CHAPTER 9
Selena
The hijinks become an actual uproar as I step through the doors of the cathedral, threatening to drown out the organist’s valiant—and beautiful—efforts with Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’. Three hundred heads swivel in my direction; three hundred mouths agape.
Oh, fuck.
I’ve courted prominence, yes. Credibility.
Profile. I’ll admit, I like to be admired.
I enjoy being a role model within the British fashion and lifestyle industry, and I can also admit that I’ve quite enjoyed the sour grapes that my longstanding engagement to Xavier has inspired in so many women my age.
But never, ever have I courted infamy, and this, right here, feels a lot like that. I’m suddenly impatient to get the hell up this aisle and stand next to Benedict.
As I absorb the sensation of so many eyes on me, and for all the wrong reasons, I feel my armour slip into place, thank God.
I am Selena Wentworth.
I am wearing hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of pounds in diamonds and lace.
This is my wedding day, no matter who awaits me at the end of the aisle, no matter how royally fucked up the past week has been.
I have been waiting for this moment my entire life, and I’m damned if I’m going to let anything wreck this moment.
I lift my chin. We proceed up the aisle, which, I have to say, looks stunning. The planner and I leaned into the idea of my marrying on one of the shortest days of the year. Full-height candelabra stand at the pew ends, bedecked with white flowers and trailing ivy, their candles flickering softly.
(Ivy. How fucking ironic. I didn’t see that plot twist coming, I have to say.)
I force myself to focus on the aesthetics.
Our little groom bombshell aside, everything is perfect.
The music swells around the cathedral, soaring to its vaulted ceilings.
The dim light gives a romantic, intimate vibe.
The air is scented with florals. All of it gives me the courage to look at our guests, to make eye contact.
I focus on my side of the aisle, on the friends and family lining the pews.
And as I do, I realise everyone is rooting for me.
They may not have the first clue what’s going on, but I can see, from the encouraging smiles on their faces, that they have my back—or, at the very least, they’ve worked out that I’m going to need some serious moral support to make it up this aisle and through this ceremony.
Everyone, quite frankly, looks tickled pink.
The wife of Wentworth’s CFO gives me a beaming grin and a double thumbs-up.
I smile shakily back at her, and my shoulders drop a millimetre.
Posture, Selena.
It’s only after a few more steps of this that I summon up the courage to do the scariest thing at all:
Check out my groom.
I drag my gaze along the near and dear faces lining the aisle and over to the front of the church, where Benedict stands in his morning suit. He’s standing completely still, his posture excellent, his shoulders broad, hands clasped in front of him.
Oh my God oh my God oh my God.
He’s waiting for me.
It hits me all at once: how crazy what we’re doing is, how reckless.
This is Ben. I’ve known him since I was a tiny girl, but I’ve never ever considered him for the position of my husband—even if I’ve considered him in a lot of other positions.
It’s insane to be marrying him… but as I draw nearer, another thought rises, potent enough to submerge the anxious chatter in my head.
He looks so hot. He is so fucking hot that I can’t bear it.
He looks insanely handsome, but it’s the seriousness on his gorgeous face that gives me pause.
It looks as though, for once in his life, he actually understands the gravitas of what he’s doing, and while that sense of gravitas really does make him even hotter than usual, it also puts the fear of God into me.
What if he suddenly realises how insanely stupid a move this is? What if he runs for the hills?
But he’s here, isn’t he? He’s here and, like I said, he’s waiting for me, and he hasn’t taken those green eyes off me.
If we can just get through this ceremony and emerge from it intact, if the congregation and the press can get their fix of us as man and wife, then I can handle everything else.
Whatever kind of shitshow it is behind closed doors with me and Ben, I can handle it.
Just as long as no one has cause to ridicule us in public.
I’m a few metres away from him when I brave a small smile.
He blinks and smiles back as if I’ve snapped my fingers in his face.
He was probably ruminating on the fact that his life as he knows it is ending today, but as he takes me in up close, his smile turns mischievous.
