Chapter 1
CLARK
The church looks incredible. It’s the oldest church in England, and one of the wealthiest suburbs of Greater London, and no expense has been spared.
I’m standing at the altar, waiting for Constance Penelope Hamilton, my wife to be, looking back at a sea of five hundred faces packed into the building, most of whom I don’t even recognise let alone speak to regularly.
Because I am Clark Layton, of Layton Oil, one of the largest groups in the industry.
A reluctant and reluctantly bequeathed chief executive officer of the business, since my father’s heart attack eighteen months ago.
It’s February and already dark outside, intentionally so because my mother, Connie’s mother and every other person who had a hand in organising this gigantic affair thought that the lights inside the church would sparkle more against the dark night and against the crystals of Connie’s dress.
The church organ bellows out Pachelbel’s Canon and as the sea of faces, decked in finery on account of my wedding being black tie stand, my own dickie bow suddenly feels like it’s choking me.
I take my fingers behind the garment and pull it away from my skin.
I’m sweating, my heart is racing and not in a good way, not because the woman I intend to marry is about to walk down the aisle towards me, but because I can’t do this.
Connie hasn’t looked at me yet. She’s displaying that flawless smile for all the cameras held up to catch the first glimpse of the bride.
A reminder that this wedding will already be appearing to Connie’s hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
We’re probably live, despite my fiancée having requested that our guests don’t make social posts before she does.
More than once, I catch the eyes of Frederick Hamilton, though, proudly presenting his daughter to the world. Except there’s something in the way he watches me. He knows. He’s got a read on me.
My breaths are unsteady, shallow and fast. My head is spinning. What’s happening to me?
It’s as if I blackout for the remainder of Connie’s entrance, until my best man, Teddy, is whispering in my ear, telling me to smarten my face up, that my bride is beautiful.
I know she is. But I don’t think that’s enough of a foundation for forever.
‘Clark?’ Connie whispers, taking my hands and I think already pleading with me. Already knowing before I ask her…
‘Can we talk?’
She blinks quickly. I register her shock before she smiles and steps closer to me, her head to my ear, shielded from the cameras.
‘What’s going on, Clark?’
‘Please, Connie, let’s talk for a minute, away from everyone else.’ I can’t believe I have the control to be comprehensible because I’m trembling. I’m about to embarrass her in front of the world. To let her down more than even she, who knows me and all my flaws, could have expected.
‘Don’t you dare do this to me, Clark,’ she grinds out in a way that doesn’t sound like her. She’s normally calm, polite, well-mannered, confident. Perfect. Level. That’s what Connie is. Most men’s dream.
‘I can’t let you go through with this,’ I tell her.
Now, she rears from me. ‘Me? You can’t let me go through with this?’
Her brother, Jay, my second best man, steps in front of us, hiding us from the congregation and their camera phones.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ he snarls, at me, not his sister. Fair.
‘Clark?’ Connie asks. I hear the request in her voice – let’s just do this. We could get a divorce next year. Cash in on the wedding attention now, save face, run a sympathetic narrative a year from now. But…
‘I can’t do this, Connie.’
I see her face twist with shock, anguish, and I hate myself for it. Right before Jay rears his fist and slams it into my cheek.
* * *
‘Connie, I’m so sorry.’
‘Sorry? You’re sorry?!’ She’s screaming in the rectory, thrashing her bouquet so hard that as she paces in her ivory stilettos, rose petals rain down on her.
Someone got me ice, and Yvette, Teddy’s wife and one of my good friends, is holding it to my face, where I’m slumped into a chair, as shocked and disgusted with myself as everyone else in this room.
Jay has fled or been forced away to spare everyone another Balboa moment.
Connie’s mother and mine – who is throwing me daggers of hate – are trying to comfort her.
My own father – the Harold Layton – and Fred Hamilton are arguing in a corner, probably deciding which of them should try to kill me first. My dad would take joy from it, I’m certain.
‘Do you know how embarrassing this is for me?’ Connie asks.
I tell Yvette and Teddy in a look that I’m grateful for their silent support, though I know I don’t deserve it and they’ll tell me so later, when I’m sleeping in their guest bedroom, but I stand and go to Connie.
‘I love you, Connie.’
She slaps my untouched cheek so hard, I might have preferred Jay’s fist.
‘I deserve that.’
‘No, Clark, you deserve more than a fucking slap.’
