“I should go,” Arthur says as he scrambles to get the rest of his clothes on.

Disappointment fills my entire body. “I don’t want you to.”

“And yet, I must. You and your mum clearly need to have a big talk,” he says, giving me a quick peck on the forehead, “And after what your parents just walked in on, I don’t think I’ll be able to face them for another few years.”

“That couldn’t have gone worse, could it have?”

Arthur sighs. “Not really. At least if we’d finished, we’d have that to feel good about.”

I swat Arthur on the abdomen. “You’re such a…man.”

“Thanks. Now, go sort everything out with your mum. Maybe you can sneak over to my place later to finish what we started.”

I nod and give him a light kiss on the lips, knowing that he’s right, even though I wish he wasn’t. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ll wait up for you.”

We linger in the tiny foyer for a bit, missing each other already. When he opens the door, a blast of cold air rushes in. Reality.

I watch as his limo pulls away, then sigh and go find my mum. She’s not in the TV room with my dad, so I know she’s gone up to bed already. Dad looks up from the sports highlights when I walk into the room; his expression says everything he’s thinking.

“I know. I’m going to go look for her to apologize.”

“It better be a good one, mind you. You’ve gone and hurt her more than I’ve ever seen.”

“I know.”

When I knock on the door to their bedroom, I get no answer. I try again, then open it, quietly calling, “Mum, I came to apologize.”

I see the shape of her lying in her bed, facing the other wall, but she doesn’t move.

“Mum,” I whisper. “Are you asleep?”

I wait for a long time before I give up. “I’m really sorry I treated you so badly today. I had no right to talk to you that way.”

When she doesn’t respond, I go back to my room and shut the door, crawling under the covers. I text Arthur and tell him not to wait up, then fall into a deep pasta coma.

* * *

“Is she still not talking to you?” Nikki asks as we examine some scarf and hat sets in Borgman’s. She’s agreed to a shopping date as phase two of the ‘making it up to Nikki’ plan.

I shake my head, running my fingertips along the soft wool. “Not a word. No texts. She hasn’t even left one of those awful little notes on the kitchen counter.”

“Wow. She must be really hurt.” Nikki tries on a purple hat that clashes horrifyingly with her turquoise hair, then looks in the mirror and takes it off.

“Pretty sure that when she came and found Arthur and me…you know…it just made her think that the whole thing meant nothing to me.”

“I can see why she’d come to that conclusion.”

“Me, too, even though it wasn’t that way at all.” I turn the price tag over on a pair of leather gloves, then flip it back quickly, my cheeks warming at the fact that I can’t afford to buy Christmas gifts for everyone on my list.

Xavier, who’s standing a couple of feet behind me, tapping his foot to “Santa Baby,” says, “Did you see the sales table over there? Forty percent off.”

He points across the store and nods.

“Thanks, love.” Nikki grins at him, then tugs me by the arm to take me over to check it out.

“Sometimes, I think he can read my mind,” I whisper. “It’s a little creepy.”

“I hope to God he can read mine.” She glances back at him, then makes an ‘mm-hmm’ sound.

“Your mum would love this!” Nikki holds up a robin’s-egg-blue cardigan.

I check the price, then shake my head. “She would, but my wallet won’t. Too bad I couldn’t have rented that Chanel dress for the shower.” I sigh, suddenly feeling exhausted even though we’ve only been at the mall for twenty minutes. “Or I should have just wore one of my old dresses. The damn thing ended up covered in arse-wipe anyway.”

She fixes me with a steely stare. “Try not to complain too loudly. You’re going to be rich as sin in, like, five months.”

“Sorry, I know I shouldn’t be whining. It’s just hard for me to wrap my head around that little possibility.” We stroll in the direction of the store’s exit, and as soon as we step out of the shop and into the crowded mall, “Santa Baby” gives way to canned Christmas Muzak.

“Possibility? What? Are you going to run out on him before the wedding?”

“No, but it’s just hard for me to actually believe that we’re going to end up married, you know? I haven’t exactly had the best luck with men up to now.”

“Well, you hit the lotto this time.” She points to The Gap, but I shake my head.

“Maybe I can postpone Christmas until June.”

Nikki stops and looks at me for a moment, tilting her head like a curious kitten. “What’s really wrong?”

“What do you mean? I’ve just been whining for the past half hour.”

“No, there’s something else bugging you.”

I raise one eyebrow. “You mean besides being broke, being stuck on the announcements desk, having my own personal hate club, having a mother who can barely look at me, and future in-laws who would love to see my head on a spike?”

“Yes, other than all of those things. There’s something else on your mind. Don’t think I can’t tell, bitch. Now, out with it.”

I glance behind me to see if Xavier is within hearing distance, then decide to go ahead and spill it. “I know I shouldn’t let this get to me, I mean I really do know it. I know Arthur is absolutely in love with me, and this is totally crazy for me to worry about…”

“But…” Nikki says.

“But I have a really bad feeling about his friendship with Brooke Beddingfield.”

