by Shari Low
And she’d felt… nothing.
‘I think we need to get you a ring, Mrs Merton,’ he’d declared, taking her hand, gesturing to her to look upwards, where dozens of people were looking over the balcony, explosions of light – fireworks and camera flashes – everywhere.
They’d done it. She’d got married. She should be the happiest woman in the world. So why did she have a feeling of absolutely certainty that at some point before stepping off that building she’d lost her senses? Or maybe she’d found them on the way down? It had to be the shock, she’d told herself. She loved Ned. They were meant for each other. This was going to be great. Even if she had to fake it for a moment until her feelings caught up.
Pushing her doubts aside, she’d summoned up some playful enthusiasm. ‘Ooh, buying me jewellery. I think I like married life already.’
Back in the hotel, they’d gone straight to the mezzanine floor, a glorious glass gallery above the main gambling area – a sea of roulette wheels, card tables and slot machines – that housed the hotel’s stores. As always, Roger had secured the most prestigious brands for his hotel. Dior. Gucci. Bvlgari. Tiffany. They were all there, in one long line of opulence and indulgence, all ready and waiting to help those lucky Sin City casino winners spend their profits.
She’d never been the type of girl to plan or imagine her wedding, but the ring was a different story. She’d seen it in a magazine years ago and it had stuck. A simple platinum band from Bvlgari, set with pavé diamonds all the way around. Perfection. And yet now it didn’t seem right. She’d steered him into Tiffany and convinced him – and herself – that she just wanted a plain silver band. Why? What was suddenly making this whole thing jar with her?
With the blue box in a bag, and a shiny new addition to the third finger of her left hand, they’d headed back out. ‘Let’s go and find my sisters,’ she’d said, knowing as she suggested it that it was exactly what she needed. They would be thrilled for her, celebrate her happiness, make some of this – any of it – feel great and they’d take away the growing unease that was sitting in the bottom of her gut.
Ned had wrapped his arms around her. ‘Let’s not. Let’s go back upstairs and celebrate, just you,’ he’d kissed her, ‘me,’ another kiss, ‘and a bottle of champagne.’
He was right. Wasn’t that what any bride would want to do? Of course it was!
She’d raced to the lift with him, they’d soared back upwards to the floor below the one she’d abseiled off less than an hour ago, and they’d opened the bottle of champagne that Roger had already sent to their room.
They’d made love for hours, he’d said all the right things, she’d said them back, while he gently rubbed the ring on her finger. Only when he’d finally fallen asleep, did she send a text to her sisters’ group chat.
OMG! Guess what happened a few hours ago? We got married!!!! Let’s celebrate tomorrow! Love you, from ZOE MERTON!!!!!
They wouldn’t know that the tears were choking her as she pressed send.
But that could be normal, right? How many times had she read about the anticlimax couples felt after their wedding day? And hadn’t hers been a tad more unusual and bizarre than most? It was only natural that she would have mixed emotions, mixed feelings.
When no texts came back from her sisters, she’d switched her phone off, she’d snuggled into her new husband and she’d gone to sleep.
The next morning, she’d woken to the sound of the room phone ringing and picked it up to hear Roger’s gregarious greeting. ‘Hey, how’s married life?’
‘Eh, quite uneventful so far. You know, apart from the throwing myself off a building bit. If you ever consider sacking us as your marketing agency, I want you to think about that moment and remember I almost propelled my internal organs out of my body for you.’
‘That might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.’
‘Really? Then Felice really needs to work on her chat.’
A pause. Shit. She wondered for a moment if she’d gone too far. Jesting about a client’s wife probably wasn’t the done thing. But hey. Abseiling. Six hundred feet above earth. A near-death experience. That trumped a cheeky remark. Besides, it was true.
‘Anyway, I’m calling because the world’s press wants to talk to you.’
‘Why?’
