by Anna Bell
New York • London
© 2013 by Anna Bell
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ISBN 978-1-62365-378-1
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For Steve:
Without your encouragement the words would never have been written.
Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
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
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Every woman should feel like a princess on her wedding day; it’s practically the law. As I gaze down at myself in my sparkling dress, a dress that would make Mary Berry’s meringues weep with jealousy at how light and fluffy it is, that is exactly how I feel: like a princess.
My dad’s just about holding it together as we glide into the room to the wedding march. He’s choked up and I think there might even be a tiny glint of a tear in his eye. Walking down the aisle I see all of my friends and close family beaming at me. I know what they’re thinking: that I’m wearing the most beautiful dress they’ve ever seen. All except my aunt Dorian. Her face is full of thunder as I’ve quite possibly upstaged my precious cousin Dawn’s wedding.
And then I notice my handsome groom, my most favourite person in the whole wide world. He’s standing there in his bespoke suit looking sexy as hell. To think in mere minutes I’m going to be Mrs Mark Robinson. The Lemonheads’ song ‘Mrs Robinson’ is playing loudly in my head, drowning out the wedding march.
There’s my mum sitting in the front row looking like the cat that got the cream. I can almost imagine what she’ll be writing in this year’s Christmas-card round robin. All her friends’ kids will be made to feel inferior when they’re shown the photos of me and Mark looking absolutely stunning, at the most wonderful wedding in the world.
The room in the castle looks even more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. The candles flickering in the alcoves give off a dusky glow, and the simple vases of longstemmed white roses adorning the ends of the rows are like the icing on the cake.
Approaching the end of the aisle, I come to a halt alongside Mark. He leans over to me and whispers that I look beautiful, just like Prince William did to Kate. I smile back and gaze into his eyes, which are easier to see than usual because my to-die-for Jimmy Choos make me only an inch or two shorter than him.
I hand my bouquet back to my friend Lou, my maid of honour, who’s dressed in a simple purple empire-line dress, which I love almost as much as my own gown. My sister is standing next to her with my little niece clinging on to her leg and looking angelic and lovely.
This is the happiest day of my life. I. Am. A. Princess.
It is at that blissfully perfect moment that the computer makes the worst sound imaginable. The synthetic crowdcheering noise snaps me out of my daydream and back to my poky little bedroom. The strategic lighting of the candles is replaced by the dim light of an energy-saving lamp, and instead of Jimmy Choos and a Vera Wang wedding dress, I’m in my baggy boyfriend jeans, an oversized woolly jumper, and a pair of cartoon-character slippers.
The words on the screen are there in Day-Glo pink and yellow: Bingo. I was just about to call it. I only had one number to go. This was the game. The game I was going to win. The one which would have allowed me to actually buy the Jimmy Choos. The one that would have got me one step closer to the wedding of my dreams. The wedding in the castle where I’m the most beautiful bride that anyone has ever seen.
And now ‘LuckyLes11’ has won my £500. Goodbye, Jimmy Choos.
There’s a feeling of nausea that creeps over my body when I lose a game of bingo. But the feeling is so much worse when I’m so close to winning that I’m practically spending the money.
Not that I do this often, you understand. Just every now and then. It just happens to be now as while I was waiting for Mark to come home from work, I was flicking through the latest copy of Bridal Dreams and they had these top ten must-have wedding shoes. I fell in love with pair number two and at £550 I thought a cheeky little go of 90-ball bingo might just get me them; you know, if it was meant to be.
Turns out it wasn’t. I bet LuckyLes11 has fat ankles and wouldn’t look good in the Choos anyway. Not that I’m bitter.
‘Shit.’ That’s the sound of the front door slamming. Mark is home.
I log out of Fizzle Bingo quicker than you can say ‘goodbye, Jimmy Choos’ and switch off my private browsing. By the time Mark makes it over the threshold and I hear him kicking his shoes off, I’m idly surfing for books on Amazon. God, I’m quick, or well practised. Either way, I still feel like I’ve just cheated on my boyfriend.
Oh yes, that’s right, my boyfriend. You were expecting me to say my fiancé, right? Seeing as I’ve planned the most wonderful wedding in the world and that I was trying to win myself the money for the perfect shoes.
The truth is we aren’t engaged. But that’s not to say we’re not getting married, as we are. We just haven’t got engaged yet, but we will. We have a wedding fund and everything. Mark, my hopefully soon-to-be-fiancé, is very sensible like that. He has our life planned out in stages and everything.
‘Penny?’
‘Up here.’
‘Are you ready to go?’ he says as he opens the door.
He’s staring at me with a look of horror.
