Charlotte Butterfield - A Beautiful Day for a Wedding - This year’s Bridget Jones!

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Harper Impulse

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2018

Copyright © Charlotte Butterfield 2018

Cover illustration © Shutterstock.com

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Charlotte Butterfield asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008302719

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008302702

Version: 2018-04-18

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page A division of HarperCollins Publishers www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright Harper Impulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2018 Copyright © Charlotte Butterfield 2018 Cover illustration © Shutterstock.com Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2018 Charlotte Butterfield asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008302719 Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008302702 Version: 2018-04-18

Dedication To Team P: Ed, Amélie, Rafe and Theo

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Acknowledgements

Also by Charlotte Butterfield

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

To Team P: Ed, Amélie, Rafe and Theo

H ow to be the perfect bridesmaid. Rule number one: Start mourning the friend you love, because once she becomes entangled in wedding planning, she doesn’t exist anymore.

Gone are the easy chats about life, love and the universe, and in its place are endless one-sided monologues about whether it would be unreasonable to ask all the bridesmaids to pierce their ears so they can wear matching earrings (answer: yes). Evenings will be spent pondering the question of whether tulips are too cheap, orchids too expensive or peonies too try-hard. Who cares? They’ll either end up swept up with the confetti by an Eastern European cleaner on minimum wage in the morning, or carefully preserved in an airing cupboard by the groom’s granny. You know the friend that’s always been very supportive about your extra curves? Well, as soon as that sparkly solitaire gets slipped on her finger she’ll ‘accidentally’ order your bridesmaid dress a size too small forcing you to eat blended kale for a month before the wedding.

Let’s talk hen dos for just a moment. What a wonderful opportunity for some sisterhood solidarity, where dignity and self-consciousness are checked in with your coat at the door and the order of the day is friendship and fun. Wrong. Don’t even think about surprising the bride with an activity, theme or outfit she hasn’t approved. In writing. She may say that you have the power of attorney on this weekend, but she doesn’t mean it, she’s lying through her newly-whitened teeth – which brings me onto the subject of beauty. The role of a bridesmaid is to be pretty, but not too much. Save those fake eyelashes for another occasion, because God forbid you should have longer lash-action than the woman in white. By all means brush your hair, possibly even add a bit of bounce, but do not consider having an up-do that takes more than two minutes to construct. That’s her arena. The only part of your grooming routine you shouldn’t scrimp on is deodorant. You’ll need at least half a can sprayed into your armpits at all times to counteract the iron-woman training that you’ll be forced to do in the week before the big day. Fill your car with petrol, top up your oyster card, stash your heels for another day, and flex those limbs because good God are you going to be using them. Unless you are already a PA to the president of a small country, never before will you have been faced with a To Do List of the gargantuan proportions that you will soon be handed. And the best part is, you have to smile like Mary Poppins while cheerily crossing each item off. Hem curtains? Check. Polish floors? Check. Dog-sit for a fortnight? Che— Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

Eve had no idea that her legs could even move that fast. Weaving in and out of office workers, shoving tourists out of the way, hurdling over open drains, and banging on the sides of open-top buses, she finally made it to the front of her friend Tanya’s apartment block. Steadying herself on the gate for a moment to let the burning sensation in her lungs subside, she silently offered up a little prayer that she wasn’t about to walk into the rotting carcass of a pedigree pug.

The stench hit her before the key was fully turned in the lock. Covering her mouth with her sleeve and trying not to retch, Eve slowly pushed open the door and braced herself for whatever sight she might find. The flat was still. Silent. Too still and silent for an apartment with a dog in it.

‘Coco, here girl, there’s a good girl.’ Eve wandered quickly from room to room, giving a small gasp at the doorway of each one at the carnage that assaulted her eyes. The thought crossed her mind that perhaps Tanya had been burgled, the flat ransacked and the dog stolen. It would certainly make explaining this slightly easier. But robbers wouldn’t chew the sides of sofas until their filling spilled out, or wee on the expensive dhurrie rug from Peshawar. The ridiculous thing was, Eve was actually a little heartened to see the mess that Coco had made, as it meant that at some point over the last three days she’d had enough energy to create this bloodbath, rather than spend her final hours festering into a pile of bones.