‘Haven’t you checked your phone? This whole thing has gone viral and your lovely face is plastered all over the internet. Although, you’re screaming for your life, so it might not show you in the most flattering light. Anyway, I need you to get up, get moving and bring your husband along because this is going to run and it’s going to give the hotel so much publicity I might have to give you shares.’
As always, Zoe’s mind went to the professional angle. Yasssss! This was the kind of thing that launched a new project into the stratosphere. Excitement started to build. Bookings would soar. More excitement. Roger would commission The B Agency to do more work. More excitement. Other corporations would see what was happening here and it would bring in new clients. So much fricking excitement! This could take the agency to a whole new level.
‘I’ll take my reward in free holidays to your hotels for life – as often as I want and my sisters get to come with me,’ she’d demanded, only half joking. Only after she said it did she realise that she should probably have mentioned that her husband was part of the deal too. This married lark was going to take a minute to get used to.
‘Done! ‘Now could you please get yourself down here and get started?’
‘I’m on my way!’ she’d jumped up, giving Ned a quick shake.
‘Hey, wife,’ he’d murmured sleepily, slipping almost immediately into sexy. ‘Come back to bed and…’
‘I can’t, babe. I’ve got a work thing downstairs and you need to come too. I’ll make it up to you later.’
She’d ignored his objections and went into the bathroom – wall-to-wall book-matched Carrera marble and the kind of room that would be featured in interior design magazines.
She had one foot in the shower when her mobile rang. With her dry hand, she flicked it on to speaker. Marina. And her sister was obviously on the warpath, because she went straight to the point. ‘Did I imagine it last night or did you send us a text saying you’d got married?’
‘I did!’ she’d exclaimed, thinking that she’d need to postpone any celebrations until after they’d made sure that every element of this was capitalised on. They had to strike while the publicity iron was hot.
‘What the fuck were you thinking?’
Okay, so not the reaction she’d expected – congratulations would have been a good start – but thinking about it now, she knew Marina would be furious that she hadn’t been allowed to organise everything. She really was going to have to get her control freakery sorted out. Zoe’s hackles had immediately shot to the upright position.
‘Look, Marina, I don’t have time for this right now. I know it’s a bit of a shock, but I’m happy. Go give someone else a bollocking because the last time I checked, you weren’t my mother.’
She wasn’t sure which one of them hung up first. She just knew that she had to get to work, and when she did… wow, it was incredible. The next two days were a whirlwind of podcasts, photo shoots, videos, interviews and, God love him, Ned went along with it all. She barely saw her sisters again until the flight home, and even then, they were pretty subdued and slept most of the way while she wrote up features, made lists, drafted emails to press outlets in China, Russia, Japan – all the huge markets that would adore this kind of stunt.
It was the biggest success of her career and she’d been riding it ever since – it had been a workfest since the moment she landed and Tom met them at the airport, threw his arms around her. ‘You are sen-fecking-sational!’ he’d laughed. ‘Our phones haven’t stopped ringing.’
That was four weeks ago. Since then, her sisters had called. She’d fobbed them off because she had to work. Wedding gifts had been delivered. She hadn’t sent thank-you notes yet because s
he had to work. Ned had fully moved in and then almost immediately suggested they start looking for a place together. She told him they’d do it soon – but right now she had to work. He’d tried to talk her into going on holiday and she’d agreed, as long as it was after work calmed down. And so it had gone on, right up until this morning, when she pulled on her suit for her ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Ironically, throughout it all, she’d had to put her own marriage on the back burner. She wondered if she should have minded that more? Plenty of time for her and Ned later, she told herself. In the publicity world, it was all about catching a wave and for the last month she’d been busy riding it for the sake of Roger’s hotel and her own agency.
Now, standing there at the end of the aisle, with nothing to distract her other than the sound of the choir singing ‘Saving All My Love For You’ while Tom and Chrissie signed the register to confirm their union, a thought came into her head and meandered around, weaving its way through the chaos and demanding peace and tranquility so that it could finally be heard.
