Zara Stoneley - The Wedding Date - The laugh out loud romantic comedy of the year!

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Harper Impulse an imprint of

HarperColl‌insPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2017

Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2017

Cover design by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for 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,

downloaded, 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: 9780008301033

Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9780008301026

Version: 2018-10-02

Table of Contents

Cover

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

Copyright Harper Impulse an imprint of HarperColl‌insPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2017 Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2017 Cover design by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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: 9780008301033 Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9780008301026 Version: 2018-10-02

Dedication For my parents. With love.

Act One – The Invite ACT ONE – THE INVITE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Act Two – The Date

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Act Three – The Wedding

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

Acknowledgements

Also by Zara Stoneley

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

For my parents. With love.

Reasons I, Sam Jenkins, cannot go to this wedding:

1 1. I’m too fat, and just don’t have time to get down to a look-okay-in-a-posh-summer-frock weight.

2 2. Lemon is so not my colour (which is the colour theme – Jess knows my aversion to over the top dresses and so has gone for a theme rather than providing the type of dress she loves and I hate). Mum says it drains me.

3 3. I have far too much work to do. And house-cleaning, and gardening.

4 4. I don’t have a date.

5 5. The last man I dated ripped my heart out, stamped on it and is going to be the best man.

Reasons I have to go to this wedding.

1 1. Jess was is my best friend.

I could add ‘and my hair looks crap’ but that one is easily handled. Much more easily handled than losing the chocolate-cake-and-chips stone in weight that has very comfortably settled itself round my stomach like an unwelcome lodger who intends to stay. Healthy food is on my to-do list, it just hasn’t made it on to my shopping list yet. I mean, you have to prioritise, don’t you? And I’m not quite ready.

Now don’t get me wrong, I can be pretty determined when I want to be, and show amazing self-control (last summer I lost 5 lb in weight the week before we went away, which meant the 7 lb I put on during the week was totally acceptable), but there are times in life when only a super-size bag of crisps and a bottle of wine will do, and the last few months has been one of those times. It has also been a time for espresso martinis and bumper bags of gin and tonic popcorn.

I was dumped, and now this .

A wedding invite. Well, advance warning of a wedding invite to be more precise.

Normally I love a good wedding, who doesn’t? But, right now, cheering on any happy couple would make me feel slightly hopeless and weepy for all the wrong reasons. And this is worse. This is the worst.

This isn’t just any wedding invite; it’s from Jess. My bestie.

We’ve known each other forever. She told me some time ago to ‘save the date’ (when I was still the deluded half of a happy couple), and now she’s emailed to tell me why.

She is getting married! The invite is in the post! It will be here any day! She is excited! Dan is excited! Everybody is excited! Her mum has already bought a hat!!! The wedding is going to be A-MA-ZING!! (The exclamation marks are hers, not mine – she is excited.)

Normally I’d be pretty thrilled too – after all, I love her to bits. I want her to be happy, I truly, truly do, and she will be. But normally was the time before Liam shredded my heart, hopes, and the perfect future I’d created in my head, as thoroughly as he shredded his very private and confidential banking documents – and pretty much every other sheet of paper left carelessly lying around. And Jess is marrying Dan. Liam’s brother. And Liam will of course be the best man. Not that ‘best’ or ‘man’ are words I’d voluntarily apply to him.

So I am not thrilled. I am imagining walking up the aisle behind my best friend towards the man who cheated on me. And everybody there will know he cheated on me. I will be the elephant in the room, the person that everybody stares at but avoids talking to because it is all so embarrassing and we are all so terribly British.

And if I’m totally honest I actually feel like an elephant, as in big and an anaemic shade of grey - and I don’t have time to remedy the situation. I’m not sure any spray tan or control knickers are slimming enough.

For the sake of my own battered self-esteem I need to be that kitten who looks in the mirror and sees a lion. Except in my case I need to see the sexiest pre-break up version of me possible. Liam and all our friends and family need to see that girl too. I need to be me , not the girl Liam dumped.