smile. ‘I hope you don’t mess it up. Now, do you think you could find your way into my office? I want you to meet my new assistant.’

  I nodded.

  So nice of her to make it sound as though I’d already been replaced.

  ‘Now, maybe?’ she said. ‘If it’s not too much trouble?’

  Oh dear God, what had I done?

  ‘Maddie, I want you to meet Sharaline,’ Shona said, pointing at a very young, very eager-looking girl sitting in my chair in her office. ‘Sharaline is going to be helping us while you deal with your situation.’

  My situation? Was I suddenly an unwed teenage mother from the fifties?

  And more importantly, Sharaline?

  The girl in my chair jumped up and stuck out her hand with an exuberance that made me tired just looking at her. Obviously I noticed all the important things first. Great hair, sort of a very clean white blonde but with bluish tips. The kind of thing that would look like a fright wig on normal people but worked on her. Not upsettingly skinny, but great legs and brilliant boobs and, most distressing of all, it didn’t look like she was wearing any make-up. None. Not even mascara. And she did not look like shit.

  How very dare she?

  ‘You must be Madeline,’ she said, gripping my hand with both of hers and pumping my arm enthusiastically. ‘I’m Sharaline.’

  ‘It’s Maddie − hi,’ I said. After my disappearing-mini debacle on Monday I’d gone for a more becoming floral midi skirt and little leather lace-up flats, but instead of looking chic and on trend, I looked like Sharaline’s maiden aunt.

  SHARALINE.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ I said. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-two,’ she said, sitting back down in my chair and leaving me to perch on a high plastic stool. ‘I graduated last year but I spent some time travelling.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ I replied. ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Oh, you know −’ She waved a hand in a carefree gesture that would soon be beaten out of her. ‘South East Asia, India, Central America, South America. Everywhere everyone else has already been.’

  ‘Maddie went to Butlin’s with her parents last year, didn’t you, Maddie?’ Shona asked.

  ‘It was a Pontins,’ I muttered. ‘A family reunion thing, you know?’’

  ‘Where’s Apontins?’ Sharaline asked. ‘Is it in Australia?’

  ‘Isn’t she fantastic?’ Shona said. ‘I like her already. Our first ever graduate trainee.’

  ‘I started right after graduation,’ I pointed out. ‘Wasn’t I a graduate trainee?’

  ‘Let’s hope not,’ she replied with an eyebrow raised, flicking through some papers on her desk. ‘Wouldn’t say much for the programme. Anyway, since we’re already halfway through the morning, shall we get down to it?’

  Yes, this was going to go fabulously well, wasn’t it?

  ‘What I thought would be best,’ Shona went on, ‘would be for you to carry on dealing with the day-to-day tasks and for Sharaline to take on new business as it comes in. That should make things cleaner, don’t you think?’

  I nodded. ‘When you say day-to-day tasks …?’

  ‘I’m going to give Sharaline things that she’ll be able to pick up easily, the business stuff,’ she clarified. ‘But you know how I like things, Maddie. There doesn’t seem a lot of point in wasting Sharaline’s time trying to teach her how I like my coffee when she’s here to learn the business.’

  ‘Well, what if I get Victoria’s job?’ I asked. ‘Then who will know how to make your coffee?’

  Shona’s head popped up and she let out a tiny, stifled laugh.


  ‘Sorry,’ she said, pressing her hand against her chest to calm herself. ‘Absolutely. Actually, I’d like to go over some of the new projects with her now, so why don’t you go round to Starbucks and get us both something to drink.’

  Sharaline, who had been blessedly quiet through this exchange, suddenly found her words. ‘I’d love a flat white,’ she piped up. ‘Non-fat, obvs.’

  ‘Obvs,’ I replied. ‘Non-fat for Sharaline.’

  Sharaline. It’s really not a name. Her awful parents.

  ‘Fantastic.’ Shona was still smiling when I stood up to leave. ‘I think we’re going to be a very happy little family.’

