A Girl's Best Friend

by Lindsey Kelk

  Copyright

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015

  Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2015

  Cover illustration © Bree Leman

  Other images © Shutterstock.com

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

  Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780007582372

  Ebook Edition © November 2015 ISBN: 9780007582389

  Version: 2015-11-21

  Dedication

  #TeamJeff

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Lindsey Kelk

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  New Year’s Eve

  Doesn’t everyone wish they could go back in time and change the past?

  First, I’d do the world a favour and kill whoever invented the front-facing camera on the iPhone; second, I’d try to convince the parents of some of humanity’s worst offenders to use more advanced family planning methods; and third, I would never, ever have kissed that man.

  Or possibly any men. Just to be safe.

  It had been the most ridiculous six months on record, not only of my life but quite possibly ever. I wasn’t sure if there was a way to check against everyone else’s cockups but my list was pretty impressive as far as I was concerned. Yes, there had been a lot of fun parts. Hawaii, Milan, New York, Nick … but dear God, the mistakes I had made. And, as Amy always said, there was no ‘clear history’ button for your heart. Actually, Amy always said there was no clear history button for your vagina but still, the sentiment was the same.

  But there I was, against all the odds, standing in a dressing room, wearing a dress I never thought I’d wear, minutes away from changing my life for good.

  No pressure, then.

  ‘Is it too late to elope?’

  The door to the dressing room cracked open and Kekipi slipped inside, smiling.

  ‘It might be,’ I replied, looking at myself in the enormous, three-paned mirror that almost took over the room. ‘I’ve got the frock on, you’re in a suit, all the guests are here. Probably going to have to go through with it.’

  He took both of my hands in his and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Well, it’s so easy to get a divorce these days, I’m not too worried. Let’s be honest, I’m not actually sure it will be entirely legal in the first place.’

  I managed a half-smile and nodded. ‘You, sir, make a very good point.’

  ‘You look beautiful, by the way, white is your colour.’ Kekipi reached out to brush one of my semi-tamed curls back behind my ear. ‘You get a pass.’

  The curl he had tried to tether sprang back in front of my face and Kekipi rolled his eyes. The rest of my hair had been bullied into something like a bun, although there were so many curls involved it looked more like a Danish pastry gone wrong. I had to stop believing I could do something just because I’d seen it on YouTube. The hairdresser had given up after an hour and I really, really should have taken her advice and left it well alone.

  ‘I think you look very handsome,’ I said with a mini curtsey, ignoring my mullet. It was true, he did. His bronze skin shone and his hair, usually slightly wavy and a little bit wild, had been brushed into a very dapper side parting. ‘You should wear a suit more often. Especially one with so many sparkles.’

  ‘Love the sparkles, hate the suit,’ he confided, tugging at his stiff collar. ‘I still think this whole thing would have been much easier if we’d gone with my suggestion of a beach wedding.’

  ‘Well, bear with me.’ I held a finger up in front of my false eyelashes. ‘We could ditch these outfits, jump out the bathroom window and run away to Hawaii together?’

  ‘Tempting,’ Kekipi replied. ‘Very tempting.’

  ‘No one is running away anywhere without me,’ a sharp voice called out from behind the toilet door. ‘Do you know how long it took me to get her in that dress?’

  ‘How long?’ Kekipi whispered.

  ‘Too long,’ I replied, breathing in. ‘I should never have let her loose with corseting.’

  Amy, my dresser, and my best friend, emerged from the toilet with a very serious pout on her face and a very silly unicorn T-shirt on her back. ‘I mean it,’ she said, a pair of jeans in her hand. The girl was so afraid of missing out on something she had run out of the bathroom, half-naked. ‘You’re going nowhere.’

  ‘And may I ask why you aren’t dressed yet, dearest Amy?’ Kekipi leaned in with a kiss for each of her pink cheeks, eyes averted from her pants. ‘I do believe the ceremony starts in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I’m putting it on now,’ she muttered, eyeing me with defiance.

  ‘Ever since the hot Ribena and holy communion incident of 2001, Amy isn’t allowed to wear nice dresses for very long before an event,’ I explained as Kekipi watched a look pass between us. ‘Amy spills things.’

  Kekipi blinked. ‘Say that again?’

  ‘AMY SPILLS THINGS,’ she repeated loudly. ‘I’m putting it on now. I can’t fuck it up in the next fifteen minutes, can I?’

  I fought the urge to raise an eyebrow. As she had proved to everyone a million times in the last three months, Amy was not a child. Not that she was doing a much better job of passing as a grown-up than I was. I watched as she hunted around the bodice of the bridesmaid dress hanging on the back of the door with her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, looking for the tiny covered zip. Eventually she found it, pulled it down – and leapt back as the entire dress fell to the floor in a silky puddle.

  ‘Tess?’

  The door to the dressing room opened again and a tall, beautiful blonde, wearing the same dress Amy was attempting to gather up off the floor, peeked inside.

  ‘Are you in here?’