I say mischievous when really, I mean dirty: the kind of look you shouldn’t give your bride in a house of God.
His eyes sweep over me before Dad blocks our view of each other, stepping in front of me to lift my veil.
As Dad fusses with the veil, another wave of self-consciousness wafts over me.
I couldn’t get much food down today, and now I’m worried my breath stinks of ketones, even if I was crunching Smints the whole way here.
I wish I could have popped a Smint into the corner of my gum and quietly sucked on it for the duration of the ceremony.
I know Benedict will probably kiss me when we’ve said our vows, and I don’t want his first impression to be fuck, my new wife has bad breath.
Dad turns to shake Benedict’s hand before stepping back.
I turn and take in my bridesmaids. I can feel the panic streaming out of my eyes like laser beams. Flora, as my almost-sister-in-law, is standing nearest to me.
She gives me a bright grin and a firm nod.
You can do this. I nod back and turn to face Benedict.
Oh, Jesus.
He looks down at my chest and then back up to my face, biting his lip as he smirks at me. It’s so completely inappropriate and so Benedict that I can’t resist smiling.
‘Gorgeous,’ he whispers. ‘You okay?’
I nod. He really does have an incredibly attractive mouth. ‘You?’
‘I am now.’ Another pointed eye-fuck of my breasts, which I have to say look pretty great in my stunning Dior corsetry, and a comical raise of one eyebrow. I resist the urge to giggle. The bishop is right here.
Maybe Benedict isn’t the worst person to be doing this with. He certainly knows how to lighten the mood. An image of Xavier, uptight as hell and socially awkward, flashes into my head. That would have been brutal.
‘Dearly beloved,’ Bishop Faulkner intones, ‘we are gathered here today…’
Oh, holy hell.
This is happening.
The beauty of an elite education and the kind of upbringing I’ve had is that they allow you to present the perfect front when, inside, absolute chaos is reigning.
On the outside, I’m Margaret Thatcher-level implacable; on the inside—well, it’s like a toddler being let loose on the family china.
But perception is reality, so I lean into the centuries-old prose of the Church of England wedding rites, as comforting as they are turgid.
At least the de Veres ditched Catholicism half a millennium ago. That would be far longer and more painful than this is.
Hymns are sung, the congregation tackling—and, in some distinct cases, butchering—them with gusto. They’re rousing if pitchy. There’s always someone who goes for the wrong octave—or indeed, the wrong key—and regrets it as the verse soars, or someone who is flat-out tone deaf.
Then it’s time to say our vows. Given that we’re being married by a bishop in an ancient cathedral, and given that we don’t actually love (or truly know) each other, we’re going by the book.
Benedict takes my right hand. He won’t know or care that I hired Sophia Ritchie’s wedding manicurist to do my nails—men never notice these things—but I’m beyond happy with how soft my hands are, how expertly shaped and painted the creamy ovals are.
‘I, Benedict John Edward de Vere,’ he says, following the bishop’s lead, ‘take you, Selena Grace Wentworth, to be my wife.’ His thumb brushes over my (beautifully exfoliated) knuckles as he says the words, and his eyes don’t leave mine.
That gravitas I spotted as I walked up the aisle is back.
I realise he has to give this congregation the performance of a lifetime, but holy hell, is he plausible.
I’m having an out-of-body experience just watching him, listening to him speak vows as old as time.
To me.
I have a sudden and extremely unchristian thought: I wonder how many of my peers and so-called friends in the congregation want to stab my eyes out right now, or how many are desperately calculating how to land Xavier.
Just wait until they find out that Benedict is inheriting the title.
Focus, Selena.
‘To have and to hold from this day forward,’ the bishop intones. We are totally winging this. For obvious reasons, there was no rehearsal yesterday. Instead, we did a Zoom with the bishop, who talked us through the proceedings.
‘To have and to hold from this day forward.’ I could swear Benedict emphasises the hold. Cheeky bastard.
