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Bridesmaids
Zara Stoneley
From the USA Today bestselling author of The Wedding Date! With friends like these…
Bridesmaids
ZARA STONELEY
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
HarperImpulse an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2019
Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2019
Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover images © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)
Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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: 9780008320652
Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008320645
Version: 2019-04-10
Table of Contents
Cover (#u26181e2f-45c8-51bc-923a-865a57a8d5b3)
Title Page (#uf4542f07-cc8e-578a-af65-762f79c29a99)
Copyright (#u5f73feb8-828a-5e55-9fc3-998c638248e8)
Dedication (#u9db1aea7-9c65-531e-b2e1-7e4fcae22117)
Act One – With Friends Like These (#u9a4e7080-1865-565e-95f1-806ef1c469db)
Chapter 1 (#u649f924b-1e0f-5aac-ba33-373340a86ea2)
Chapter 2 (#uab0e9741-31af-53a9-9de7-8c81158a0a96)
Chapter 3 (#u56a62f3c-8190-59fb-bc16-6bca511884d9)
Chapter 4 (#uc0df94b5-4f87-58c7-850e-2d323f4093d1)
Chapter 5 (#u3d92d9bf-bd54-575e-92b5-017fdc652fb2)
Chapter 6 (#u3ab669b3-24bc-57f8-8836-b571a11f3ffe)
Chapter 7 (#u56e032a3-fe62-5189-b528-06a10e808a3a)
Chapter 8 (#u63cde16c-155a-598b-a648-599280f25a34)
Chapter 9 (#u89d18f37-6748-5d36-93a6-47fd9ce255a3)
Chapter 10 (#ucd8fb42e-c86c-5393-a5b0-237fd24331fa)
Chapter 11 (#u788e0481-66f2-51ef-994f-92cbccd55961)
Chapter 12 (#u7ef36a01-6a08-5864-a9ca-0b448bd79792)
Chapter 13 (#u2c04320c-00b4-57e1-b96f-7be16e17b731)
Chapter 14 (#uadd7efe1-f6a2-5004-bb45-27a21f1814d9)
Chapter 15 (#uc8f57bd5-7eeb-57b0-a44d-ae9c52633eed)
Chapter 16 (#u60d77608-d605-5022-977f-62d8cff0008d)
Chapter 17 (#u4c9b6a62-109d-505e-b2da-6707a916f1e8)
Chapter 18 (#uf08e8161-44b9-5a20-938c-36f101b4cde8)
Act Two – The Hen Party (#u26ae18fe-9893-567b-a27e-6a3d74c062e4)
Chapter 19 (#u57ccd500-19cf-5d22-8594-b24b1c02b15c)
Chapter 20 (#u19743625-25bc-5006-bcac-6690efe9a050)
Chapter 21 (#uaf6bcf80-0003-5cf3-b080-e9ddaefb8193)
Chapter 22 (#u6b443b51-4743-53f3-ac28-b92e9e3fddca)
Chapter 23 (#ub4ddf8cd-00af-5ea6-b4d2-864a6bc30344)
Chapter 24 (#u2b7a2164-f3a5-5de0-9c4c-23245a886860)
Chapter 25 (#u49386fc1-c6d3-5ed4-987a-41a01105ccac)
Chapter 26 (#u2a2ae893-412c-5bd8-a419-350517f6a667)
Chapter 27 (#u5f719027-17e8-50b1-bb2f-baaed9e7f3de)
Chapter 28 (#u6e6ebef4-bd32-59b0-ba0e-7fe452f39973)
Chapter 29 (#u29bd4473-49f5-5ccd-a8af-401a8fb20be9)
Chapter 30 (#uce56b67f-2f3c-5a44-880f-96024eb7e6c4)
Chapter 31 (#u2a29eea6-1781-5ce5-a840-bd559cec5a5f)
Chapter 32 (#u764c6536-1611-541f-9041-55ff1d26e602)
Act Three – The Big Day (#u1164dded-87a7-5995-82ab-763773076a5f)
Chapter 33 (#u78e2cb00-6ea2-50ff-a365-3d2b322d9753)
Chapter 34 (#u28dcc8a6-84a2-5862-b84b-06bdc9398928)
Chapter 35 (#ua767ab07-1018-5f20-be9e-cf4824598273)
Chapter 36 (#ud57074aa-8cb1-578f-85c7-5127582455ac)
Chapter 37 (#ub3f3334e-e22c-5b1c-bc42-7a306f6d9fc8)
Also by Zara Stoneley (#u580b358f-41f4-5723-8adb-52e3e45170d9)
Acknowledgements (#u154cf516-022a-53e7-97df-1b1127ccff17)
About the Author (#ucbca676c-ee4c-51a3-b42a-bbe6f1204b4a)
About HarperImpulse (#u63af1cf2-8102-5f9d-ac94-c98635fea737)
About the Publisher (#ucd473e70-3b07-5b97-ba13-b422b84fa7fe)
In memory of my Dad. The best friend a girl could have had.