  I held my breath.

  ‘We’re all in here,’ Kekipi replied before I could grab anything appropriately stabby. Could you bludgeon someone
to death with a can of hairspray? Probably, if you were motivated enough. ‘Paige, you ravishing beast,’ he went on, ‘let me get a look at you.’

  ‘I was looking for you too!’ A shining smile lit up her anxious face for a moment as she became the latest recipient of Kekipi’s kisses. ‘I couldn’t find you out front – oh, you look fabulous.’

  ‘Oh, hello,’ Amy said across the room. Her stern tone might have carried more weight if she hadn’t been stood with her hands on her hips, wearing nothing but mismatched underwear and a frown. ‘What a lovely dress you’ve got on there – are you going somewhere nice?’

  ‘Amy,’ I said quietly, ‘don’t.’

  Paige pressed her lips into a thin line and shuffled her shoulders. I kept my eyes on the floor.

  ‘Oh, the tension!’ Kekipi said, settling into an overstuffed armchair by the window to watch the show. ‘If you two were gay men, I’d send you into the bathroom to bone and get it over with.’

  ‘I don’t know what else to say, other than I’m sorry.’ She fussed with the full skirt of her dress. ‘I didn’t want to miss today.’

  ‘You’re such a twatfink,’ Amy said with a low growl. ‘Bros before hos, Sullivan.’

  ‘Are they Mr Men knickers?’ Paige asked, squinting over at Amy.

  ‘Yes, they are – what of it?’ Amy braced herself for a fight. ‘I swear, Sullivan, just give me a reason.’

  ‘Look, can we not?’ I jumped in between my friends, hoping the ridiculous whiteness of my dress might blind them both momentarily. ‘Paige, I don’t really know what to say. I was a bit worried you might not show up and I would have felt horrible.’

  ‘And I would have been furious at you messing up my Charlie’s Angels bridesmaid theme,’ Kekipi interjected.

  ‘I’ve been feeling horrible.’ Paige grabbed my hand and wrenched me across the floor into a hug I wasn’t ready for. ‘I should have talked to you, this really wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.’ I felt her arms tighten around me.

  ‘You’re both ridiculous.’ Amy threw herself into the group hug, burning rage beaten out by overwhelming FOMO. ‘Daft cows.’

  Even though being the meat in a silk-and shiny-hair sandwich was wonderful, I still felt weird. So much had happened, so much had been said, and there was still so much to sort out.

  Suddenly, the dressing room door slammed open, hitting the wall behind it and making everyone and everything in the room jump.

  ‘You shouldn’t be in here!’ Amy said, charging directly at the door and attempting to close it on Charlie’s bewildered face. But his six-foot-something versus her five-foot-nothing held its own quite nicely.

  ‘Charlie!’

  My arms instinctively wrapped themselves around my body, I felt so vulnerable in my dress.

  ‘Charlie?’ Paige said, her perfect hair whipping back and forth between the door and me.

  ‘Charlie!’ Kekipi cheered, tucking into another chocolate chip cookie as we all turned to look at him. ‘Sorry, nothing to add, just didn’t want to be left out.’

  ‘I came to talk to you,’ Charlie started, eyes darting around the room while Amy recommitted to her Mighty Mouse efforts to knock him out of the room by charging directly at his midriff. He didn’t even flinch.

  ‘Me?’ I asked.

  ‘Tess?’ Paige asked.

  Charlie nodded. He looked rumpled and rushed, his tie not quite straight, his hair all a mess.

  ‘Can I have five minutes?’ he said, stuffing his shirt down his trousers. Typical Charlie, never tucked in properly. ‘Just, want to explain everything. I’ve been a real tit.’

  ‘At last, I agree with somebody in this room,’ Amy said. She stood up and took a deep breath before renewing her efforts to shift Charlie out of her sight.

  ‘Thanks, Aims.’ He picked her up, one giant hand under each arm, and placed her gently outside the door and closed it firmly. ‘I want to explain before it all kicks off.’

  ‘You’ve got to do it now?’ I asked, my hands tucked underneath my armpits. The dress was so much more revealing than you’d have thought. ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s not brilliant timing, Charles,’ Kekipi agreed. ‘I’m fairly certain you’re not supposed to be in here right now.’

  ‘Let me in!’ Amy’s voice yelled from the hallway while she pounded on the door. Suddenly she stopped the pounding. ‘What are you doing here?’

  The door began to open again and Charlie slammed it shut, or tried to, hitting something hard as he did so. But it wasn’t Amy trying to get back in – it was someone bigger and considerably stronger. It flew open again, this time with such force that it knocked Charlie off his already shaky balance, sending him across the room to crash onto the floor at my feet, cracking his head on a chair leg as he fell, a spray of blood slashing across the white silk skirt of my frock.

  ‘That’ll do, pig,’ Kekipi said, picking him up under the arms and dragging him away from my ruined dress. ‘That’ll do.’