  To be fair, sitting in that office with the two of them was starting to feel a lot like spending time with my family.

  By the time the end of the day rolled around, I couldn’t wait to get out of the office. Between doing my regular job, showing Sharaline how to do everything, twice, counselling Sarah and wedding planning with Lauren, I needed a drink. Will had been sending adorable texts all day, but he hadn’t suggested we make plans and so I made some of my own, determined not to spend my evening Facebook-stalking him and drunk-dialling him at three a.m. to scream ‘Why don’t you call me?’ at him while listening to ‘All By Myself’ on a loop. I was switching my sensible work flats for my break-an-ankle Friday-night heels when the lift doors opened and a surprising figure walked in.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, one shoe on and one shoe off. ‘It’s you.’

  It was the very tall usher from the wedding.

  ‘Tom,’ he replied, looking at me and then looking around the office. ‘Am I in the wrong place?’

  ‘Depends what you’re after.’ I hobbled out from behind my desk. ‘How can I help you?’

  He ruffled his hair, entirely product-free today and all the better for it. ‘Aren’t you a waitress?’

  ‘I was filling in for one of the waitresses,’ I said, wondering what he was doing in my office. ‘I’m part of the events team here. But I am super pro waitresses.’

  ‘Who isn’t?’ Tom asked, pushing back his hair again. ‘Anyone who facilitates eating and drinking is all right with me.’

  ‘Glad we’ve got that sorted,’ I said. ‘I’m assuming that isn’t what you came to tell me, though?’

  ‘Oh. No.’ I felt like he was staring at me, but it was possible he was just so tall it was hard to see me down here at normal person height. ‘Are you only wearing one shoe?’

  Ah. He was staring.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Is that what you came to ask?’

  ‘I‘m supposed to pick up some stuff that was left behind at the reception,’ he said, eyes still trained on my feet. Probably got a weird foot fetish or something.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll get the box.’

  Well, this was interesting. I had left a message for Vanessa, one of the bridesmaids, to let her know we had a box of lost and found, and he definitely wasn’t a girl called Vanessa. She had to be his fiancée. Not only was he a tall lawyer, he also did fetching and carrying on her behalf. Lucky cow. I tried to remember which bridesmaid was which, but the McCallans had about twenty-five of them (OK, six) and I just couldn’t be sure. I was fairly certain that it was the stunning blonde. There was a definite correlation between hot girls and tall men. I blamed online dating − they could round them up by size much more easily these days. It meant the rest of us had to try twice as hard if we wanted to snag a decent one out in the wild.

  ‘There’s some nice stuff in there,’ I said, handing him the heavy box that had been doubling as my footrest all week. Tom took it as though it weighed nothing, picking out what looked to be a real fox fur stole complete with head and feet and pulling a face. ‘Apart from that, obviously. Who wears a dead fox to a summer wedding?’

  ‘You’d think I’d remember Ivana Trump being there, but I’m drawing a blank,’ he said, dropping it back into the box and wiping his hand on his trousers. He shifted the box around in his arms and nodded at the bustling office behind me. ‘So you’re actually an events organizer?’

  ‘It’s not exactly MI5,’ I replied. ‘But I don’t like to brag. How’s, you know, lawyering?’

  My eloquent and witty banter is one of the main reasons I’m constantly fighting men off in the streets.

  ‘Technically, I’m a barrister,’ he said with a smile. ‘I just qualified.’

  ‘Congrats. And that’s different to a lawyer?’

  ‘It’s still practising law, but—’ Tom looked at me, paused and then nodded. ‘Yes. It’s different.’

  He was right to think it wasn’t worth explaining further.

  ‘So you don’t work with Will, then?’ I asked, mentionitis spilling out of my mouth so super casually even I wasn’t sure whether or not I genuinely cared. ‘And, you know, the groom? Ian?’

  ‘I did undergrad law with them,’ he said, a somewhat suspicious look coming over his face. ‘But I didn’t qualify at the same time.’

