There’s a large paved area on the clifftop with a few picnic tables and chairs, and I make my way over to a wooden loveseat-style bench facing the sea. It’s just a little to the right of the steps down to the jetty and the signpost we read yesterday, and it’s a perfect vantage point for the incredible view. The wind has dropped and the sun is shining. It’s a perfect spring day and I sink down onto the bench with a sigh, breathing in the sea air. The only sound is seagulls squawking and the ocean is calm, only a ferry passing in the distance as I look back towards mainland England.
Even though it’s peaceful, my mind is whirring. How soon do I have to give up here? Rohan’s right, I’m sure they suspect we’re reporters and no one is going to tell us anything. How long before I have to phone Oliver and tell him I’m on my way back with nothing? That it’s over – there’s no hope of getting the Edelweiss Island story and we’re going to lose Two Gold Rings and our jobs?
What on earth am I going to write about the island instead? Will Oliver accept a glossed-over description of a church I haven’t seen, shops I haven’t visited, and some pictures of the scenery? That’s no different to what every other journalist has got. How is it going to make hordes of readers flock to our magazine on the shelves? I could still appeal to Clara, but from the way she spoke, I’m sure I won’t be the first and equally sure it will be pointless.
I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose my job. I love Two Gold Rings. I love writing about weddings. It’s a job that was made for me, and I don’t know how to do anything else.
‘Here you go. Coffee and brownie. Peace offering.’
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ I say as he hands me a cardboard coffee cup and a chocolate brownie wrapped in paper.
‘I didn’t want you to run away from me again. I figure cake is a pretty good bribery tactic.’ He takes his own coffee cup and sits beside me, slumping down on the bench until his head rests on the back of it. His arm is near mine, so close that the sleeve of my jacket brushes against the arm of his long navy coat and I remember snuggling up inside it yesterday. Was it really only yesterday? It feels like at least a week since gorgeous, funny, and kind Seasick Man became, well, R.C. Art.
Without looking, he reaches up and breaks the corner off my brownie and pops it into his mouth.
‘Oi!’
‘Thanks,’ he mumbles with his mouth full, completely ignoring my protest. ‘Almost as good as Clara’s chocolate cake, but not quite.’
It feels like I’ve known him for ages, not hours, as we sit there in silence, comfortable but not awkward, punctuated only by the sip of coffee and the rustle of the brownie paper as I break pieces off.
When there’s only one piece left, I push the paper into his hand.
He makes a noise of surprise. ‘Now I know you must’ve forgiven me. You wouldn’t give me your last piece of brownie if you hated me as much as you say you do.’
‘Ah, it’s only a slightly chargrilled corner. I didn’t offer you a piece of the soft gooey centre. Only people who are not R.C. Art get to share the best bit.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that,’ he says, looking into the distance. ‘Please. It’s Rohan here, Ro if you must. R.C. Art is just a name, it’s not… me.’
‘But it is you,’ I say, looking down at his blond hair and the way he keeps staring straight ahead, refusing to look at me. ‘You are R.C. Art. You’re the one who writes horrible things that you think you can get away with by being funny. That’s you, no matter what name you use.’
‘Yeah,’ he says but he doesn’t sound happy about it, and I wish he’d turn around and say, ‘actually, that’s not me, I’m just covering for someone else. Really I’m looking for love and can’t wait to get married one day’. And then he’d go back to being just plain old Seasick Man and nothing else would matter.
He doesn’t say anything.
I sigh and sip my coffee, trying to concentrate on the beautiful view rather than how he’s sitting so close that he’s almost leaning against me and how good his amber-y aftershave smells.
‘So… cult?’
‘Hmm?’
‘What are they hiding here?’ He rolls his head along the back of the bench and looks up at me, and I try not to focus on the Cupid’s bow above the deep curve of his upper lip. ‘Do you think they’re sacrificing virgins to some pagan god, burning effigies, and drinking the blood of bats?’
‘No. But you have a vivid imagination.’
‘Why, thank you,’ he says, faking a posh accent.
It makes me smile as he turns away and takes another sip of coffee.
