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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 (#ulink_f0befa0c-75e6-599a-9df1-f6011bd29c6f)
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 softer, 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.’
London had decided to play nicely for the Belle Christmas party and the miserable, rainy weather that had been bothering the city all day had been replaced with a beautiful crisp, clear night sky. Paige, wrapped up in long scarves and fluffy mittens, looked like a winter fantasy dream girl and with the beautiful backdrop of Somerset House behind her and bright white ice shining below, it was like a Christmas card come to life.
‘Apart from bullying your friends into playing model, what else have you been up to since you got back?’ she asked, reaching up to pull her perfectly imperfect blonde fishtail plait over her shoulder. ‘I’ve hardly seen you.’
‘That’s because you keep cancelling on me to play with your fancy new fashion magazine friends,’ I pointed out. Paige had moved from Gloss to Belle while I was working in Milan and now it seemed like she never had time for anything but work. Her new job sounded just like The Devil Wears Prada only without so much eye candy or free Chanel accessories. ‘I’ve been working for this photographer, Ess? He’s doing a shoot for No-No mag and he needed a second assistant. Do you know him?’
Paige screwed up her face and gagged.
‘You have had the pleasure then.’
‘Repulsive little turd,’ she nodded. ‘But his photos are amazing. I’ve got him booked in for a celeb shoot in a couple of weeks.’
‘Really?’ I wobbled on my skates. ‘You’re using him at Belle?’
‘The editor loves him and all the celebs want to work with him,’ she nodded. ‘Otherwise, you know, I absolutely would have asked you if you were available.’
Personally, I thought his photos were cheap, overexposed and tacky but who was I to judge? It wasn’t as though I could do a better job. Oh wait, yes I could.
‘Oh, that’s not what I was getting at,’ I said, waving away her embarrassment. ‘I mean, I’d love to shoot for Belle, but really, I’m not loving assisting. Today I had to pretend to be a giraffe to give his model “inspiration”. Do you know what noise giraffes make? I didn’t. I had to google it.’
She frowned, flexing her cold fingers and blowing on them, just in case I hadn’t realized how cold she was.
‘Do giraffes even make a noise?’ she asked.
‘It sounds like an angry cow that’s being strangled,’ I said, wincing at the memory. ‘I think that’s the reason we don’t hear their dulcet tones all that often.’
‘I can’t even begin to imagine it.’ Paige wrinkled her tiny nose. ‘That sounds horrible.’
I let my camera hang around my neck and cleared my throat. ‘Yeah, it’s like, ngggghhhh—’
‘Tess!’ She cut me off loudly. ‘Dear God, woman, pull yourself together. This is why I can’t take you to nice places.’
‘Oh my God!’ I stared at her. ‘I’ve turned into Amy.’
‘Yeah, that’s a thing that’s happened,’ Paige said with sympathy in her voice, but not on her face. ‘Are you wearing her clothes?’
I looked down at the cropped black T-shirt emblazoned with a neon unicorn that was peeking out from underneath my skimpy black cardigan and accessorized with a strip of very white stomach, covered in goose bumps. I’d had to take my bulky coat off to shoot and I could barely feel my fingers any more. And Paige thought she was cold?
‘The T-shirt is hers,’ I agreed, making a mental note to do a load of washing as soon as I got in. ‘And the cardigan. When did this happen?’
‘Oh, doll,’ she sighed. ‘So long ago.’
There was a time when I would never have gone out on a Friday night looking like such a tramp. Admittedly, not much of a time since I had spent almost every Friday working late since I graduated six years ago, but still. I would have been in my casual Friday best and neon unicorns were definitely not covered by the office dress code.
‘How’s she getting on with Al?’ Paige asked. ‘Everyone is talking about the AJB presentation. It’s crazy.’
‘She seems OK,’ I said. ‘It’s hard to tell with Amy; she doesn’t really take things very seriously.’
‘A lot of fashion people were annoyed he’s launching at Christmas instead of at fashion week,’ she said, reapplying her lip gloss as she spoke. ‘The powers that be don’t like it when you don’t play by the rules.’