We both stop in front of the Cinnabon without discussing it and get in line.

“Hmm. What has he told you about their relationship?”

“That they really are just old friends, and any speculation on their relationship turning into more is just that. Speculation. Oh, and he said he’s never been attracted to gingers anyway.”

“But that particular ginger is most certainly very much attracted to him,” Nikki says.

“Right? It’s totally obvious. And did you notice at the shower how everybody seemed to be giving her their condolences. It’s like she was favoured to win the big beauty contest and then some horrible hag with warts all over her nose won it instead.”

“Who cares what those nasty witches think? As long as Arthur loves you, that’s what counts.”

A man breezes past and calls back, “Brooke’s better!”

I freeze on the spot and Nikki turns to go after him, but I grab her arm and hold her in place. “Not worth it.”

“We can’t just let him get away with that!”

“Sure, we can,” I say. “The very worst thing we can do is acknowledge it in any way.”

“People suck.”

We get to the front of the line and order our cinnamon buns. Nikki turns to Xavier to see if he wants anything, and he quickly shakes his head no and then says, “That stuff’ll kill you. Never touch it.”

There’s an audible groan amongst the people in line and, after we pay, I give them a sheepish look while Nikki and I walk away with our spoils.

“The thing is,” I say as Nikki manages to snag an empty table for two. “It does matter what they think. If I can’t get those people to approve of me, at least his own sister, eventually their opinions of me will start to erode Arthur’s.”

Nikki shakes her head while licking her fingers, having just swallowed an enormous bite. “You’re not giving him enough credit. I mean, I don’t know your man that well—which you need to fix, by the way—but I would say he seems like someone who isn’t likely to follow the crowd.”

“You’re right. I should stop worrying.”

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean you should stop worrying. When it comes to that Brooke bitch, worry.”

* * *

We drop Nikki off at her flat an hour later, both of us having given up on Christmas shopping as soon as the crowd level hit what we call ‘DEFCON 5’ in which all the toddlers who need naps start to loudly protest the fact that they’re still being dragged around in heavy wool coats and big boots while their mums ‘pop into just one more shop, darling.’ When we park in front of her place, she pats me on the knee. “Well, that was fun.”

“No, it wasn’t. I was a complete bore the entire time.”

“True, but I’d rather be bored with you than having fun with anyone else.”

“Aww, thanks, hon.”

She smiles, and the look on her face says she has something in mind already. “Plus, I figured out phase three.”

Uh-oh. I don’t like the sound of this.

“You’re going to agree to go on a proper hens’ weekend before the wedding. Somewhere really fun, like London or maybe Vegas.” Her eyes light up with excitement.

I open my mouth to turn her down, but she holds up one finger and presses it to my lips to stop me from talking. “Do not say no to this. I know Vegas is a stretch with the flight time and trying to get time off work, but please don’t make me miss out on our last hoorah before you settle into domestic bliss. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and because you’ve been such a shit friend lately you pretty much owe it to me to do this. And I know, I know, you’re broke. But that’s what credit cards are for. You can just pay the minimum balance until after the wedding and then pay the whole thing off.”

She keeps her finger over my mouth, so when I talk my words are muffled. “Nikki, I can’t rack up an enormous credit card bill and expect him to pay it for me.”

“Sure, you can.” She finally drops her hand. “Besides, to him this will be nothing—a few hundred for airfare and your share of the hotel. He probably has that much in loose change under his couch cushions. And don’t think that he’s not gonna go off and have some fabulous stag do with all the other dukes. They’ll probably take a private jet to Vegas and spend the entire time making it rain cash at a strip club.”

She opens the back door of the car and slides out before I can say anything, then leans her head back in and says, “It’s going to be epic. Trust me.”

I find myself smiling at the thought of an epic girls’ weekend. “It might be kind of fun to go somewhere where nobody knows who I am for a couple of days.”

“That’s my girl!” Nikki slams the door before I can say anything else, and hurries up the steps to her building.

I settle myself back into the seat, a sense of excitement coming over me at the thought of escaping my family, my job, and my troubles for an entire weekend. But then my mind wanders to work and the dress fittings and that whole fitting into the dress thing, and I realize that I don’t actually know if I’ll even be able to find more than a few hours for a hens’ night, let alone a whole weekend. Still, it would be nice…

My phone buzzes and I see that Hazel has sent me an email.

Tessa,

You will be pleased to know I’m pulling you off the announcements desk. The paper has been gifted thousands of photos from Paul Downey’s widow. He was the official photographer for The Globe from 1972 through 2000. It’s a rare find, indeed, but they’re horribly disorganized, and I’ll need you to go through them all and organize them by date, event, as well as importance.

I trust that you’ll be able to complete this task before Christmas, as I’d like to use them in a ‘Look Back’ piece for New Years.

Best,

Hazel

I sigh loudly. “Xavier, can you please turn around and take me to the office?”

