Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Parker
Most women would be ecstatic at the thought of marrying Tristan Dubrow.
I thought I’d be ecstatic at the idea that I was finally going to get my hands on my trust fund.
It was just that when Sutton and I had brainstormed the idea of me getting fake married, I hadn’t thought through how many people I’d have to pretend to.
“You okay?” Tristan asked. He locked the car and turned to me as I stared up at my parents’ house.
“I hope they believe us.”
He scooped up my hand in his and guided me to the door. “Only one way to find out.”
I stared at our joined hands and up at Tristan.
A little over a week ago, I’d never met this man, and now here I was, about to announce to my parents that we were getting married.
It didn’t help that he seemed so relaxed about it.
Tristan seemed to take everything in his stride.
He didn’t seem to mind the fact that I’d completely taken over in the kitchen.
I’d rearranged his cupboards so everything I needed for cooking was instinctively where it should be.
I’d made a space on the hallway table where I put his unopened mail.
I’d bought fresh flowers for the dining table.
He hadn’t raised a single complaint.
“You know you’re a great fake fiancé,” I said.
He squeezed my hand and I felt oddly comforted as he lifted the giant door knocker on my parents’ front door. I’d called them, Tristan by my side, the evening after he proposed. They’d insisted we come to dinner the following evening. So here we were.
“Not so bad yourself.”
“I wish we’d just eloped,” I said. “You think we can pull this off?”
“Absolutely.” He sounded so sure. Then again, Tristan always sounded sure about everything.
My mother flung open the door. “Parker. My baby.” Was she getting emotional? “I never thought I’d see this day.” She pulled me into a tight hug and then practically threw me to the side when she spotted Tristan.
“You must be my future son-in-law.”
Tristan extended his hand but she completely ignored him and pulled him into a hug. “I’m so pleased you’re joining the family.”
An hour and a half after her hug had become awkwardly long, she finally released him and pulled him inside. “Come through to the garden. We can have drinks before dinner and I can show you a few things.”
“Sounds great,” Tristan said and grabbed my hand. Thank God he seemed more adept at acting like a newly engaged couple than me.
My heart sunk to my knees as we made our way through the house to the back and the garden came into view. Several tables were arranged around the garden, each covered in different flower arrangements. What had my mother been doing?
“I thought we’d kill two birds with one stone,” she said, pre-empting me asking what the holy hell was happening. She turned to us and grinned. “I’ve got Lauren here to help.” I did my best not to roll my eyes.
Lauren was my mum’s best friend and a party planner extraordinaire among London’s wealthy. Lauren had never heard of the phrase “less is more” and thought a party wasn’t a party unless there were at least two hundred and fifty guests, Ed Sheeran performing, and lobster served at a sit-down dinner.
Lauren being here was a disaster.
“Parker!” Lauren said as she held my face in her hands.
“I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be planning your wedding.
We’re going to pull out all the stops, aren’t we, Michele?
Let me tell you, after all these years, your wedding is going to be the event of the decade.
We’re talking worldwide infamy.” She gestured at the sky as if it were God she was trying to convince.
“But we’re going to start with the engagement party.
Just an intimate thing. Depending on Tristan’s guest list we thought—Tristan!
” Lauren shrieked, when she finally realized she’d not even acknowledged my fiancé.
“Tristan, my darling.” She grabbed his face and kissed him on the cheek.
Tristan just wasn’t ready for the women in my family. Lauren might not be a blood relation but she was always there at every important family occasion—Sunday lunches, Friday dinners, weddings, funerals, graduations, and Christmas. And she’d organized most of them.
“So,” Lauren continued. “As I was saying, Michele and I have been talking and started to put together a guest list for the engagement party. Depending on the size of your list, Tristan, we were thinking five hundred, maybe the ballroom at the Dorchester or—”
“Lauren, I’m delighted to meet you,” Tristan interrupted. “When you say five hundred, are you talking about number of guests?”
“Yes, my love. About the same at the wedding.”
“No,” I said. “Tristan and I want a small wedding. Very small. Minute in fact.”
“I had to talk her out of eloping,” he said.
My mother and Lauren gasped.
