Chapter 2
Nora
Nora Wilder Weddings. Even as I appreciate the pleasing cursive of the font on my business cards, the curls of the N and Ws beautifully balanced, the familiar frustration builds.
Frustration that it couldn’t have just been Wilder Weddings. The alliteration would have been perfection.
Unfortunately, Wilder Weddings gives off a whole host of connotations that are both unintentional and firmly at odds with my proposition. It’s a given that I’d attract couples who are looking for a wilder type of ceremony. Namely saying their vows while bungee-jumping off Victoria Falls.
Or gyrating naked together on a sex swing.
No, thank you.
Nora Wilder Weddings it is.
My bloody, cursed surname. If only it was something classier, like Nora Winter. Although Winter Weddings would create a whole host of other misunderstandings…
Drat.
In any case, I’ve made the most of it. The business cards I slide into my clutch are beautiful, crafted from double-thickness paper stock with my company name embossed in midnight blue with a spot varnish and the same shade running around the edge of the cards.
It was characteristically thoughtful of Saoirse to insist I brought them along to her and Miles’ engagement party tonight. She’s a sweetie.
That said, I’m dreading it. In a stroke of the worst luck of all time, my long-time ex, Jonathan, joined The Montague Group last month as part of the Finance Director’s team, and I’m fairly sure that means he’ll be there tonight.
By fairly, I mean very, because I drew Saoirse aside and asked her if she could check whether he was attending.
He is.
With his plus-one, his new girlfriend. Lucy. A posh blonde who apparently has boobs so big, she must store her brains in there. Because there’s no other explanation for how vacuous she is (or so I’ve heard through the grapevine of our mutual friends).
I am so fucked.
I’m going along tonight because Miles and Saoirse thought it would be a good idea for me to ‘get a feel for the crowd’, as the majority of them are invited to the wedding. If I can size up the guests effectively, it’ll help no end when we’re planning the look, feel and scope of the wedding weekend.
Normally, I’m totally fine with this stuff. Turning up to an engagement party alone. Working the room. Being a fly on the wall. And helping with any big or small issues that may occur, so Miles and Saoirse can completely relax and enjoy their special evening with their family and friends.
I just wish tonight wasn’t also the night I come face to face with the love of my life and his new girlfriend.
Oh God. Even thinking that word makes me sick to my stomach.
I gave him everything. Nine years of my life.
My fucking cherry, for God’s sake. He was the second person I snogged at uni, a few weeks after I got over the mortification of my drunken tryst with Theo ‘Romeo’ Montague, and unlike Mr I-Only-Kiss-Girls-Who’ll-Go-The-Whole-Way, Jonathan was my safe place. My dream come true.
Tall. Blonde. Gentlemanly (yep, he really is Theo’s opposite). Generous. Good-natured. Pretty much the human equivalent of the golden labradors I had planned for us.
Because, believe me, I had many, many plans for us.
My plans included but were not limited to a Georgian rectory in the Cotswolds, complete with wisteria, an AGA, the aforementioned golden labs, and three children. Two boys and a girl.
They did not include a woman called Lucy coming along and turning Jonathan’s head, making him believe he’d been short-changed with me. Making him believe she was more his ‘type’. I’ve even—and it kills me to say this—heard they’re looking at houses in the countryside.
Obviously, he didn’t tell me he wanted a boob upgrade. Or a posher girlfriend. He’s not stupid. But, when he was breaking up with me, he told me she didn’t henpeck him, and she gave him a quiet life, and that made me cry.
I didn’t henpeck him. I just knew better than him what was best for him. For us. That was all.
I still do. And I’m determined to make him see sense. I’m not giving up on the man of my dreams that easily.
The engagement party is up on one of the roof terraces of the Montague Hotel in Knightsbridge.
The terrace is at the back of the hotel, overlooking Hyde Park, and it’s breathtaking.
This is a serious piece of real estate. Miles’ team at the hotel has done the vast majority of the work for this evening, taking a huge chunk of the work off me. I can relax.
In theory.
It’s a glorious evening. Shade sails straddle the space, offering protection from the late sunlight as it fades, and torches and hurricane lanterns have already been lit.
What I didn’t appreciate was that the terrace is off one of the penthouse suites, which has been cleared of most of its furniture in case of rain.
Apparently, it’s the same suite Miles and his daughter Bea lived in when their house was being refurbished, and it’s where he met Saoirse.
It’s where they fell in love.
Those two are cute.
In stark contrast to Miles and Saoirse’s love story, my own love life is a total fucking disaster, and that fact is about to be brought home to me this evening.
I wish Elle was here to keep me company, but she’s too nice to come.
By which I mean that if she showed up with her boyfriend, they’d completely overshadow the happy couple, and Elle would never pull a stunt like that.
Because, in the years since we left Cambridge, my gorgeous BFF Elle Hart has become an obscenely famous, award-winning actress, including an Oscar, for God’s sake.
And only last week, she and her now boyfriend, the Hollywood superstar Josh Lander, were on every front page on the planet after he grovelled live on The Gordon Kay Show and admitted that he should never have dumped her on Twitter five years previously (you think, Josh?) and that she was the love of his life.