ACT ONE (#ulink_5c5614dd-9f16-5901-93d2-20ac5fe5cef6)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_8bff72c7-24fa-5e5d-80d9-166fe81781e1)
‘Oh my God! You’re kidding? Wow, that’s fantastic!!’ And just like that I’ve looked my best friend in the eye and told a whopper. I pause for breath and lean forward to hug Rachel. ‘That is absolutely amazing. I am so pleased for you!’ My words are muffled by her shoulder.
I’m not in the habit of telling lies. I have been known to exaggerate slightly (and maybe tell the occasional little white lie), mainly to make myself feel better about my (currently) shitty life, or to make somebody else feel better about theirs.
I mean, when cuddly Liz who runs the ‘Olde Fashioned Sweet Shoppe’ in town told me she’d lost weight, I felt duty bound to tell her she was looking amazing, even if the missing poundage was probably down to her severe haircut (think scalped-elf) or the fact she’d gone for leggings rather than jeans (think scalped skinny elf).
Eating less and exercising more is torture, isn’t it? Specially when you spend your days staring at chocolate and boiled sugar. So, when I saw her a week later and she said she’d won the slimmer of the week award, the last thing she needed was me asking, ‘Are you sure the scales were working?’ or ‘Are you the only slimmer there, ha-ha-ha?’, wasn’t it?
Whereas, hearing my little white lie, ‘Wow! You look fab!’ followed by, ‘I read somewhere that liquorice can really help’ was just the right incentive.
Us girls need to stick together, don’t we? We need to present a united front and kick ass. So, if that involves smudging the truth at the edges now and then, that’s fine.
I smudge rather a lot. But I don’t lie. Especially not to my best friend.
Until now.
This isn’t a smudge, this is total truth wipe out.
I should be ashamed of myself. I am.
I also feel slightly queasy, and I’m not sure if it’s because the whole idea of this is bringing me out in a cold sweat because of what happened to me, or because of what might happen to her. My bestie.
If I hadn’t lied maybe things would have turned out differently.
Maybe all this wouldn’t have happened.
It started with the phone call.
Well, let’s be honest, it started a long, long time ago. When we were teenagers with fragile hearts, dodgy self-confidence and far too many hormones. When we were sure that the first guy who tried to get into our knickers could be ‘The One’. When love and lust were the same thing.
But anyhow, the lie and the big stuff started when she called me. All breathless and excited.
I was distracted with work, knee deep in fluffy kittens, or I might have been concentrating harder, and might have had some inkling of what was to come and where it might lead us.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_df1226b7-c574-573e-9040-6c2cd2ceccf6)
‘Thank God I caught you before you jetted off! Is it okay that I rang you at work? You are at work, aren’t you?’
‘I am, well, I’m not actually at work, but I am working. Will you stop that?’
‘What?’
‘Sorry, not you, Rach. I’m at home, but I’m trying to … sit still, please, pretty please? Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ I growl, and Rachel giggles. ‘I am working, well, trying to. Shit, why are kittens so bloody bouncy?’
‘Kittens? You’ve got kittens?’
‘Three. I think. They keep moving, it’s hard to keep track, but they’re colour coded. If they’d all been black I’d be totally up shit creek without a paddle. Stop it!’
‘Kittens! Like, real ones?’