“You’re not eloping, Parker,” my mother said, in the same tone she used when I was sixteen and wanted to go to Ibiza. “We’re going to have an engagement party. And then you’re going to have a proper wedding like I’ve always dreamed for you.”
A big fairy-tale wedding may have always been my mother’s dream for me, but it had never been my dream. I wasn’t wealthy and my wedding should reflect that.
“Mummy, Tristan and I just want something small. Perhaps we could do something out here,” I said, hoping that the idea of throwing the wedding in the back garden would distract her from the idea of five hundred guests in a ballroom on Park Lane.
“Here?” she said. “In our back garden?”
“Let me think,” Lauren said. “Let me think . . . Yes. We can put a marquee over the tennis court. Have the sit-down there. Then we can do drinks closer to the house—Yes! We can get a smattering of bandstands erected across the lawns where people can shelter if it rains. That gives us something to decorate with flowers. I can see it.”
Just before Lauren started telling me which flowers she thought would be best, my father joined us.
“Congratulations to the happy couple,” he said as he approached with a bottle of champagne. “Let’s all have a drink.”
It was only then that I focused more clearly on what had been set up in the garden.
There were ten round tables set out on the lawn, all decorated differently with flowers and chairs and from what I could see from here, china.
They had wanted to kick off wedding planning already.
My heart sank. I was happy my mom and Lauren were happy for me, but I felt bad that this wasn’t a real wedding. This time next year, I’d be divorced.
My father poured us all some drinks and raised his glass.
“Here’s to my darling daughter and your fiancé.
Parker, you’re one of the sweetest, kindest, most generous people on the planet, and I’m very proud of you.
I’m happy and relieved that you’ve found a man who will put you first, even if you won’t do it for yourself.
Tristan, you’re focused and clever and I know you to be a man of honor. Welcome to the family.”
I scooped an arm around my father’s waist and leaned into him. I’d never had any doubt my father loved me. I just hoped he forgave me when Tristan and I divorced as quickly as we’d decided to get married.
“Now we all have drinks,” Lauren said as she strode across the lawn toward the prepared tables.
She waved for us to follow. “If we’re having the engagement party right here, then it’s a great time to look at table decoration and settings.
I’ve set up some options so you can get a feel for what you like. ”
I sighed and Tristan squeezed my hand. He was so much better at faking this than I was. “Sounds great,” he said as he followed Lauren, pulling me with him.
“The baby pink roses are always a popular choice but—” She held up her hand. “I know you don’t necessarily follow the most popular route on these things, so I also have other designs with more of an eclectic look.
“Look at this one,” Lauren said, guiding us toward the table under the willow tree where I used to practice my handstands. “This is dried flowers and grasses. It’s a very new look. Not something that would appeal to everyone but I thought you might like it.”
I nodded, trying to be enthusiastic. “I like it.”
“I’m not so keen,” Tristan said. “There’s something wrong about surrounding people with dead flowers at a wedding.”
Lauren gave a nervous I-don’t-agree-but-whatever-you-say laugh and took us over to the next table.
“You might feel the same about this one.” She led us to a table set up in front of the summer house.
“It’s paper flowers and paper maché sculptures.
Everything’s recyclable.” It looked like the art classroom of a kindergarten.
“It’s very colorful,” I said, trying to sound positive. Lauren had us choosing flowers and centerpieces when we hadn’t even decided the number of guests that would be invited.
“But other than the more traditional tables, this is my favorite.” She arced her hand toward the next table with a flourish, like she was the prima ballerina at the Royal Ballet.
I had to hand it to Lauren, the table looked amazing. Instead of the usual pale pinks and creams, the table was covered in bright blue and purple flowers.
“It’s a little more informal than the traditional look. The moss, together with the verbena and the blue boy, gives the feeling of summer meadows.”
“I like it,” Tristan said.
I looked up at him and he looked genuinely enthusiastic. “It’s very you,” he said and he bent and placed a kiss on my forehead. If I hadn’t known it was an act, I would have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the way he looked at me.
“Well, we don’t have to decide now,” I said. “We don’t even know if we want a sit-down meal at the wedding—”