I press my lips together to hide my smile, and he spots it, flashing me a quick grin of his own.
Before I know it, his vows are finished, and I’m saying my own.
I keep my head up and my voice loud and clear.
God knows, there are two of us involved in this charade.
Benedict may have publicly declared his love for me, but I said yes.
I allegedly threw my fiancé over in response to his brother’s impassioned plea, so I’d better milk this for all it’s worth.
Besides, approaching this as a performance is the only way I know to survive it. If I consider that I’m actually making lifelong vows, I may crumple to the floor in a very expensive pile of lace and diamonds.
‘To love and to cherish,’ I tell Benedict, ‘until death do us part.’ His hand feels warm in mine: warm and solid and reassuring. He has nice hands. Nice fingers—long and elegant.
Selena Wentworth. Do not go there.
It’s hard not to go there when we exchange rings.
Benedict is using Xavier’s ring, which, thankfully, we didn’t have engraved.
I slide it onto his ring finger, and satisfaction slices through me, cleanly as a hot knife through butter.
It’s done. He slides my diamond-and-white-gold eternity band onto mine, and it honestly feels more erotic than solemn.
And then, a moment later, it’s crunch time.
‘I therefore proclaim you husband and wife,’ the bishop says loudly. He explained on yesterday’s Zoom that it’s not customary in the Church of England to actually suggest a kiss, but he gives us an avuncular smile and nod as if to say, Knock yourselves out.
The congregation beats us to it, breaking into applause that sounds to my ears every bit as relieved as I know I am.
A beat passes as everyone claps. Benedict’s eyes lock with mine, and he gives me a panty-melting grin. Honestly, that grin could cause pregnancies. It’s smug and wolfish and possessive. It’s definitely not the grin of a man who has no interest in having gained a new wife.
Something on my face must spur him on, for he reaches out and hooks me around the waist, quick as a flash, tugging me against him.
I hold my poor bouquet out to one side to avoid it suffering death by man chest, and then he’s sliding his other hand around my neck to angle my jaw upwards.
I stare at him for a moment, marvelling at the expression on his face.
He looks famished.
Then he’s dipping his head and closing his mouth over mine.
Oh, Jesus Christ. I’m kissing him. Kissing him for the first time, in front of three hundred people. Kissing my husband.
It feels good being clamped against his hard body. It feels great. His lips are soft against mine, and he smells heavenly. I mean, seriously next level.
It’s my view that a kiss in a cathedral, in front of a bishop, should be, well, chaste, but it seems my groom has other ideas.
His mouth moves over mine, and I get the tiniest brush of his tongue.
Shit. On instinct, I pull back, but his grip tightens around me as his tongue slides along the seam of my lips.
I’m torn—torn between propriety and performance and how indecently good it feels to have his tongue coaxing my—
Oh, sod it. I suppose selling the realness of this match is our number one priority right now. May as well take one for the team.
I open for him, and his tongue slips right into my mouth.
Holy fuck, can the man kiss. I suppose he’s had endless practice, but still.
Before I realise it, I’m raising my free hand to grab at his very broad shoulder.
He laughs against my mouth and bends me backwards as his tongue breaches my mouth more fully.
To the crowd, it’s a classic Benedict move: a dramatic Hollywood kiss.
To me, it’s full-on mouth sex. This is seriously inappropriate, but the clapping has turned to cheering and whooping and outright heckling.
There are even a few wolf whistles. Our guests are loving us, and I am… not hating it.
Benedict’s tongue dances with mine. His kissing style is so improper, so hypersexual, and my lizard brain is seriously reacting to his moves.
Oh my God, I will not survive this marriage to this man.
Finally, he tugs me upwards and releases me. My head is actually spinning, but I’m sure it was the angle and not his kissing. I gaze up at my new husband. His lips are slightly swollen, and he’s grinning at me as if he’s the cat that got the cream. Christ, this man is sex on legs.
He winks at me. ‘I’m just getting started, wifey.’
Fuck, fuck, fuck.