was wonderful, I still felt weird. So much had happened, so much had been said, and there was still so much to sort out.
Suddenly, the dressing room door slammed open, hitting the wall behind it and making everyone and everything in the room jump.
‘You shouldn’t be in here!’ Amy said, charging directly at the door and attempting to close it on Charlie’s bewildered face. But his six-foot-something versus her five-foot-nothing held its own quite nicely.
‘Charlie!’
My arms instinctively wrapped themselves around my body, I felt so vulnerable in my dress.
‘Charlie?’ Paige said, her perfect hair whipping back and forth between the door and me.
‘Charlie!’ Kekipi cheered, tucking into another chocolate chip cookie as we all turned to look at him. ‘Sorry, nothing to add, just didn’t want to be left out.’
‘I came to talk to you,’ Charlie started, eyes darting around the room while Amy recommitted to her Mighty Mouse efforts to knock him out of the room by charging directly at his midriff. He didn’t even flinch.
‘Me?’ I asked.
‘Tess?’ Paige asked.
Charlie nodded. He looked rumpled and rushed, his tie not quite straight, his hair all a mess.
‘Can I have five minutes?’ he said, stuffing his shirt down his trousers. Typical Charlie, never tucked in properly. ‘Just, want to explain everything. I’ve been a real tit.’
‘At last, I agree with somebody in this room,’ Amy said. She stood up and took a deep breath before renewing her efforts to shift Charlie out of her sight.
‘Thanks, Aims.’ He picked her up, one giant hand under each arm, and placed her gently outside the door and closed it firmly. ‘I want to explain before it all kicks off.’
‘You’ve got to do it now?’ I asked, my hands tucked underneath my armpits. The dress was so much more revealing than you’d have thought. ‘Really?’
‘It’s not brilliant timing, Charles,’ Kekipi agreed. ‘I’m fairly certain you’re not supposed to be in here right now.’
‘Let me in!’ Amy’s voice yelled from the hallway while she pounded on the door. Suddenly she stopped the pounding. ‘What are you doing here?’
The door began to open again and Charlie slammed it shut, or tried to, hitting something hard as he did so. But it wasn’t Amy trying to get back in – it was someone bigger and considerably stronger. It flew open again, this time with such force that it knocked Charlie off his already shaky balance, sending him across the room to crash onto the floor at my feet, cracking his head on a chair leg as he fell, a spray of blood slashing across the white silk skirt of my frock.
‘That’ll do, pig,’ Kekipi said, picking him up under the arms and dragging him away from my ruined dress. ‘That’ll do.’
‘Who slammed the fucking door in my face?’ Nick asked furiously, pressing the arm of his shirt to a bloody nose. ‘And why is Amy out there in her knickers?’
I felt sick and hot. I felt my heart race and my pants hurl themselves on the floor, right before my pride raced down to pull them back up and weld them to my lady parts. I felt everything and I felt completely numb.
‘Nick?’ I whispered.
‘Tess …’ he replied, his eyes travelling up and down my dress.
‘Charlie!’ Paige yelped.
‘Help me,’ Charlie whimpered, lying on the floor, staring at the stars only he could see on the ceiling.
So there I was, standing in the middle of an elegantly appointed dressing room in an exquisite Milanese palazzo, wearing a beautiful white dress that was now accented with a charming slash of blood, while one former lover lay concussed at my feet and another stared at me, bleeding, in the middle of the room, and one best friend choked back a surprised sob while the other was silently jumping up and down in her inside-out underwear, fists pressed to her mouth and eyes so wide I thought they might pop out of her head.
‘Oh my.’
I turned to see Al, resplendent in a gorgeous grey suit, surveying the scene from the hallway.
‘This looks to be a fantastic start to a wedding,’ he announced, walking in as a string quartet began to play somewhere in the distance. ‘Now, remind me, who’s walking who down the aisle again?’
Two and a half weeks earlier
‘OK, that’s it, you look amazing,’ I yelled as my friend Paige perched uncomfortably on a bench. ‘Don’t move, you’re a statue, you’re frozen.’
‘Frozen is right,’ Paige shouted back. ‘I am not comfortable, Tess.’
‘Are you trying to take photos while wearing ice skates?’ I shouted back, wobbling on the spot in the middle of the rink. ‘No, you’re not, so shut up.’
She raised a perfectly pencilled-in eyebrow in silent protest.
‘That still counts as moving,’ I replied. ‘So stop it.’
‘You know I hate having my photograph taken,’ she muttered as the Zamboni ice-resurfacing machine whirred quietly around the rink behind me. ‘How much longer is this going to take?’
Paige Sullivan was not only the art director at Belle, a super swanky fashion magazine, she was also one of the best human beings I had ever met. Knowing I was desperate to get more experience with my camera, she had called in favours and pulled so many strings that we had the entire Somerset House ice rink all to ourselves for a whole hour after her work Christmas party. She couldn’t get me into the actual party itself, but then she was only human. And not being allowed into the party didn’t mean I couldn’t show up early and steal snacks from the kitchen anyway.
‘And you know you’re my favourite model,’ I replied, pulling a mini mince pie out of my pocket and shoving it into my mouth when she looked away. ‘It’ll be over much faster if you stop moving.’
‘Stop moving, look softer, point your toe, tilt your chin,’ Paige grumbled. Even when she was sulking, she was still beautiful. ‘Are you all packed for the wedding of the century?’
‘Bags packed, ticket booked,’ I nodded. ‘Kekipi is so excited and I can’t believe he’s getting married.’
‘There’s someone for everyone,’ she said sagely. ‘Except for me and you, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ I agreed. ‘I think it’s going to be incredible. Maybe we can pretend we’re getting married instead of playing bridesmaids. Though Kekipi and Domenico’s wedding is bound to be more impressive than anything I could pull together.’
‘I do feel