‘Cult or not, I don’t think we’re going to get very far here. Think you can charm your way into making besotted old ladies spill the beans?’
He laughs. ‘I appreciate your faith in me but their niceness is as fragile as Clara’s. They smile on the surface but if I ask one too many leading questions, I’m going to get such a kick up the backside that I won’t even need a boat to get back to the mainland. And that’s with their arthritic hips.’
I can feel the heat of his body where our arms are touching now he’s slumped further down on the bench, looking as defeated as I feel.
I look out at the sea, Oliver on my mind. ‘I take it this is your one last chance to save The Man Land too?’
‘Yeah.’ He glances up at me. ‘Same, I gather? Angry boss? Convinced the Twitter thing between us will be the end of your magazine too? Basically holding you personally responsible for something that’s just one in a long line of failures when it comes to getting readers to pick up the latest issue?’
I nod. ‘And you’re not exactly the person to be talking to about it, are you?’
‘We’re in the same boat,’ he says with a shrug. ‘And that’s not as funny now we’re not actually in a boat.’
I smile as I think back to yesterday. The easy conversation, the laughter, whatever it was I thought I felt… I shake my head to clear it. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do if Two Gold Rings goes under. My boss hasn’t got anything beyond the Edelweiss Island story lined up. If I don’t get to the bottom of this church, it’s over. The Man Land are clearly going to win, and I really couldn’t have chosen a better person to admit that to, huh?’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ he says. ‘The Man Land have a big following online, we have great interactions on social media and get good discussions going, but that doesn’t translate into guys going into shops and picking up the magazine. On a scale of one to abysmal, our sales make the abysmal end look good. And I’ve also chosen the right person to admit that to, haven’t I? What I meant to say was our sales are off the charts and you guys don’t stand a chance.’ He clears his throat and gives me a serious nod, and I have to press my lips together to stop myself smiling.
‘Yeah. That’s what I meant to say too. Bye-bye, The Man Land.’
His face breaks into a grin but he covers it quickly and looks away. ‘I was thinking about just making something up. The islanders are so secretive with us, they’re bound to be the same with anyone, so who’s ever going to know if it’s true or not?’
‘Because it would come out sooner or later. And then I won’t just be in trouble for the negative press about arguing with you, I’ll be in trouble for faking articles too.’
‘I don’t know what to suggest then.’ His arm moves against mine as he shrugs, and we go back to looking at the ocean with silence stretching between us.
‘Marry me.’
‘What?’ My head snaps up in surprise. Maybe I nodded off there for a second.
‘Marry me,’ he says again.
I snort. ‘Well, if that isn’t the most romantic proposal I’ve ever had in my life. You’re hilarious.’
‘I’m serious.’ He rolls his head along the back of the bench until he’s looking up at me again. ‘I don’t mean actually marry me, I mean let’s just pretend to be getting married. All we’d have to do is say we’re engaged and we’re looking at the island as a potential wedding venue. They’d be all too keen to show us around then. The vicar would probably be falling over himself to let us see the church if we were planning to get married in it.’
I’m not sure if the bubbling in my stomach is horror or just the tiniest bit of excitement. ‘That’s terrible. That’s lying to everyone.’
‘You’re a reporter. Don’t tell me you’ve never told a lie to get a story before.’
‘I write about weddings for a bridal mag. I don’t need to tell lies to get my stories but I’m not surprised you do, R.C. Art.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘They’d never have to know. We say we’re engaged and looking at wedding venues. We go home to “think about it” and they never hear from us again. They assume we went with another venue.’
‘Which no one ever would. This island is so beautiful. No one would choose somewhere else after they’d seen this place.’
‘All right, so we fake a big argument and split up before we leave.’
‘And then our magazines come out and they’d know we’ve betrayed them.’
‘Well, maybe if they were more hospitable in the first place…’
‘This is a terrible plan,’ I say, well aware that I haven’t said no yet. It is a terrible plan, I know that, but the image of Oliver’s angry face is still in my mind, and the threat of losing Two Gold Rings is dangling above my head like a mouldy carrot.
