‘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 a bit weird about it, though,’ Paige said, tilting her head upwards and catching the light perfectly. Whether she liked having her photo taken or not, she was a natural. ‘I barely even know Kekipi but he said he needed a blonde bridesmaid or he couldn’t fulfil his Charlie’s Angels fantasy.’
‘The bride wants what the bride wants.’ I snapped and my flash filled the rink with bright, white light. ‘And a custom-designed Bertie Bennett bridesmaid dress has got to be something of a sweetener for you?’
‘It doesn’t hurt,’ she said with a shrug. ‘And it’ll be fun. New Year is always such a let-down, attending the wedding of the year in Milan doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend it.’
Inching left with staccato steps, I tried another angle. Good God, she was pretty. The cow.
‘In all honesty, I thought it was a bit odd for him to ask us to be bridesmaids but, you know, I don’t think he knows that many people,’ I said, my ankles beginning to ache inside my slightly too tight skates. How long had we been out here? It only felt like a moment.
‘Obviously, he knows a lot of people but I don’t think he has that many friends. He and Al were holed up in that house in Hawaii for so many years he was practically bouncing off the walls every day in Milan. I can’t imagine what Amy’s putting up with in New York.’
‘I can’t imagine the two of them living together, I’d be hard pushed to say which one is more mental. Poor Al,’ Paige said with a shudder. ‘Are we nearly done? I’m freezing my jacksy off.’
‘And a fine jacksy it is too,’ I said, gazing at her through my viewfinder and forgetting how cold I was, how much my ankles hurt, and everything else that wasn’t the perfect picture. ‘Almost done. Two more minutes.’
London had decided to play nicely for the Belle Christmas party and the miserable, rainy weather that had been bothering the city all day had been replaced with a beautiful crisp, clear night sky. Paige, wrapped up in long scarves and fluffy mittens, looked like a winter fantasy dream girl and with the beautiful backdrop of Somerset House behind her and bright white ice shining below, it was like a Christmas card come to life.
‘Apart from bullying your friends into playing model, what else have you been up to since you got back?’ she asked, reaching up to pull her perfectly imperfect blonde fishtail plait over her shoulder. ‘I’ve hardly seen you.’
‘That’s because you keep cancelling on me to play with your fancy new fashion magazine friends,’ I pointed out. Paige had moved from Gloss to Belle while I was working in Milan and now it seemed like she never had time for anything but work. Her new job sounded just like The Devil Wears