Chapter One #2
I turn, cheeks burning, and can’t quite look Grandma in the eye. ‘Well, that is a surprise. Who would do such a thing?’ My voice is wobbly.
‘I know, sweetheart, I know,’ Jules replies. ‘I’ve had these next to me all day … I don’t know how this could have possibly happened.’
My eyes dart around the room, heart now hammering in my chest as I run through every person who could have done this.
‘I always liked that Jake, I did,’ Jules sniffles.
‘Grandma!’
‘But imagine the babies! They would have been so cute! All blue-eyed and—’
‘Grandma.’
She stops, presses her lips together, the picture of innocence.
She’s trying to lighten the mood, trying to stop me from spiralling, I know – but she always had a soft spot for Jake.
And if she weren’t my grandma, I might have been jealous of the flirty banter they had.
I know she means well, but this isn’t helping, especially as I’m marrying a wholly different man tomorrow.
‘I’m struggling to process this right now,’ I say, my voice quivering.
‘Please could you take his name off and – if at all possible – figure out who did this? It’s probably just a silly prank, but it’s one at my expense and that feels cruel.
I’m not sure I want someone like that at my wedding.
’ I look down to my hands, which are trembling.
‘I’m on it, sweetheart. Leave it with me.’ I follow Jules to the door, and she kisses my cheek on the way out. ‘Don’t let this worry you, lovely. I’ll get to the bottom of it.’ And with that, she saunters out of the room and down the long wood-panelled corridor.
I shut the door and lean against it, pressing my forehead to the cool wood.
There’s a theory – I think I found it on some blog at sixteen, hunched over my dad’s computer in the dining room – that people have three true loves in their lives.
The first one is puppy love. It’s idealistic, all-consuming, but, ultimately, completely unsuited to the real world – that’s Jake.
They say the second love is the difficult one – the one that teaches you what you actually need by getting it spectacularly wrong …
And the third is the one I have now with Timothy: the one that’s mature, unexpected, built on deep connection – the one that makes sense. Which means I should be fine.
I met Jake when I was twenty-one, fresh out of university.
I’d just moved back in with my parents after three years of hard work and mayhem.
I needed a year after I graduated to find myself, which mainly consisted of working at my parents’ bed and breakfast. I felt equally like the world was my oyster and totally unsure of where my path would take me next – until the day I saw him.
I say ‘saw’ like it was the first time, but it wasn’t, not really.
Growing up in the same town, you know most people, or at least you think you do.
Jake was in the same year as me at school but always on the periphery, never in the same form.
A name attached to rumours and a face that I’d never properly studied.
But that afternoon, as he waltzed past the B&B while I was sweeping the porch, the July light catching his face, I looked – properly.
Jake was tall. Not just tall, but the constantly-having-to-duck-under-doorframes six-foot-four kinda tall.
He had thick, dark hair that looked great wet or dry, and whether pushed back or falling over his face.
His jaw was verging on too strong, too sculpted, but his mouth softened him – his (gorgeous!) lips held the permanent ghost of a smirk.
And his eyes … Light blue and fringed with lashes that were wasted on a man, they never failed to make me melt.
Jake had a reputation. The consensus among my friends was that he was fit, but not worth the hassle.
‘He’s easy to look at, but those are usually the ones that are bad news,’ my mum warned me, cradling a cup of tea between her palms, when she heard we’d been on a date.
Jules, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have any reservations about how handsome he was.
‘He’s a hunk. A real heartbreaker,’ she’d said approvingly, like that was a selling point.
She wasn’t wrong on either count. Even then, I’d surprised myself.
Turns out there are things that can compete with a jaw like that. London, for one.
And now his name is on my perfectly curated seating plan. I need to move past this. Surely, it’s just a prank and nothing more. An attempt at a joke gone horribly wrong? Maybe they didn’t mean to upset me. Maybe it’s my cousin Harry trying to wind me up.