‘It’s not.’ He scrambles up and folds one leg under himself as he sits properly on the bench and faces me. ‘I’m serious. They know we’re not tourists and they aren’t gonna let us in. We have a choice now. We may as well leave today, empty-handed like every other reporter who’s tried to uncover this no-divorce church thing, or we tell one little white lie and save both our jobs.’
‘We couldn’t save them both. It’s The Man Land versus Two Gold Rings. Only one can survive, as Hambridge say in their marketing campaign. Both our bosses think this story is our only chance. We can’t both have it.’
‘It’s not about what you write, it’s about how you write it. You can give two authors the same prompt and they’ll both write completely different books. People interpret things differently. You write for a different audience than me. Just because we get the same story doesn’t mean we’ll write it the same way.’ His face is lit up and he looks like he’s just found the answer to world peace.
Pretending to be engaged to him wouldn’t really be so bad, would it? It could be… I shake myself and narrow my eyes at him. ‘This is a terrible, underhanded, deceitful way of getting information.’
‘They’ve forced our hand. If they could just be a little bit open and welcoming, we wouldn’t have to.’
He’s kind of got a point there.
‘They shut shop doors in our faces. Violently, I might add.’
‘You’re R.C. Art,’ I snap. ‘Anyone who believed in love would shut their shop door in your face. If I had a shop, I’d bar you from it too. What are you going to write about this church? Because as far as I know, marriages that don’t end in divorce and people living happily ever after are not your field of expertise. If you’re going to write something horrible, I’m not going to lie to help you.’
‘I’m not. I told you, this is my penance for screwing up. My boss wants proof of whether the no-divorce thing is true or not, some records, some pictures, maybe an interview or two with the people who live here, especially that vicar. That’s it.’
‘That’s pretty much exactly what my boss asked me for,’ I admit.
‘But you put your spin on it and I use mine. We get two totally different stories with the same truth at the heart of them – proof that the no-divorce church thing is fake.’
‘It’s not going to be fake,’ I say. ‘They have no reason to lie about something like that.’
‘Well, we’re not going to be able to prove it either way unless we help each other.’
‘We’re complete opposites. What has the world come to if we can help each other?’
‘Well, you know what they say about opposites attracting.’ He waggles his eyebrows and sighs when I frown at him. ‘Come on, Bon, pretending to be engaged is the only chance we’ve got of finding out anything about this island. I know you love your job, and no one wants to see The Man Land OR Two Gold Rings disappear for ever. This is the best chance we’ve got of keeping either of them.’
I raise an eyebrow at him shortening my name but his face is serious as he continues. ‘And don’t fool yourself into thinking this is the end of the battle. We’re both the worst-selling magazines that Hambridge publishes. Whoever wins will still be the worst-selling magazine. Next quarter, it’ll be curtains anyway. Winning this would be nothing more than a stay of execution. Writing a cracking article that gets to the bottom of something that no one else has got to the bottom of… that’s how to win. It’s about more than us against you. It’s about making both our magazines good enough to keep.’
I look out at the sea again, quite annoyed at how much sense he’s making. R.C. Art wasn’t meant to speak this much sense.
‘You want me to beg? You want the truth about how much trouble I’m in?’
When I turn back to him, he looks small and vulnerable, which I was unprepared for. I swallow and nod, unable to find any words.
‘Okay, let me put it this way, you could say my boss is on the warpath, but it’s more like the war dual carriageway, going a hundred miles an hour, and I’m standing in the middle of the road waiting to be mowed down. That column you didn’t like? Well, you’re not the only one. There have been complaints. And not just my regular amount of “he’s a bit too controversial” complaints. I crossed a line in that column. I went from insulting but funny to insulting and cruel, and now there’s a petition online to get me fired, and according to the very angry voicemail my boss left this morning, it’s gaining a lot of traction. This island is my final chance. If I don’t go back from here with something new, something that no other journalist has been able to uncover, I’ll lose my job even if The Man Land survives. And the couple I wrote about have started legal proceedings against me, and I have no idea how I’m going to pay the damages they’re obviously going to get if I don’t have a job, because it’s sure to be a hefty payout.’
