Erica tuts. “Mummy, I’ve not even got my dress on yet. Of course, they can.” She pats me on the hand her face beaming. “Take as long as you like, lovely.” She turns back to her mother. “Let’s go and start getting ready. I’ll ask for some cocktails to be sent up to the suite for you.”
Frances huffs. “If we can actually get served in this hotel. I really think there would have been more staff if you’d got married in the Amazonian rainforest.”
“Probably. And at least there, some of the wildlife might have eaten you,” Ryan’s mum says, smiling sweetly at Frances as they move away.
Lachlan stiffens. His gaze meets mine and his eyes are alight with mirth. I make my own eyes into lasers, and he shifts uncomfortably.
“Well, we won’t be a few minutes,” I say. “Come along, my dearest darling.”
He slides off the stool and rises to his full height, which is several inches taller than everyone else. Several of the women give him approving glances. He’s dressed in a dark grey suit with a blindingly white shirt. Mrs Ward is obviously still doing his laundry, but even that sobering thought doesn’t stop my traitorous mouth going dry.
I stalk out of the room and feel him following me into the corridor. Looking around, I spot a door and open it. It leads into a small sitting room looking out onto the patio. I pull him in and slam the door before rounding on him. He makes a startled sound.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I hiss.
He hesitates for a moment before saying, “I’m here for the wedding.”
“I call bullshit. I never saw your name on the list. Bride or groom?” I snap.
“Neither. That would be illegal, as I’m already married.”
“You are not funny. Bride or groom?” I say through gritted teeth.
“Bride,” he says rather tentatively.
I fold my arms. “So, you’re friends with Erica?”
“Oh, you know how it is.”
“I don’t which is why I asked the fucking question.” He looks shifty which is a very odd expression on such a forthright man.
“You know the bride so well that she invited you to a very exclusive wedding where the guests are only close friends and family,” I say slowly, suspicion dawning as I recall that Lachlan didn’t seem at all surprised to see me. “And yet despite this hitherto hidden friendship, Erica was still looking at us like we’re Taylor and Burton on a good day? Like we’re happily married.” His face changes and realisation hits me like a smack in the face. “Oh my god, she thinks that because you told her that. You fooled her.”
“No. It wasn’t like that. I —”
“How could you, Lachlan? Why are you even here?”
“You refused to talk to me.” His words are suddenly loud and impassioned and I stare at him. “I rang you over and over, but you put the phone down. I sent letters but you ripped them up.”
“How do you know that?”
He shoots me a wry glance. “You sent the pieces back to me.”
Ah, that must have been after one too many cocktails.
He carries on with a dogged persistence. “I needed to see you, and this was the only way.”
The hurt in his eyes enrages me. “Stop talking,” I hiss. He shuts his mouth with a snap, and I turn away, running my hands through my hair. “This is a fucking disaster.”
“Joe.”
“No. Please don’t talk to me. I don’t want to speak to you for any longer than I have to.” His eyes are bruised with unhappiness, but I harden my heart. “I can’t air our marriage problems at someone else’s fucking wedding. A wedding I’m organising.”
“No, I have to tell you something. She doesn’t —”
“We need to think,” I say, talking over him. I pace the room as he sits down and watches me.
“Joe, you might need to know that—”
“Shut up.”
He closes his mouth while my mind races frantically. I run through every scenario I can think of but there seems to be only one obvious answer. I walk back to him. “Right. I think I have a cunning plan.”
“I had more faith in Baldrick saying that.”
I glare at him. “This is the best I can come up with, short of you allowing me to murder you and stuff you in the hotel shrubbery.”
“I do not favour that option.”
“Okay, then.” I put my hands on my hips and take a deep breath. “We’ll have to pretend to be still together.”
He gapes at me, looking as if he’s been hit over the head. “What?”
“It’s the only option. It’ll save face and make things easier and it’s only for the day anyway. I’m leaving tonight.”
“Tonight?” he echoes, looking upset.
“Yes, I’m staying at an airport hotel tonight and flying to Thailand in the morning.”
His eyes narrow. “Alone?”
“No. With the entire scrum half of the All Blacks. What the fuck has that got to do with you?”
“We’re still married.”
“And that is purely because you kept signing your name as characters from BBC children’s programmes. We’d have been done ages ago, if it was up to me.”
“Oh, I’m very well aware of that,” he says silkily.
I raise my eyebrow. “Well?”
He folds his arms. “I thought you favoured shrubbery murder.”
“I never said it was my favourite plan.”
For some reason that seems to amuse him. Then he leans back in his chair, and I get a glimpse of the feared negotiator he is. “And why would I want to do this?”
“Why wouldn’t you want to help me?” My voice rises and for a second, I can’t think because the anger is so strong in me. Then I finally snap. “Well, let’s see. How about because you fucked around on me, Lachlan.” I wave my finger in his face. “And you fucking definitely owe me for that.”
He jerks. Face becoming pale, he slowly rises from the chair. “I did what?” His voice is like thunder, but it doesn’t make me quail. Lachlan would never hurt me. Cheating aside.
“You. Cheated. On. Me,” I say very slowly, enunciating the words as if he’s hard of hearing.
His eyes flare.
I’m fully expecting him to apologise. We’re finally discussing the major part he played to end our marriage, and he’s nothing if not the supreme upholder of truth.
His face is now sheet white. “No, I fucking didn’t,” he snaps, outraged.
“What?”
“I’ve never cheated on you.” He shakes his head. “What the hell is the matter with you? I’m married. Of course, I didn’t cheat.”
I gape at him, feeling like the earth is dipping underneath me. I want to laugh in his face but the utter incomprehension in his eyes is making me uneasy. Lachlan isn’t a liar. He’s alarmingly forthright and has no patience for falsehoods. He’d lectured me a fair few times on the white lies I tell in my job. But you try telling a bride that her dress is hideous and see where it gets you.
“Yes, you did,” I snap. “You fucking cheated on me. I saw you.”