‘I don’t think he cares about the powers that be,’ I admitted. ‘When I last spoke to him, he said he was dead set on Christmas because it was his wife’s favourite time of year. Amy tried to convince him to show in Milan or Paris but he wasn’t having it.’
‘Must be nice to be so sure of yourself,’ Paige replied and I nodded in agreement. ‘So, other than working for a tosspot and swapping lives with your sartorially challenged best friend, what else has been going on with you? I’ve been so busy with work and Christmas parties and everything, I feel as though I haven’t seen anyone.’
‘Oh yeah, all those parties must be a nightmare,’ I said, trying to capture the white light of the fairy lights that decorated the giant Christmas tree as they bounced off her pointy chin. ‘You sound gutted.’
‘You know work parties are never that much fun,’ she argued. I zoomed in on her face and clicked as her pale cheeks flushed. ‘There are always a lot of events at this time of year and none of them entertaining. And the weather’s been awful. And there’s nothing on TV. And, you know, stuff.’
I hadn’t known Paige nearly as long as I’d known Amy but it didn’t matter. She was a terrible liar.
‘Paige Sullivan.’ I narrowed my brown eyes and zeroed in on her green ones. ‘Why are you babbling? What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Nothing, there’s nothing,’ she scoffed, her face glowing more brightly than Rudolph’s red nose. And since there was a twenty-five-foot illuminated version of everyone’s favourite reindeer right behind her, it wasn’t a difficult comparison to make. ‘Like, what are you even talking about?’
‘Oh, no way!’
Delighted, I clapped and immediately lost my balance, the skates sliding underneath me. I threw my arms to steady myself as she tried to cover up a quiet laugh.
‘There is something! Spill, immediately. You have to tell me, I’m brilliant at keeping secrets.’
‘You can’t even keep your own secrets,’ Paige pointed out. ‘Why on earth would I tell you anything?’
‘Fine, I’ll guess.’ I stared until I had her locked in uncomfortable eye contact. ‘New job?’
‘No, no and there’s nothing. I’m not keeping any secrets,’ she protested, looking anywhere but at me. ‘You know, you didn’t have to wear skates to go on the ice. You could have worn your trainers.’
‘Where’s the fun in that?’ I asked. ‘Oh my God, are you pregnant?’
‘Christ no!’ she yelped. ‘At least, I hope not.’
And then it was obvious. She was calmer than usual. She had only complained about her terrible luck with men once all night and she was wearing flats. Paige Sullivan. Art Director at Belle magazine. Out on a Friday night. In London. In flat shoes.
‘Oh!’ I threw my hands in the air, knocking myself off balance and landing on my arse with a hard bump. ‘You’ve got a boyfriend!’
At first she didn’t say anything, she just sat there, concentrating on her mittens and shaking her head, while smiling. ‘I haven’t,’ she said eventually. ‘I haven’t, Tess, honestly.’
‘You’re a filthy liar,’ I replied in a strangled voice, waiting for my breath to come back. Ow ow ow. Broken coccyx for Christmas, brilliant. Maybe, if I was really lucky, I could spend Kekipi’s wedding sitting on an inflatable doughnut. ‘And lies make Baby Jesus cry. Do you want to make Baby Jesus cry this close to his birthday?’
‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she insisted, pulling out the hair tie in the end of her plait and looking up to meet my eyes. I took this to mean the photoshoot was over. ‘God’s honest truth. I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Fine,’ I said, crawling over to the edge of the ice and taking her hand as she helped me up, my camera swinging wildly around my neck. ‘I won’t ask any more questions. I’ll just assume you’re secretly boning some wonderful man’s brains out on the sly and when you’re ready to talk to me about it, you will.’
I stared at her for a moment, holding her eyes before she looked away. She looked sad. Which made me sad. Which I did not care for.
‘Or I could have him killed?’ I offered. ‘The mood I’m in, I’d be very happy to do it.’
She considered it for a moment then shook her head. ‘We can let him live for now. I’m all right, Tess, I promise.’
