Widget x
He was about to reply when she messaged again:
Okay, so don’t freak out, but I have some bad news.
Cooper stared at the three dots on his phone for an agonising length of time until the next message came through.
‘What’s happened?’ Ben asked, trying to be subtle as he switched on his camera.
‘I don’t know. Bridget says it’s bad news.’
‘She’s changed her mind?’
Cooper shook his head, distracted. ‘No, she said Emma was ready to go. I hope it’s not her dad.’
Cole called
Asking to confirm the venue address
Couldn’t think of how to fob him off in time
Sorry
Initially, Cooper was so relieved that it wasn’t anything terrible, it took him a moment to consider that having Professor Cole standing about throwing out smug comments at his wedding was terrible enough. He knew from hanging around the family as a student that they all thought Bridget’s boss was an arrogant prig. He also knew that those Donovans wouldn’t allow any priggish comments to go unchallenged. Especially today.
Would Emma rather he be the kind of man who stood up and called his boss out, defending their honour and refusing to allow him to ruin the day by asking him to leave, even though he’d then end up unemployable (to anyone who wanted a reference), meaning he’d have to rely on his new wife to pay for the room he rented off his old uni friend?
Or would she rather he swallowed his pride, kept his head cool, his mouth shut and let Prof have his fun, potentially ruining their wedding for the sake of the marriage that came after?
‘Everything all right, mate?’ Ben asked, jolting him out of his spiral of doom.
‘Well, actually…’
14
Emma
It was my wedding day.
For real this time.
After three weeks of feeling as though a swarm of ants were living under my skin, today I woke up feeling…
Serene.
Or, to put it less optimistically, numb.
I skipped breakfast as usual, had a bowl of Mamma’s minestrone soup for lunch, followed by a bath, and two hours under the attention of my sister Annie, while the rest of my sisters sat around laughing, applying their own make-up, topping up our Buck’s Fizz glasses and asking me for the hundredth time if I was okay.
The day before, Annie had painted all our nails, waged war against any unwanted hairs and applied various treatments to my skin that were guaranteed to make me gorgeous for my big day. We’d decamped to the farmhouse straight after picking her up from the airport, having cancelled all other commitments for some much-needed sister time.
Annie had been trying her best to show us how happy and excited she was – happy to be home, if still not 100 per cent convinced about the reason she was here. But we knew our sister, and we were watching closely. We all caught the unguarded moments when her smile faded to reveal the underlying sadness. And while happy to talk about her beauty therapy business, her new friends, the differences of life in the big city compared to a sleepy Sherwood Forest village, we noticed how she deftly detoured any conversation away from the merest cursory remarks about Greg.
In the end, when ten o’clock was approaching and Mum had trudged up the stairs after pointing out how even daughters as gorgeous as hers needed their beauty sleep, as we snuggled up on the sofas in the safety of our childhood duvets, Sofia just came out with it.
‘How are things with you and Greg?’
Annie buried her face in her hot-chocolate mug for a moment, until she had to acknowledge that we were all waiting for an answer. ‘Oh, you know, it’s Greg, he’s stupidly busy, but at least he enjoys the work. They’ve promised him a new assistant soon, so hopefully things will ease off a bit.’