Ground yourself, Belle, don’t get flustered.
I turn, leaning my head back on the door.
This room really is stunning, and that’s what I should be focusing on.
I stare at the carved, floor-to-ceiling overmantel that probably costs more than my first flat.
It looks like Donatello could have carved it.
The fireplace is framed by two plush cream velvet armchairs and in the centre of the room is a cosy sofa covered with plump, embroidered cushions.
I can’t wait to curl up with Timothy here tomorrow night, drinking champagne while dissecting our wedding day, laughing about whatever chaos our families have caused.
I push off the door and cross back to the mirror. I’m halfway there when I realise two reflections are looking back at me.
My brain does that thing where it refuses to process what the eyes are clearly reporting.
I blink. The second reflection doesn’t move, doesn’t shift, it just stands there, behind me, wearing the expression of someone who has been waiting an unreasonably long time and is finding the whole situation mildly entertaining.
Jake.
Jake, who was not just my first love, but the worst heartbreak of my life.
Jake Marleigh, who died ten years ago.
Ten years of carefully folded grief comes undone in a second.
Somehow, here he is, glowing faintly, his statement smile sweeping across his face … But he’s supposed to be dead.
I stare. He stares back. I run through a list of things this could be, because it can’t possibly be what this looks like.
Is it someone who looks like him? A secret twin I didn’t know about? Except … it can’t be, not all six foot four, with that jaw and those eyes and that infuriating smirk.
Maybe he didn’t die? Was there a mistake?
A mix-up at the hospital? I’ve heard it can happen – I saw it, a whole documentary …
Except, I helped identify him. I stood in that room and identified him, confirmed what clothes he had on, and there was absolutely no way I was wrong.
What in the Sabrina the Teenage Witch is going on? Is this his ghost?
I turn and stagger backwards, voice caught in my throat, while simultaneously grabbing for anything to help protect me from my supposed-to-be-dead ex-boyfriend standing in the bridal suite in which I’ll be consummating my marriage, in just over a day’s time.
Am I losing my mind? Is the stress of this wedding causing me to hallucinate?
Did my sweet little grandma secretly poison me when she kissed me goodbye?
I trip, heels caught in my dress, and crack my head on the nearest post of the four-poster bed.
I crumble to the floor and rub my head. Please don’t be a lump, please don’t be a lump.
I don’t want to walk down the aisle with an egg on the back of my skull.
What if Timothy feels it during our first kiss as husband and wife?
What if it means my updo won’t sit properly?
What if I’m actually losing it and spend tomorrow in a padded cell instead of at the altar?
But when I reopen my eyes, he’s gone. It’s just me reflected in the mirror, sitting on the floor, rubbing my head and looking very much like someone who’s just seen a ghost.
I look up at the wall where Jake would have been standing and see only the fireplace, the brass poker hanging crookedly off its stand.
One of the velvet armchairs is pulled very slightly forward from where it was before – or was it already like that?
I can’t tell. My hands are still trembling, shoulders quivering, and the tips of my fingers frozen.
I was just having a moment.
It’s this room. It’s Whitby, with the whole gothic, brooding, 800 years of vampire-soaked history.
I’ll be okay. Someone played a prank, and my mind went into overdrive, but I’m okay!
I just need to take a deep breath and think happy thoughts: Timothy, dream wedding, his speech, my first kiss with Jake— I sit bolt upright.
What is wrong with you, Belle? You’re fantasising about your first love and mistaking shadows for ghosts.
I may love a horror film, but I’m not about to discover I’m clairvoyant on the eve of my wedding.
I move my hands to dust myself off, and something catches my eye: a hand outstretched next to mine.
The nails bitten down, a small scar across the palm from clumsily cutting an avocado while making me brunch that one time …
My eyes bolt upward in terror, and there he is, with those hands I loved reaching out to help me up.
‘This can’t be real,’ I stammer and everything goes black.