Kate Hardy - Wish Upon a Wedding

‘Claire, I’m not your father. I know you can do it on your own,’ he said softly. ‘And, for the record, I don’t think you need looking after. Actually, I think it would drive you bananas.’

‘It would.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I want an equal partnership with someone who’ll back me and who’ll let me back them.’

‘That’s what I want, too,’ Sean said.

Hope bloomed in her heart. ‘Before yesterday—before things went wrong—that’s what I thought we had,’ she said.

‘We did,’ he said. ‘We do .’

She bit her lip. ‘I’ve hurt you as much as you hurt me. I was angry and unfair and ungrateful, I pushed you away, and I’m sorry. And, if I try to think first instead of reacting first in future, do you think we could start again?’

‘So Ms Follow-Your-Heart turns into a rulebook devotee?’ Sean said. ‘No deal. Because I want a partner who thinks outside the box and stops me being regimented.’

‘You’re not regimented—well, not all the time,’ she amended.

‘Thank you. I think.’ He looked at her. ‘I can’t promise perfection and I can’t promise we won’t ever fight again, Claire.’

‘It wouldn’t be normal if we didn’t ever fight again,’ she pointed out.

‘True. I guess we just need to learn to compromise. Do things the middle way instead of both thinking that our way’s the only way.’ He opened his arms. ‘So. You and me. How about it?’

She stepped into his arms. ‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ He kissed her lingeringly. ‘And we’ll talk more in future. I promise I won’t think I know best.’

‘And I promise I won’t go super-stubborn.’

He laughed. ‘Maybe we ought to qualify that and say we’ll try .’

‘Good plan.’

He arched an eyebrow. ‘Are you going to admit that planning’s good, outside business?’

She laughed. ‘That would be a no. Most of the time. Are you going to admit that being spontaneous means you have more fun?’

He grinned. ‘Not if I’m hungry and I’ve just been drenched in a downpour.’

‘Compromise,’ she said. ‘That works for me.’

‘Me, too.’ He kissed her again. ‘And we’ll make this work. Together.’

EPILOGUE

Two months later

CLAIRE WAS WORKING on the preliminary sketches for her first collection for Pia Verdi when her phone beeped.

She glanced at the screen. Sean. Probably telling her that he was going to be late home tonight, she thought with a smile. Although they hadn’t officially moved in with each other, they’d fallen into a routine of spending weeknights at her place and weekends at his.

V and A. Thirty minutes. Be there.

Was he kidding?

Three tube changes! Takes thirty minutes PLUS walk to station, she typed back.

And of course he’d know she knew this. The Victoria and Albert Museum was her favourite place in London. She’d taken him there several times and always lingered in front of her favourite dress, a red grosgrain and chiffon dress by Chanel. She never, ever tired of seeing that dress.

Forty minutes, then.

Half a minute later, there was another text.

Make it fifty and change into your blue dress. The one with the daisies.

Why?

Tell you when you get here.

She grinned. Sean was clearly in playful mode, so this could be fun. But why did he want to meet her at the museum? And why that dress in particular?

She still didn’t have a clue when she actually got to Kensington. She texted him from the museum entrance: Where are you?

Right next to your favourite exhibit.

Easy enough, she thought, and went to find him.

He was standing next to the display case, dressed up to the nines: a beautifully cut dark suit and a white shirt, but for once he wasn’t wearing a tie. That little detail was enough to soften the whole package. Just how she liked it.

‘OK. I’m here.’ She gestured to her outfit. ‘Blue dress. Daisies. As requested, Mr Farrell.’

‘You look beautiful,’ he said.

‘Thank you. But I’m still trying to work out why you wanted to meet me here.’

‘Because I’m just about to add to your workload.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

He dropped to one knee. ‘Claire Stewart, I love you with all my heart. Will you marry me?’

‘I...’ She stared at him. ‘Sean. I can’t quite take this in. You’re really asking me to marry you?’

‘I’m down on one knee and I used the proper form,’ he pointed out.

This was the last thing she’d expected on a Thursday afternoon in her favourite museum. ‘Sean.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it for the last month. Where else could you ask a wedding dress designer to marry you, except in her favourite place in London? And next to her favourite exhibit, too?’

Now she knew why he’d asked her to wear his favourite dress: to make this just as special for him. And why he’d said he was adding to her workload—because now she’d have a very special wedding dress to design. Her own.

She smiled. ‘Sean Farrell, I love you with all my heart, too. And I’d be thrilled to marry you.’

He stood up, swung her round, and kissed her thoroughly. Then he took something from his pocket. ‘We need to formalise this.’

She blinked. ‘You bought me a ring?’

‘Without consulting you? No chance. This is temporary. Go with the flow. Carpe diem ,’ he said, and slid something onto the ring finger of her left hand.

When she looked at it, she burst out laughing. He’d made her a ring out of unused toffee wrappers.

‘We’ll choose the proper one together,’ he said. ‘Just as we’ll make all our important decisions together.’

‘An equal partnership,’ she said, and kissed him. ‘Perfect.’

* * * * *

Read on for an extract from THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE MAID by Michelle Douglas.

CHAPTER ONE

MAC PRESSED THE heels of his hands to his eyes and counted to five before pulling them away and focussing on the computer screen again. He reread what he’d written of the recipe so far and fisted his hands. What came next?

This steamed mussels dish was complicated, but he must have made it a hundred times. He ground his teeth together. The words blurred and danced across the screen. Why couldn’t he remember what came next?

Was it coconut milk?

He shook his head. That came later.

With a curse, he leapt up, paced across the room and tried to imagine making the dish. He visualised himself in a kitchen, with all the ingredients arrayed around him. He imagined speaking directly to a rolling camera to explain what he was doing—the necessity of each ingredient and the importance of the sequence. His chest swelled and then cramped. He dragged a hand back through his hair. To be cooking...to be back at work... A black well of longing rose through him, drowning him with a need so great he thought the darkness would swallow him whole.

It’d be a blessing if it did.

Except he had work to do.

He kicked out at a pile of dirty washing bunched in the corner of the room before striding back to his desk and reaching for the bottle of bourbon on the floor beside it. It helped to blunt the pain. For a little while. He lifted it to his mouth and then halted. The heavy curtains drawn at the full-length windows blocked the sunlight from the room, and while his body had no idea—it was in a seemingly permanent state of jet lag—his brain told him it was morning.

Grinding his teeth, he screwed the cap back on the bottle.

Finish the damn recipe. Then you can drink yourself into oblivion and sleep.

Finish the recipe? That was what he had to do, but he couldn’t seem to turn from where he stood, staring at the closed curtains, picturing the day just beyond them, the sun and the light and the cool of the fresh air...the smell of the sea.