‘Yes,’ I say, peeling back the covers of the bed to reveal I am fully clothed and not half in pyjamas. ‘What?’
Mark sent me a text at work earlier to tell me he’s taking me out for dinner. Which can only mean one thing on a Monday: the all-you-can-eat buffet at our local Indian. For some reason they always have the air-con on, even in winter, and so I’m dressed appropriately, in layers that would gi
ve the Michelin man a run for his money.
‘That’s what you pick to wear when I’m taking you out for dinner?’
‘Yes, but I was thinking why don’t we just get a takeaway and watch a movie in instead? We could eat in bed?’
I should probably stress at this point that I detest eating in bed. But there are some things you should know: a) it’s January, b) our little Victorian terrace does not have good central heating, and c) our bed is the comfiest bed on the planet. Pretty much nothing could drag me from my bed at this point. Not even the thought of unlimited poppadoms.
‘In bed? Are you feeling all right? No, come on, I fancy going out. We haven’t been out in ages. And now I’m not revising for my exams I fancy being spontaneous. You know going out on a work night feels slightly naughty.’
‘I could think of other things to do to you if you want to feel naughty.’ I’ll do anything he wants at this point if I can stay in bed. Well, almost anything – I’m no fan of Fifty Shades of Grey.
‘Penelope, get out of that bed and put on a dress. We’re going out.’
Uh-oh. He’s played the Penelope card. I must be in trouble. Before I know it Mark is pulling me off the bed.
‘So if I need to put a dress on, where are we going?’ I say, sighing. If we’re not having curry, I quite fancy pizza, maybe Pizza Express or Ask.
‘I’ve made us reservations at Chez Vivant.’
‘Chez Vivant? How on earth did you get us reservations there?’
My voice has gone up an octave. Chez Vivant, for those not in the know, is the restaurant around the area where I live. It’s the kind of place that the fancy people, who fly in and out of Farnborough in their private jets, eat at before they jet off to their exotic destinations. It has a waiting list as long as your arm and it’s got a number of Michelin stars. Mark and I have never graced it with our presence before.
It is the place I’d always imagined that Mark would take me to pop the question. Suddenly The Lemonheads’ song is playing up-tempo in my head. I’ve started to have palpitations and I’m sure that I’m breaking out in a cold sweat. This is what I’ve been waiting for.
‘I’ve just been assigned their account and in return for sorting out their rather bungled tax return from their previous accountants they’ve offered us a complimentary meal there.’
The Lemonheads on loop comes to a dramatic halt. Suddenly it makes sense. Mark wasn’t about to shell out part of the mortgage on our house to pop the question. He was clearly treating me to a freebie from work.
‘Great,’ I say. I need to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I am still getting to go to Chez Vivant. I can still make my friends weep with jealousy. And a few months ago Posh and Becks were spotted there, so at the very least I can hope to see a Z-list celebrity like someone from TOWIE.
‘Come on. Table’s booked for seven thirty, so we should get a wriggle on.’
‘OK,’ I say. Seven-thirty? I’ve got less than an hour. An hour before we have to leave! Clearly Mark doesn’t understand that you book to have your hair done before you go to a place like Chez Vivant. Less than an hour to get ready is an impossibility.
Exactly one hour later and we’re walking through the doors of Chez Vivant. It just shows that my teachers at school were right: I would be able to succeed in life if I actually put my mind to it.
For once my frizzy hair allowed itself to be blow-dried straight to within an inch of its life, and so far, thanks to a whole can of hairspray, it is staying up in a chignon.
I’m also dressed in a hideously expensive, I’ll wear it one day, I really will, Mark, dress. And look, here I am wearing it! It has only taken three years, and I don’t know if you’d call that value for money, but it looks amazing. And I’m even wearing a proper cheese-wire thong and a sexy lace strapless bra. Of course both are killing me, but the overall effect is worth it.
It’s just a shame that the shoes I’ve got on are from Next and not the Jimmy Choos that I could have owned if it weren’t for LuckyLes11. I close my eyes. I’m not allowing myself to think about that now. Besides, even if I had won, it isn’t like there is a Jimmy Choo shop in Farnborough I could have raced to tonight to get them.
‘You look so good,’ says Mark as we deposit our coats in the cloakroom, ‘I almost thought about throwing you on the bed and changing my mind about going out.’
Now he tells me! If I’d known all it would have taken was for me to put this dress on to get him to stay in bed, then I would have put it on two hours ago. What am I saying? I’m standing in Chez Vivant!
Inside it is exactly like I’d imagined it would be. Huge glass chandeliers dangling from the ceiling. There are thick red heavy velvet curtains hanging around the outside of the room. There is even a black-and-white movie being projected onto the ceiling. It just screams expensive.
