‘Wipe that smug smile off your face, Emma Woodhouse,’ Gee said, punctuating it with his elbow in Emma’s ribs.
She absently rubbed her side, her eyes not leaving the newly married couple who were posing for photos.
‘They make such a wonderful couple, don’t they,’ she said, as the feeling of a job well done bloomed, making her smile bigger.
‘Yes, they make a lovely couple. And yes, their kids will be genetic masterpieces. Yada yada yada. And they’ll both have to keep working forever to pay for the psychiatric help they’ll need,’ Gee grumbled as he slouched next to her. ‘So, when do we get to the drinks? I need something to numb my pain. You promised me a free bar when you dragged me along to this.’
Emma could feel her smile slip from smug to exasperated. She should’ve known what she was getting into inviting Gee as her plus one to the wedding. Weddings alone were enough to make him snippy and judgemental but when you added in the celebrity factor it made him exponentially worse. Celebrity things always rubbed him up the wrong way and made him cranky.
‘There!’ She tore her gaze away from the picture-perfect scene that she’d helped to create and pointed to the tuxedo-clad waiters who were starting to pour out of the stately home venue carrying silver trays replete with full champagne flutes. They looked like a black and white tsunami, the sun glinting off the crystal as they came down the ‘so-green-it-looked-fake’ lawn.
‘At bloody last,’ Gee stood up straighter, pushed his sunglasses back up his nose and headed to cut off the nearest unsuspecting server.
Emma watched him stride away.
The long lean lines of his back shifting under his tailored suit jacket. His legs eating up the ground easily, the muscles on his thighs bunching and releasing under the material…
No.
She looked away, and held a hand to her cheek.
Damn this weather. She hoped that her make up wouldn’t melt.
She glanced back at Gee – the waiter he grabbed the glasses from was blushing and staring at him as if he were a god. He had that effect on everyone, she needed to give herself a break. She was only human, and although she should be immune to his general hotness after ten years, there was something about him in a suit… It made him look like her perfect man. As if he could be that ideal partner she’d imagined. The one she had subsequently written a full page of bullet points listing his attributes and which she kept in her planning file. But, she thought, looking at him, it was an illusion; he wasn’t that ‘ever after’ man, he was Gee. She wanted calm and ordered, not emotional ups and downs.
Bloody hell, this must be a good wedding if it made her resurrect her Gee crush. The heavy, overwhelming smell of roses causing her brain to short circuit and making her want to believe in the fairy tales she told the general public for her job. No, her Gee crush, which had lasted until midway through their first term at uni, had been dead and gone for almost a decade. Now, he was her best friend and flatmate. Anything else was not part of the plan. She didn’t need the mess of being with someone who believed in living in the moment or someone who had opinions on everything she did. No, everyone had to stay in their assigned roles.
That was the way the world worked.
She took a deep breath to steady herself.
Definitely no mess in her life – she wanted everything tied up in a bow, the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted. A perfectly realised strategy that would roll out with no blips. Just like this wedding.
Emma smiled. She couldn’t help it.
To quote Hannibal Smith, she loved it when a plan came together.
Who would’ve thought that nine months ago, this relationship had been a bullet point on one of her PowerPoint presentations.
Take one semi-famous actor who wanted to raise his profile. Add a singer from a now defunct girl band. Mix together in a PR relationship, a fauxmance. Make sure there are multiple pap walks and public dates. Make sure there is a cute relationship portmanteau name, or a ‘ship’ name, that the media picks up on and that can be hashtagged. Include soppy social media posts written by their PR team, and quite brilliantly if she did say so herself. She’d been especially proud of the little nicknames she’d told them to give each other. And it all added up to both their profiles shooting up exponentially.
The actor had new jobs flooding in and the singer got a solo deal plus some TV presenting.
A-plus, happy clients, happy managers.
But who would’ve thought the fake snuggling would turn to real snuggling? And suddenly there were engagement announcements and weddings to plan.
Damn, she was good at her job.
‘You’re looking smug again. Stop it.’ He said in her ear.
She ignored the slight shiver it always gave her when he did that, and elbowed him in his side.
‘Oi, watch it. You almost made me spill the drinks.’ He stepped back to make sure nothing splashed on either of them.
‘I can’t help it,’ she grabbed the glass from his hand and took a sip. ‘I’m happy.’
