The Bride's Baby by Liz Fielding Read Free Book Online Page A

doubt, a world class fantasy wedding planner.’
    ‘ Event planner,’ Sylvie said, pulling a face. She was so off weddings. ‘We are SDS Events, Jo. Fantasy or otherwise, weddings are no different from any other job.’ Cue, hollow laughter… ‘I take it from your reaction that everything went according to plan yesterday?’
    In other words, please tell me that the bride didn’t have second thoughts…
    ‘Pleease!’ Josie, in full drama queen mode—despite her eighteen-hole Doc Martens and punk hair-do, both of them purple—clutched both hands to her heart. ‘What SDS event would dare to deviate from “the plan”?’
    ‘According to my grandfather,’ she said in an effort not to think about the Harcourt/McFarlane debacle—she’d promised herself she wouldn’t think about that nightmare, or the Tom McFarlane effect, more than three times a day and she was already over budget—‘the first casualty of battle is always “the plan”.’
    She laid her hand over the child growing beneath her heart—living proof of that little homily.
    ‘That would be your Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment grandfather, right?’
    ‘It certainly wasn’t my party-throwing playboy grandfather. His idea of “a plan” was to order enough champagne to float a battleship and leave everything else for someone else to worry about.’ Including the final bill. And the sweetest man on earth. ‘As you’ll learn, when emotions are involved anything can happen,’ she continued as, letter in hand, she carefully placed a tick on one of the plans that decorated every available inch of wall space.
    This one was for a silver wedding celebration. She felt safe with a silver wedding. Then, hand on her back, she straightened carefully.
    ‘Are you okay?’ Josie asked. Then, ‘Sit down, I can do that.’
    ‘It’s done,’ she said, waving away her concern. ‘Don’t fuss.’ Then, ‘Tell me about the wedding.’
    ‘I have told you. It was fabulous.’ Then, ‘You’re not still smarting over the bride who got away, are you?’
    ‘No!’ Her legendary calm slipped a notch and not just because of the wedding that never was. ‘No,’ she repeated, getting a grip. ‘The one thing I can’t be held responsible for is the bride getting cold feet. Even if she chose to warm them on one of my staff.’
    ‘You are not responsible! For heaven’s sake, it was more than six months ago. Even the groom will have got over it by now.’
    ‘I couldn’t say.’ All she knew was that he hadn’t responded to her letter. ‘Can we please just concentrate on yesterday’s wedding?’ she said, jerking her mind away from that long afternoon she’d spent with Tom McFarlane. The solidity of his shoulders beneath her hands. The way his hands had felt against her skin. That raw, overwhelming need as he’d looked down at her, touched her…
    The only thing on his mind had been instant gratification with the first woman to cross his path. It had been nothing more than a reaction to being dumped, she knew. A wholly masculine need to have his ego restored. With maybe a little tit-for-tat payback thrown in for good measure. Just in case she needed to feel any worse about herself.
    ‘Look, if you don’t trust me, Sylvie, maybe you should find someone—’
    Jerked back from the danger of slipping into self-pity, she said, ‘Oh, Josie…Of course I trust you! I wouldn’t leave such a major event to anyone in whom I didn’t have the utmost faith. Besides, I knew you’d rather be coordinating a wedding in the Cotswolds than babysitting a women’s rights conference in London. Sensible woman that you are.’ Then, with determined brightness, ‘So, not a single hiccup, then? There’ll be no comebacks when I send the bride’s papa the final account?’
    ‘Anyone who didn’t know you better, Sylvie, would think you only cared about the money.’
    ‘I promise you, I don’t do this for fun,’ she replied.
    ‘Oh, right. As if you didn’t work yourself to