Page 90 of Under Your Spell

‘Lisa!’ Alice chides. ‘I didn’t know about this.’

‘She told me it was because Colin had a thwarted football career – that he died before he could play his first match for Manchester United,’ Theo says.

Rob chokes in his glass of wine. ‘Devious,’ he grins appreciatively, draping an arm around the back of his soon-to-be wife’s chair.

‘Then, she started leaving footballs everywhere.’ Theo pouts. ‘Like, hundreds of them kept turning up.’

‘Is that what that was about?’ Hugh looks outraged. ‘We thought the neighbour’s kids kept kicking them over the fence. I had to have a word with Dominic about it. He must have thought I was going mad.’

Lisa is laughing so hard there are tears streaming down her face. ‘That was Cara.’

Cara smirks. ‘I borrowed them from the school’s PE cupboard.’

‘I started thinking that I was going to be smothered to death by the things in my sleep.’ Theo sighs dramatically. ‘I still can’t watch Man U play without experiencing traumatic flashbacks. I was being gaslit by my own sister, living in an Alfred Hitchcock film.’ He shudders.

Everyone is laughing now, and I nudge his foot under the table with mine. He grins at me, winks, and for a second I feel like we haven’t left the bubble at all. Maybe the bubble is just us.

The next day I spend the morning exploring the grounds of the hotel while Theo hangs out with his family. They invited me to join them, but I made an excuse about having to do some work so that they got a couple of hours alone. As nice as they’ve been to me, I know how precious this time with Theo is to them.

He comes to find me when his parents and Lisa head off for the ceremony rehearsal at the church, and we walk around the gardens hand in hand. It’s a bit cooler today, and I’m happy to lean into Theo’s side.

‘Ooh, there’s a croquet set,’ I say as we make our way across the lawn.

‘Don’t you think you’re taking this whole regency romance thing too far?’

‘Those sound like the words of a man who is afraid he’s going to be destroyed.’

‘Er, I think you’ll find I’m amazing at croquet,’ Theo huffs. ‘Bring it on.’

It then transpires that despite our confidence, neither of us actually knows how to play croquet. Theo invents his own rules, which he keeps accusing me of breaking, as well as an elaborate forfeit system that turns the game into an increasingly dirty makeout session. I can’t even pretend to be annoyed.

‘I’m just saying,’ Theo opines as we make our way back towards the hotel where some of the guests are already arriving, ‘next time, strip croquet. Think about it.’

I get ready for dinner while Theo showers. I’m even more grateful for David’s intervention, because Cara told me that the dress code for tonight and tomorrow is ‘red carpet glamour’ and that the floral tea dress I’d been planning on wearing to the rehearsal dinner wasn’t going to cut it.

‘I mean, look at this place!’ She had gestured around us in clear disbelief. ‘It’s where film stars get married. None of us will ever be anywhere so fancy again so all the guests are going right out. I’ve got a designer bodycon dress that I found on eBay for tonight, and Lisa let me choose my bridesmaid’s dress, thank God. It’s classy as fuck.’

The clothes David arranged certainly fit the brief. As I unzip the garment bags I am confronted by half a dozen of the most beautiful, eye-wateringly expensive designer dresses you could imagine, and each one is in my size (something that I had been dubious about when I saw the labels). I run my fingers over the beads, the tulle, the sequins, before settling with a happy sigh on a dark, emerald green silk gown.

At first glance it’s deceptively modest, high at the neck, long sleeves, cinched in at the waist with a softly draped skirt spilling down like ink to the floor, but the skirt has a split that bares my right leg up to the thigh when I move. It’s like a sexy sneak-attack and, I swear, it makes me feel like Angelina Jolie.

My hair falls down my back in mermaid waves, courtesy of the YouTube tutorial Lil sent me and then spent forty minutes talking me through on FaceTime. My lipstick is the exact juicy red of the apple that took out Snow White.

As I stand in front of the mirror, I know I have never looked better. It’s not just the dress that probably cost as much as a deposit on a small flat (though I’m 100% sure that’s not hurting), but my skin is glowing (thanks, Acorn), my eyes are bright, I can’t stop smiling, my posture is loose. Maybe it’s the sex mist as Lil called it, but I think it might just be that I’m happy. Down-to-my-bones happy.

When I’m ready, I walk back through to the bedroom and come to the sort of grinding halt that should be accompanied by a record scratch.

Theo is wearing a tuxedo.

All the air has vacated my body.

And I’m not the only one staring. He has frozen in the middle of fussing with his silver cufflinks. His lips are parted, eyes wide.

My gaze slides over him: his dark hair brushed back, his clean-shaven face, the immaculately tailored black jacket over the fine white shirt stretching across broad shoulders. His perfectly tied bow tie is like the ribbon on a present, and I itch to go and undo it, to tug that strip of black silk until it comes apart in my hands. I can almost hear the rasp it would make as I eased it away from his throat, how those shirt buttons would fly open under my fingers. Any immunity that I thought I had built up to his good looks has been officially obliterated. He’s so gorgeous it gives me a toothache.

I’m breathing hard, and I can feel my cheeks flush.

Theo takes a step towards me. Stops.