  ‘Yeah, Will said that,’ I nodded sagely, as though it were perfectly natural for Will to be telling me such things. In reality, our post-date conversations hadn’t gone much further than gifs, three-words sentences and a picture of his penis, but whatever − he didn’t need to know that. ‘About you, er, not finishing.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Tom had gone from genial strapping young man to towering furnace of brooding rage faster than you could blink. It was quite sexy, if you’re into that kind of thing. ‘And what else has Will said?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ I flapped my hands around and tried a coquettish laugh. He was unmoved. ‘It’s Will.’

  ‘I do know,’ he said, shrugging off his rage and taking a step sideways. ‘So you’ve been speaking to him, have you?’

  ‘Yeahnnabitwhatever,’ I burbled, not quite settling on any real words. ‘We’re going to get a drink after work.’

  ‘You’re meeting him tonight?’ he asked. ‘Really?’

  I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was getting my back up most: the tone of his voice or his look of utter disbelief.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. It’s hard to look confrontational in one shoe, but I did my best.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Tom said, as much to himself as to me. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Your words not mine,’ I replied.

  He took a deep breath and shook out his shoulders. ‘I’m sure you’ll have a delightful time. Going anywhere nice?’

  ‘I can’t remember the name of the place.’ I tapped my finger against my lips with Inspector Clouseau-like forgetfulness. I wasn’t telling any outright lies − he had said we should get a drink after work one night. He just hadn’t said which night. ‘Somewhere near his office.’

  ‘The Plumtree? He’s meeting you at The Plumtree?’ He sounded incredulous. Why wouldn’t Will want to meet me for a drink at The Plumtree? What a wanker.

  ‘I can’t remember,’ I said with a shrug, ready for him to leave. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, have a lovely time,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘I will, thank you,’ I said, repeating the name of the pub over and over and over in my head. ‘I will have a lovely time.’

  Tom jogged the box up and down in his arms. ‘I’d better get off,’ he said, breaking our stand-off. ‘Who knows how long this woman can cope without her dead fox?’

  ‘I know, it would be on my mind,’ I said, dashing round him to press the lift button. ‘Thanks for picking it up.’

  And thanks for sodding off, I added silently as the lift doors closed on his curious expression. As soon as he was gone, I grabbed my phone and texted Sarah.

  ‘Change of plan,’ I typed, ‘meet me at The Plumtree in Holborn.’

  ‘Why do you always attract lawyers?’ Sarah asked over her second gin and tonic. ‘Are you secretly a criminal mastermind?’

  ‘I’m not attracting this one,’ I reminded her over my first. She’d necked an entire drink while I relayed the Tom–Will story and, let’s be honest, it wasn’t a long
one. ‘He was just picking that box up from the office. The point is, he’s clearly got something against Will but he wouldn’t say what.’

  ‘Tall, handsome and well trained,’ she sighed, poking at the lime floating in her drink with the tiny straw. ‘You do need to get over this legal eagle thing, though. It’s not good for you.’

  I stared wistfully out of the bar window. ‘But I do like the idea of telling the teachers at parents’ evening that my husband is late because he’s been in court all day.’

  ‘You’re sick,’ Sarah said. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit weird that you’ve been the full nun ever since you broke up with Seb and the first person you shag is basically his clone?’

  ‘I can’t believe he’s had a baby,’ I said, curling a strand of hair around my finger. ‘Seb had a baby.’

  ‘Do you want to look at pictures of it and say mean things?’ she asked. ‘Because I’ve been keeping an eye on it and they’d better hope he grows into himself.’

  ‘You can’t say mean things about a baby,’ I admonished my best friend, as though I hadn’t been staring at it on Facebook all week and thinking exactly the same things. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Me and Will are going to have gorgeous babies. Two. Both boys. It’s going to be fine.’

  ‘I worry about you,’ Sarah said in a low voice, sipping her gin. ‘I really do.’

  ‘Never mind me.’ I craned my neck to check out the men at the bar and looked at my watch. It was only 6.30. Still very early. ‘What about you. What’s going on?’