  ‘Who slammed the fucking door in my face?’ Nick asked furiously, pressing the arm of his shirt to a bloody nose. ‘And why is Amy out there in her knickers?’

  I felt sick and hot. I felt my heart race and my pants hurl themselves on the floor, right before my pride raced down to pull them back up and weld them to my lady parts. I felt everything and I felt completely numb.

  ‘Nick?’ I whispered.

  ‘Tess …’ he replied, his eyes travelling up and down my dress.

  ‘Charlie!’ Paige yelped.

  ‘Help me,’ Charlie whimpered, lying on the floor, staring at the stars only he could see on the ceiling.

  So there I was, standing in the middle of an elegantly appointed dressing room in an exquisite Milanese palazzo, wearing a beautiful white dress that was now accented with a charming slash of blood, while one former lover lay concussed at my feet and another stared at me, bleeding, in the middle of the room, and one best friend choked back a surprised sob while the other was silently jumping up and down in her inside-out underwear, fists pressed to her mouth and eyes so wide I thought they might pop out of her head.

  ‘Oh my.’

  I turned to see Al, resplendent in a gorgeous grey suit, surveying the scene from the hallway.

  ‘This looks to be a fantastic start to a wedding,’ he announced, walking in as a string quartet began to play somewhere in the distance. ‘Now, remind me, who’s walking who down the aisle again?’

  CHAPTER ONE

  Two and a half weeks earlier

  ‘OK, that’s it, you look amazing,’ I yelled as my friend Paige perched uncomfortably on a bench. ‘Don’t move, you’re a statue, you’re frozen.’

  ‘Frozen is right,’ Paige shouted back. ‘I am not comfortable, Tess.’

  ‘Are you trying to take photos while wearing ice skates?’ I shouted back, wobbling on the spot in the middle of the rink. ‘No, you’re not, so shut up.’

  She raised a perfectly pencilled-in eyebrow in silent protest.

  ‘That still counts as moving,’ I replied. ‘So stop it.’

  ‘You know I hate having my photograph taken,’ she muttered as the Zamboni ice-resurfacing machine whirred quietly around the rink behind me. ‘How much longer is this going to take?’

  Paige Sullivan was not only the art director at Belle, a super swanky fashion magazine, she was also one of the best human beings I had ever met. Knowing I was desperate to get more experience with my camera, she had called in favours and pulled so many strings that we had the entire Somerset House ice rink all to ourselves for a whole hour after her work Christmas party. She couldn’t get me into the actual party itself, but then she was only human. And not being allowed into the party didn’t mean I couldn’t show up early and steal snacks from the kitchen anyway.

  ‘And you know you’re my favourite model,’ I replied, pulling a mini mince pie out of my pocket and shoving it into my mouth when she looked away. ‘It’ll be over much faster if you stop moving.’

  ‘Stop moving, look soft
er, point your toe, tilt your chin,’ Paige grumbled. Even when she was sulking, she was still beautiful. ‘Are you all packed for the wedding of the century?’

  ‘Bags packed, ticket booked,’ I nodded. ‘Kekipi is so excited and I can’t believe he’s getting married.’

  ‘There’s someone for everyone,’ she said sagely. ‘Except for me and you, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ I agreed. ‘I think it’s going to be incredible. Maybe we can pretend we’re getting married instead of playing bridesmaids. Though Kekipi and Domenico’s wedding is bound to be more impressive than anything I could pull together.’

  ‘I do feel a bit weird about it, though,’ Paige said, tilting her head upwards and catching the light perfectly. Whether she liked having her photo taken or not, she was a natural. ‘I barely even know Kekipi but he said he needed a blonde bridesmaid or he couldn’t fulfil his Charlie’s Angels fantasy.’

  ‘The bride wants what the bride wants.’ I snapped and my flash filled the rink with bright, white light. ‘And a custom-designed Bertie Bennett bridesmaid dress has got to be something of a sweetener for you?’

  ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ she said with a shrug. ‘And it’ll be fun. New Year is always such a let-down, attending the wedding of the year in Milan doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend it.’

  Inching left with staccato steps, I tried another angle. Good God, she was pretty. The cow.

  ‘In all honesty, I thought it was a bit odd for him to ask us to be bridesmaids but, you know, I don’t think he knows that many people,’ I said, my ankles beginning to ache inside my slightly too tight skates. How long had we been out here? It only felt like a moment.

  ‘Obviously, he knows a lot of people but I don’t think he has that many friends. He and Al were holed up in that house in Hawaii for so many years he was practically bouncing off the walls every day in Milan. I can’t imagine what Amy’s putting up with in New York.’

  ‘I can’t imagine the two of them living together, I’d be hard pushed to say which one is more mental. Poor Al,’ Paige said with a shudder. ‘Are we nearly done? I’m freezing my jacksy off.’

  ‘And a fine jacksy it is too,’ I said, gazing at her through my viewfinder and forgetting how cold I was, how much my ankles hurt, and everything else that wasn’t the perfect picture. ‘Almost done. Two more minutes.’