‘Connie, sweetheart, that language does not become you,’ Penelope Hamilton says, as if her class status means she’s incapable of reading the room.
‘I don’t expect you to understand this today, Connie, but loving you is the reason I can’t marry you. I’m not… I’m not in love with you and I respect you too much to make you my wife. You should be with someone who is in love with you for all the incredible things you are.’
She whacks me with her bouquet so many times, she’s left holding stems.
‘Is there someone else?’
The whole room falls silent because, of course, they expect that there’ll be someone else.
No matter that I haven’t put a foot wrong all the time I’ve been with Connie, my reputation has never died for them.
I honestly think Connie was attracted to the narrative of a ‘bad boy’ from Chelsea initially.
‘No, Connie, there’s no one else, I swear.’
Because the person I want, the person I have never fallen out of love with since I was with her four years ago, wants nothing to do with me.
* * *
Kathryn
Well that was worth dressing up for. Talk to me. What happened? I know you, Clark, you didn’t do this on a whim, no matter how pissed everyone is with you right now xx
My sister’s message lands as I pull up outside Teddy and Yvette’s terrace house in Notting Hill, still wearing my dinner suit, looking like a dishevelled groom, one that jilted his bride at the altar, got socked in the face by her brother and whose mother has scheduled a crisis meeting at The Savoy on London’s Strand for brunch tomorrow morning because it wouldn’t occur to her that meeting in her favourite, very public restaurant, in one of the world’s finest establishments, might be not what’s best for me.
I kill the engine of my sports car and reply to my sister:
Me
Have you ever had one of those moments in your life where suddenly everything becomes clear?
I press my head back into the seat and sigh.
Kathryn
What happened to make you have your epiphany? xx
Me
I hope you’re not asking if I went with someone else.
Kathryn
Clark, that might be what other people think, but not me. Never me. But I’ve got to tell you, Penelope was mingling at your wedding reception, telling the others that you ended things with her daughter because you have feelings for someone else. She said you told Connie as much xx
Me
I said it. I meant it. But I’m not with anyone else.
Kathryn
Dayna xx
My heart leaps at the sight of her name.
Me
It took me four years and an engagement to work it out.
My twin is the first person I’ve told the truth and I guess I’m trying it out on her. So the eternal typing dots on my screen make me as nauseous as I’ve felt at moments today.
Kathryn
For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing. I’m proud of you xx
I stare at the message and swallow the enormous lump in my throat, holding my next blink. But every time I close my eyes, I see Connie’s distress, I remember the look in her dad’s eyes down the aisle, and I’m racked by an overwhelming sense of remorse.
The Hamiltons are a nice family, Jay is or was one of my best friends, and now I don’t think things will ever be the same between us. When our parents first talked me into going on a date with Connie, Kathryn warned me that it could end badly, that I could lose close friends.
I didn’t listen. As ever, she was right.
I wish I’d never started up with Constance, because then I’d never have hurt her. But I want the same thing the Hamiltons do for their daughter and sister… to see her happy. She wouldn’t have been happy with me, not in the long run.
Because I fell for the woman who ended it all for me four years ago and I fucked that up, too.
As I’m back to indulging with wallowing and self-pity, Teddy taps on the window of my car, no longer in his groomsman attire but baggy loungewear.
Yvette is waiting by the open door. She smiles as I walk the path to the house, but it’s a smile of pity that tells me how shit I look.
Her dark hair is still scraped back into a long ponytail as she had it for the wedding but she has also swapped her evening wear for winter knits.
‘I’m sorry, Yvette, I know this must be awkward for you. I was going to book into a hotel but the wedding is already the talk of the town, or so it feels, and Teddy said?—’
‘Hey, come here.’ She pulls me into her arms. ‘Constance is nice, but you’re our number one, Clark, all right?’
I squeeze her tight because words are lost in my throat.
‘Beer?’ Teddy asks.
‘I won’t say no.’
I dump my bag in the spare room where I’ve spent a few drunken slumbers, then settle onto their sofa, dropping my head against the cushions behind me. ‘God, I love it here.’
‘Home from home?’ Yvette asks as she sits into a striped chair and swings her legs beneath her, turning the volume down on the wall-mounted TV.
‘That, and no one is taking a verbal or physical swing at me for two minutes.’
Teddy hands me a cold bottle of Bud.
‘No one’s telling me I’ve destroyed the family name or broken their heart and embarrassed them in front of all their social followers.’