‘For a product of divorce, you are remarkably chilled around the smug marrieds,’ he said, using his height to look round them at the wedding guests who were huddling together in pastel coloured groups.
‘My parents had a very happy divorce,’ Emma said, ‘as well you know.’
And it had been happy, she thought. She felt the bubbles tickle her mouth as she sipped the gradually warming champagne. Happy because they had left each other and been able to marry other people.
Her feet twinged from standing too long, so she leant some of her weight on Gee, and he shifted to hold her up without thinking.
Her parents’ divorce and remarriages hadn’t stopped them from still being as flighty as each other. In fact, it had doubled the chaos. She sighed. There had been no one to hold her up then, because she had been the one who had to make sure there were plans and a structure.
She squinted into the distance. Where was the signal to go into dinner? She shifted and felt Gee move with her, a hand hovering just under her elbow.
Why did he have to bring up the ‘Rents. Her whole life had been spent making sure that she greased the wheels of any interactions to ensure no one could argue. Hey presto, you had a happy divorce. It was all in the spin and the story. And underneath she kept it all ticking over with meticulous planning. It was tiring but… she hated mess.
It wasn’t as if they didn’t love her, or weren’t proud of her, because they did and were. And that was what counted, surely? Not whether they’d left her alone in the immigration area at Delhi airport or not.
An hour later, they were crammed into a marquee that was sagging slightly at one side. The late August weather was sultry, no air or breeze moved through the tent, and the light and wispy draperies were limp.
Emma fanned herself with her place card.
‘I’m taking bets on who makes the most inappropriate toast.’ Gee was sprawled back in his chair, sunglasses still firmly on his face, his jacket now hanging off the back of his chair. His legs stretched out into the aisle. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. She refused to look at his tanned arms.
‘Nope,’ she said sitting up straighter as the sound of a fork on a glass rang out, quietening the room. ‘I’m not taking your bets.’
It would’ve been easy money to win though. She had drafted all the speeches and finalised them during the run-through this morning. There were only three speeches; the best man, the father of the bride and then the groom. Not an inappropriate remark in any of them.
As the best man stood up to speak, she leant forward, her lips sounding out the words as he began.
She batted away the linen napkin Gee wadded up and threw at her without taking her eyes off the wedding party.
‘Perfect,’ she said after the father of the bride sat down after his speech and toast. ‘One more to go.’
All but one of the speeches had been beautifully delivered so far, the words full of heartfelt meaning. And the best man kept to the official narrative that the bride and groom had met backstage at a Feckless Rogues gig. Smooth and organic, just like her boss wanted.
She thought back to the couple’s first meeting, where there hadn’t been a Feckless Rogue in sight, unless you counted the cover of NME in reception. And although the conference room at Mega!’s offices was quite comfy, they’d sat at opposite sides of the table and hadn’t looked at each other, he’d been talking to his manager and she’d been checking her phone.
How times change. Emma sighed as she looked at the top table. They were glowing.
Phil, the groom, leaned over and kissed Brooke’s cheek before he stood. ‘Phooke’, was their ship name; she’d tried for ‘Bril’ but for some reason it hadn’t taken. Like Hiddleswift had taken off instead of Taytom or Swiddleston. The public liked what they liked.
But this was the perfectly constructed story, she thought. It ticked all the boxes that any star and their management could want. It was the fantasy wedding and happily ever after that people wanted and it was clickbait for internet sites, the type that generated advertising revenue. The story just needed the photos that Emma would carefully select. The ones that would show the perfect wedding, framing it so no one saw the page boy having a temper tantrum or that the bride’s mother refused to sit with the bride’s father. And with every blemish airbrushed. It would sell all over the world, raising the profile of both Phil and Brooke’s names in the minds of the masses.
And the bonus was that for once it was actually real, with none of the usual subterfuge and spin underneath it all ending in a statement from their teams that they’d split but were still friends. No, this was merely a tweak to make the truth bigger. With this wedding, no one could crack the surface and see something different because this went down deep. They were in love.
‘Thank you all for coming,’ Phil began cutting through the buzz of conversation. ‘Before I move on to thank my beautiful wife, I’d like to thank someone else. She was the reason I was backstage at the Feckless Rogues’ concert in the first place. Emma Woodhouse, my wonderful publicist, if you hadn’t managed to find me those access all areas passes, we wouldn’t be here today. So, thank you, Emma. May you continue to work your magic.’ Phil raised his glass to her and winked.
She laughed and raised her glass back.