The way Tom looked at Chrissie. The way Chrissie looked at Tom. There was no leap of faith there, only certainty.
Shouldn’t that be the way she felt when she looked at Ned? And yet, here she was, standing at the end of the aisle, trying to hide the fact that her heart was actually crumbling inside her.
She had to find a way to put it back together again.
38
Verity – Tom’s Wedding
He was standing over by the bar on his own, a bottle of beer in his hand, when she spotted him. It could have been a shot from a magazine – the handsome guy, in the bar of a luxury hotel, gazing out through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the city skyline. For a moment Verity thought about ignoring him. She hadn’t planned to confront him tonight but now, seeing him looking so smug, she felt her fury rise. She had too much to say and this might be the only chance she got to say it, while everyone else was busy mingling.
She brushed down some invisible crease on her black and cream shift dress – an indulgence from Joseph, but it was a special occasion and she’d chipped in with Marina to buy it because it would fit them both – and with her gin and tonic in one hand and her phone in the other hand, she strode over.
Ned spotted her coming, and he opened his arms to greet her, kissing her on each cheek as always. ‘Hey! I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.’
That wasn’t a surprise. For the last month, she’d stayed out of the staffroom at school, dashed off immediately at the end of the day, and refused his texts inviting her to go climbing with him. The sisters had postponed their plans to speak to Zoe because she’d been so busy that they hadn’t been able to tie her down to meet with them. Suddenly, Verity decided to come at it from a different angle. If she couldn’t share the truth with Zoe, then maybe it was time for some honesty with Mr Merton.
‘I was,’ she said simply, but she couldn’t help the faint smile on her lips. He probably thought it meant that she was joking. She wasn’t. It was actually down to the fact that she relished the prospect of what was about to come.
‘I don’t think I’ve congratulated you yet on your wedding.’ It could have been the light, but she was sure that a shadow passed across his face. Maybe all wasn’t quite so wonderful in the land of marital bliss. The thought cheered her and spurred her on – not because she wanted Zoe to be unhappy, but because her sister deserved so much more than this farce of a marriage.
‘Eh, actually, no one has. I’ve said to Zoe that we need to have some kind of celebration over here too. I feel like she missed out on having the whole wedding experience because it was so spur of the moment and so far away. I want her to have that. She deserves it.’
See, this was what he did. He came over as a nice, decent, thoughtful guy. Why was that? Why didn’t he have ‘Not To Be Trusted’ stamped on his forehead just to make it easier for unsuspecting women to spot?
‘I’ve missed you,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘We haven’t been to the climbing centre all month and Zoe has been working day and night. I texted you a few times.’
He did this too. Made you feel special. Wanted. Like he cared about you.
She took a sip of her gin and tonic. ‘I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been really busy too. I joined one of those dating apps. Your Next Date.’
A flinch. She saw it, although she didn’t know if he even realised that he did it.
‘Really? That’s great. I’m glad. You deserve to meet someone nice.’
She wanted to take her drink and slowly pour it over his head.
‘It’s definitely been interesting. You’ll never believe who I saw on there.’
I dare you, she thought. Go on. At least have the balls to admit it.
‘Who?’ Nope, he was a coward to the end, but he was staring straight at her, and for the first time, she thought she saw disdain there. Well, welcome to the party, the real Mr Merton.
‘You,’ she said simply.
He feigned confusion, then realisation. The kids in the nativity play – even the ones who dropped the baby Jesus – had better acting skills than this chump.
‘Oh, my God, is that still there? That’s from ages ago.’ He went for good-natured incredulity and statement of innocence. ‘That’s from… oooh, maybe four or five years ago. I had no idea it was still in there.’
‘Yeah, the picture looked a few years old.’
‘Exactly!’ he exclaimed, a little too desperately. ‘That’s hilarious. I must remember to take it down tomorrow. I don’t think Zoe would see the funny side.’