‘We’ve got a reservation, under Robinson,’ Mark says to the maître d’.
I can’t believe how grown-up and confident he sounds in this place. There’s something about walking in here that has made me suddenly feel like I’m a child at an adults’ party. I’m hit with narcissistic thoughts that everyone in the whole restaurant is going to be looking at me as if they know we’re getting our food for free and that we can’t normally afford to eat here.
So much for my celebrity spotting. I’m terrified to even look at anyone for fear they’ll be pricing up my outfit and thinking that my dress is far too many seasons ago to wear.
The maitre d’ nods at us in that discreet posh way, and he leads us across the restaurant. It’s at this moment that I notice the floor. It’s super-shiny black tiling with diamantes buried in it. The lights keep catching the sparkles and they’re twinkling like stars in the night sky. I’d usually be dead impressed, but as well as being super shiny it’s also super slippy, and it seems that I might as well be wearing heels with soles made of ice, as I appear to have absolutely no resistance.
Gone is the panic that people are going to be judging me on my looks. They’re now going to be judging me on the fact that I’m waddling like a duck and doing windmill arms like I’m walking a tightrope. I manage to grab hold of Mark’s arm just as I’m about to do the splits. Not only would I have ripped my amazing dress on its first outing, but with the cheese-wire thong I’m wearing, I’m sure I would have put a lot of diners off their dinner.
‘Here you are,’ says the maître d’, unaware of the Bambion-ice impression I’ve being doing behind his back. He points towards some curtains in the corner and I’m wondering just where he’s taking us. He pulls them open to reveal a velvet-covered booth. Maybe they keep the curtains closed when it’s not in use to make the restaurant seem fuller. I shimmy into the booth. It is almost as comfortable as my bed; maybe it was worth getting out of it after all. As Mark slides in opposite me, the maître d’ shuts the curtains around the booth.
Oh, my God, they really are embarrassed to have us here.
‘Are we like the poor relations?’ I ask. I think it best to make a joke out of it before Mark gets embarrassed.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he shut the curtains.’
‘Pen, that’s to give us privacy. These booths are for their guests who want their dining to be a bit more discreet.’
‘Oh. Right,’ I say, nodding. ‘I knew that.’
I did not know that. Now we’re going to spend the entire night starving as we’ll never get the attention of the waiter.
Mark presses what looks like a doorbell and seconds later a waiter appears from behind our curtains.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘We’ll have a bottle of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape to start with,’ says Mark.
Having the wine list in front of me at that particular moment makes me gawp at the price. Thank God this is a freebie.
‘An excellent choice, sir. I’ll bring it straightaway.’
Minutes later the waiter is as good as his word and he’s poured me the best wine I’ve ever tasted. Oh, how the other hal
f live! I could get used to this.
‘Here’s to the start of an excellent night,’ says Mark, as he raises his glass.
I chink his glass with mine, making sure we have strong eye contact. The more intense the eye contact the more intense the sex, or so my friend Lou always says.
By the time my trio of desserts arrives I am full, but there’s no way I am going to leave here without three courses. Especially when someone other than me or Mark is paying. Why is it that food always tastes better when someone else picks up the bill?
Mark presses the little buzzer.
‘I can’t eat another thing, Mark,’ I say, groaning under the weight of my belly.
‘We’ll have a bottle of the Möet,’ says Mark to the waiter.
Möet? There is no way that they are going to give us Möet on a free meal. They’re not that bloody stupid, are they? Or else my boyfriend Mark is the best accountant in the whole world.
‘What did you do that for?’ I hiss over the table.
‘Because, Penny, we are celebrating.’
‘We are?’ I ask. ‘What are we celebrating?’
Maybe we’re celebrating the fact that he has been crowned world’s best accountant. Maybe this will be the start of more amazing free dinners.
‘This,’ says Mark.
Oh. My. God. There it is, in his hands. Stage four of the life plan Mark’s mapped out for us. Aka an engagement ring. A small, perfectly formed, princess-cut diamond that seems to tick all the four Cs, (colour, cut, clarity and carat,) and is by far the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.
‘So will you marry me, Penelope?’
Thank God for the curtains, is all I can say. As the next thing I know I’ve thrown myself at Mark like a desperate woman who thought this day would never come.
‘Of course I bloody will!’
‘Ahem.’
I stop snogging the face off Mark and wipe my mouth, embarrassed, as the waiter is standing next to us, popping open our champagne.
‘Here’s to you, the future Mrs Robinson,’ says Mark, as he raises his glass.
We chink glasses, and this time there is no Lemonheads, only the wedding march ringing in my ears.