* * *

“This is Vanessa Platt at the ABNC news desk with another edition of Tessa Watch. The future queen was seen browsing around at the mall today and dining on an enormous treat from Cinnabon. We’ll have exclusive photos and footage, as well as fashion critic, Nigel Wood, who joins us to analyze Ms. Sharpe’s wardrobe choice right after headline news.”

* * *

I walk through the door to my parents’ home, dog-tired after another fourteen-hour day down at the paper. It’s well after ten at night and I’m surprised to see the light is on in the kitchen. I take my heels off, my toes breathing a sigh of relief to finally be able to fully stretch out, then make my way towards the kitchen with Mr. Whiskers wrapping himself around my ankles, begging for me to pick him up.

“Okay, here we go.” I reach down and the cat jumps into my arms and rubs his face against my cheek. When I round the corner I see my mum sitting at the kitchen table, sipping some tea and staring out the window into the darkness.

“You’re up late,” I say, flopping into a chair across from her. I feel a pang in my heart when I look at her, because things have still not got back to normal since the wedding shower.

She gives me a slight nod and says, “Couldn’t sleep.”

We sit for a couple of minutes, listening to the second hand on the wall clock. All I want to do is drop into bed for twelve hours, but having a moment alone with my mum is a rare occurrence so I decide it’s better to make use of it then let the opportunity slip by. “Mum, about the wedding shower…”

She shakes her head. “It’s fine, Tessa. We really don’t need to talk about it.”

“We do need to talk about it. I can’t stand this horrible distance between us any longer.” I reach out and touch her hand. “I’m so sorry for how I treated you that day. I had no right to talk to you like that, no matter how hungry I was.”

“I’m not upset about that anymore, I promise. At first I was hurt, but now I’m just trying to learn to accept that I’m going to lose you.” She blinks back tears.

“You’re not going to lose me. I’ll be living twenty minutes from here.”

“Not true.” She sighs. “When Lars got married, I knew I would lose him. You lose your sons when they get married because, when it comes to family, the woman always leads the way and she’ll tend to lead it towards her own people. And the same thing happened with Noah. But I didn’t mind because I always thought I would have my Tessa. I just assumed that you would meet some nice young man, get married, maybe find a house a few blocks from here, have a couple children of your own, and raise them the way that your father and I have raised you.” She smiles wistfully. “But over the last few weeks, I’ve come to realize that I’m going to lose you like I lost Lars and Noah.”

“Oh, Mum…” A lump forms in my throat, choking out my words.

“No. It’s okay. You can’t help but to be caught up in his family, in his way of doing things. It’s how it has to be if you’re going to survive your new life. And I’m happy for you. I truly am. You’re going to get to live a life so much larger than anything I had imagined for you.” Tears fill her eyes and she reaches across the table and touches my cheek. “It’s a good thing. Arthur is a very good man. But it means I need to let go of the dream I had for you since the first time I held you in my arms. Because you’re going to trade it in for something so much better. I know it sounds silly but, in a strange way, I’m grieving.”

Tears fill my eyes and I nod quickly, holding her hand on my cheek. “It doesn’t sound silly. The truth is, I’m terrified of all of this. There are moments when I wish Arthur was something else—a mechanic like Dad, or a pharmacist, or… anything else than what he is. I’m terrified I won’t be able to become who I need to be. But I’m equally scared of becoming her and forgetting who I once was.”

“Me, too.”

Me, too? Isn’t she supposed to tell me there’s no way that’ll happen and that I’ll never change?

“I’m afraid you’ll be walking a tight rope for your entire life. But, one with great rewards along the way.”

Well, that wasn’t very comforting, now was it?

* * *

It’s almost lunchtime on Thursday and I’m standing in the board room at The Weekly Observer office, staring at the incredible mess I’ve made. Stacks of photographs cover every inch of the table, the chairs, and the floor, allowing me only a very small space in which to make my way around the table.

I’ve been working on this project for the last several days now, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. Trying to organize these first by year then by subject is proving to be a hair- pulling experience. It doesn’t help that my mind keeps wandering to the massive wedding preparation list that I have waiting for me when I get off work every day. Unlike most brides, I need to familiarize myself with twelve different types of forks, spoons, and knives for any dining experience I should find myself in once Arthur and I are married. I also must learn to speak with the eloquence of Grace Kelly, and exactly how one learns to do that, I’m not sure. Then there’s dress-fittings with Olivia Paul, finalizing the guest list for the big event, trying to tone my arms (I know, I know, but I still want toned arms) which requires more exercise than I can fit into my schedule. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget that with Christmas quickly approaching I need to find the perfect gifts for my future in-laws, who truly do have everything, on a budget that pretty much only allows for me to make macaroni jewelry for them.

I mean, honestly, what do you buy a woman like Princess Arabella who can snap her fingers and have any designer in the world appear to make clothing for her? A pair of socks from Old Navy? And it’s not like she can use kitchen gadgets or has any need for gardening tools or fancy loose teas.

I open the last box of photos and freeze, a slow smile spreading across my face. I may have just found a way to strike something off my list.