He signalled to the barman for another beer. Either he’d suddenly developed a raging thirst, or he was desperately looking for distractions that would buy him time to think.
‘Gin and tonic?’ he asked her. That bought him even more time – enough to come up with the idea to navigate out of deep waters by switching the subject to her.
‘So, tell me, any matches? There must be, if it’s kept you busy for a month.’
‘A couple of interesting ones, but to be honest I find it all a bit off-putting. I’m pretty sure half the guys on there – women too, probably – are already in relationships and just looking for a bit on the side.’
‘Maybe,’ he concurred, but there was a renewed wariness there. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because someone I know decided to test the theory. Put up a false profile and swiped right on a guy she knew was in a relationship.’
Again, it was probably subconscious but also so telling that he was now pulling at his tie and opening the top button of his shirt. It was tempting to just blurt it all out, but no. Make him sweat, Verity. Make him sweat.
‘Wow. That’s pretty sneaky.’
He was throwing back his beer now. Must be the heat in here.
‘And did she get anything from it?’
She could see that he didn’t want to ask but couldn’t help it. This was like seeing a car crash in the distance and not being able to look away when you reached it.
‘You’ll never believe it, but she did.’ She feigned astonishment, milked the pause, drew it out. ‘She swiped right on her sister’s boyfriend.’
Was it her imagination or did he visibly deflate?
‘And guess what happened?’ she went on.
He didn’t say anything for a long time. It was like the bit in every episode of Line Of Duty, where the person under interrogation has to decide whether to chuck in the towel and confess or keep winging it in the hope that all the evidence was circumstantial.
Another swig from his bottle of Bud, his grimace suggesting it wasn’t enough to get rid of the bitter taste in his mouth. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Well, wait ’til I tell you. It took ages, months actually, but eventually he sent her a message suggesting they meet up. When was that now?’ She pretended to rack her brain. ‘Mmmm. Must have been about a month ago. Yeah, because it was just before we went to Vegas and my sister got married there. To you. Actually, you might recognise the
name that was used on Your Next Date. Veronica. From Glasgow.’
The towel came flying over the ring. Ding ding.
Several seconds passed and Verity could feel the tension rising. Whatever he had to say, she was ready for it.
He tried to shrug it off, play it down. ‘Okay, so what? It was just a bit of stupidity. You know that was before we got married.’
‘Yeah, but you’d been together for over a year.’ Gloves off. Her tone lowered to a menacing hiss of contained rage that she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard coming out of her mouth before. ‘How dare you do that to her? What gives you the right to think you can treat her like that?’
‘It was nothing,’ he shot back, going on the offensive now. ‘Nothing. I didn’t even follow it up. It doesn’t matter.’ His voice was rising and his face was getting closer to hers. ‘Are you going to tell her? Are you going to wreck your sister’s happiness and for what? One harmless message?’
‘It’s not harmless.’
‘Of course it was! She is out every night of the week, working until all hours, weekends too. I just got a bit bored, that’s all. I wouldn’t have gone through with it.’
‘Wouldn’t you? Because according to the staffroom gossip, you’ve shagged half the teachers in the school.’ For a minute she was tempted to throw in what he’d done with Yvie and Kay, but she knew Yvie wouldn’t want that. That was her sister’s situation to handle how she chose.
‘Not after I met Zoe.’
‘I’m not sure that’s true.’ She wasn’t. But it didn’t matter.
‘You’ve completely got the wrong end of the stick. I was just bored. Wanted a chat. It meant nothing.’
Ah, the old ‘it meant nothing’ chestnut.
She pulled her phone out of her clutch bag and read the message on her screen shot.
‘Hey Veronica. Fancy meeting up for a drink sometime? Or more? No strings attached, just a bit of fun. I promise you’ll enjoy it.’
‘You fucking bitch.’ Gloves tossed out of the ring, first punch thrown.