So now, on the weekends, I have to endure a guy whose face Elle and I both had on our bedroom walls when we were at school walking around our house half-naked and trying to hump my friend against the kitchen counter.
I mean, it’s a high-quality problem. I realise that.
And I’m unbelievably lucky that Elle insisted I move in with her when Jonathan broke up with me.
Especially because, generous angel that she is, she only lets me pay for utilities and won’t accept a penny of rent for my room in her indecent townhouse in Notting Hill because she knows I’m saving every penny for a deposit on a flat of my own. She really is one in a million.
She even lets me borrow her clothes, because she has a massive dressing room of designer stuff that’s gifted to her. The whole gifting thing is slightly out of control, and I get far more excited about it than her, which is why she insists on an open-wardrobe policy.
Which is also why I’m wearing a stunning powder-blue wool crepe shift by Emilia Wickstead this evening that would probably cost four figures to buy.
It features a slashed neck at the front that tapers into a low V at the back.
It’s ladylike and beautifully cut, and it makes me feel like someone of value.
A force to be reckoned with. And God knows, I need that tonight.
Elle insisted on FaceTime that I armour up, and boy, am I glad she did (she may also have pushed a pair of horrifyingly beautiful Malone Soulier heels on me).
So really, I’m incredibly fortunate. Elle and Josh are up in Elstree during the week filming the TV adaptation of Grosvenor, which is only my and Elle’s favourite romance book series of all time. But it means there’s no one to have my back when Jonathan appears with Lucy.
Holy shit.
Her boobs enter the terrace a couple of seconds before the rest of her does.
I’m wearing a padded bra to enhance my natural B-cups.
But still. I’ve always had a hangup about having smallish boobs, and it adds insult to injury that my gorgeous Jonathan, the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with, has his face buried between those every night.
Ugh.
I’m so fixated on Lucy’s boobs that I don’t really look at her face.
Or Jonathan’s. But being the mature, well-bred type he is, he doesn’t do what most people would do and try to pretend he hasn’t seen me.
Oh, no. He makes a veritable beeline for me, leading her by the hand in my direction once he’s greeted Miles and Saoirse.
His big hand rests on the bare skin of my upper arm as he stoops to kiss me (he really is tall), and I can’t help inhaling the clean, comforting smell of him.
He kisses one cheek, then the other. ‘Hello, Nor.’
He pulls away. As Olivia Rodrigo would say, he looks happy and healthy.
Good for him. Lucy clearly agrees with him.
He has the beginnings of a dad bod under his navy blazer.
Seven years off the rugby pitch, and a lot of that muscle has turned to…
Not fat. More like, softness. I’ve always loved his large, soft, but solid body.
I’ve always felt so safe, so secure in Jonathan’s arms.
Anyway.
‘Hi.’ (Can you tell I have a degree in English?)
There’s nothing to take the wind out of your sails like the love of your life kissing you on the cheeks, for Pete’s sake.
‘Nora,’ he says in a careful voice, as if I’m some sort of loose cannon, ‘this is Lucy. Lucy, I’d like you to meet Nora.’
He’s smart enough not to give us handles. Nora, Lucy is my shiny new girlfriend with a limited intellect-slash-vocabulary and a porn-star-level chest. Lucy, Nora is my foolish, long-suffering and totally fucking myopic ex who didn’t see you coming until I had to spell it out for her.
Lucy and I eye each other up in a passive-aggressive fashion, both of us resorting to a mumbled how do you do in sync. You’ve got to love the Brits.
Jonathan’s vast shoulders sink in relief that I haven’t whipped off a shoe and poked Lucy in the eye with a stiletto heel. We’re fifteen seconds into the most awkward introduction of all time, and nobody is bleeding from their eyeball.
Yet.
Again, thank you, British culture.
Though what Jonathan mistakes for acceptance on my part is really just my respect for Miles and Saoirse. There’s no way I’d make a scene at their beautiful party.
And there’s no way I’d ever give these two the satisfaction of showing the merest glimpse of jealousy. Of vulnerability. I shudder. Dear God, no.
‘Congratulations on landing this gig, Nor.’ Jonathan gestures at the happy couple. ‘I was thrilled for you when Miles told me.’
‘Thank you. That’s so kind. I hope your new role is going well.’
Note: that’s a statement, not a question. And my smile is fixed and scary. I may be able to resort to good manners when need be, but Jonathan’s nervous glance at Lucy tells me he can interpret my subtext.
And my subtext is: Don’t fucking dare make small talk with me in front of Dolly Parton here.
‘Excuse me,’ I say in my fake voice before Jonathan thinks about anything so ill-advised as answering my non-question. ‘I must confer with the server about the timings of the canapes.’
‘Of course.’ Jonathan takes a step back and pushes his fine blonde hair off his forehead. My blue-eyed, golden-haired boy.
I’m so far from ready to drop that possessive pronoun.
I have a lot of fight in me yet.
I sweep imperiously away, my chin held high, my glorious Emilia Wickstead armour helping in that superficial but fabulous way that only a great dress can.
I just hope I got away from them before they saw my chin wobble.