‘Whose fault is—’
‘I know it’s my own fault. I know I brought it on myself.’ He fiddles with the zip of his coat and my eyes are drawn to the dark blue metal being dragged between his long elegant fingers. I’m intrigued by someone so confident and abrasive suddenly seeming so nervous.
‘And hey, if you think all that’s bad, consider this – people are comparing me to Katie Hopkins. I know you think I’m cold and heartless but I’d have to have skin thicker than an Oxford English dictionary not to be hurt by that.’
I don’t tell him that Oliver made that comparison ages ago. He gives me a soft smile and I think about what Clara said this morning, that he’s been hurt and now he protects himself, about what Oliver said in his office, that R.C. Art was just a guy who’d been burnt by love and now tried to stop other people suffering like he did. For the first time, Rohan seems vulnerable and open, like someone who hides behind humour and maybe doesn’t quite believe everything he writes.
What he’s saying could be bollocks. He’s R.C. Art, he’ll tread on anyone to get to the top. But he’s got a point too. It’s what has remained unsaid in the meetings Oliver has held since Hambridge announced this thing. Beating The Man Land won’t make us winners, it’ll just make us slightly better losers than them. If our sales don’t pick up, next time there won’t be a battle, there’ll just be a chop.
His light blue eyes twinkle as his smile spreads, like he knows exactly what’s going through my mind, and I’ve got to admit, if you’re going to pretend to be engaged to someone, there are probably worse people to choose. And I appreciate his straightforwardness. Oliver has skirted around it, but Rohan is right – whichever one of us wins this battle will still be Hambridge’s worst-selling publication. Joining forces here will give us both a chance. I can’t leave knowing I haven’t given it my best shot.
I know it’s immoral, but I kind of agree that if shopkeepers didn’t shut us out and the vicar was a bit more welcoming, it wouldn’t have come to this. And maybe Rohan’s learnt his lesson. If he’s got to write something nice as a punishment, maybe I shouldn’t stand in the way of that.
‘As plans go, it’s not the worst I’ve ever heard,’ I say reluctantly.
The size of his smile makes the doubts slip away like the tide going out on the beach below.
‘My next plan was breaking into the church in the dead of night, and I’m fairly sure this is less illegal, and if we did that, I’d kidnap the adorable dog, which would definitely get me arrested.’
‘You really liked that dog, huh? You don’t strike me as a dog person.’
‘Aw, that was the cutest dog I’ve ever met. And you literally met me yesterday, and I strike you as what, a non-dog person, in that time?’
‘Well, no, but… I mean, what I know of R.C. Art… He… You… don’t seem like a person who likes dogs. He doesn’t seem like a person who likes anything.’
He sighs and nods slowly, a nod of acceptance, not agreement, and turns away to look out at the sea again.
‘I didn’t mean that as an insult,’ I say, getting the feeling he’s more upset than he’s letting on. ‘It’s just… You can’t be surprised that people read your columns and don’t exactly form the best impression of you.’
He turns back with a smile that looks pasted on. ‘No, you’re absolutely right.’
His voice is too jovial and he’s clearly trying to make it sound that way. On Twitter, he seemed proud of his horrible columns, but in person, he seems almost embarrassed about being R.C. Art.
‘But you’re wrong on the dog front,’ he says. ‘If we ever get into the church, that vicar had better not turn his back on me for a second or I’ll smuggle his dog out under my coat.’
I laugh. ‘I’m sure that will really endear us to the locals.’
‘Well, between seasickness and dognapping, you can’t say I don’t know how to make an impression. People on this island won’t forget me in a hurry.’
‘And when our articles come out and they realise what we’ve done, I don’t think they’re going to forget either of us. Ever.’
‘You gotta do what you gotta do.’ He slouches on the bench again, but his words are harsh and they make me remember who he is. Lazily sitting here, the easy conversation, the laughter, whatever it was I thought I felt for Seasick Man yesterday… None of it changes the fact he’s R.C. Art. He’s out for himself and no one else. If I walk away now, he’ll make up a story that says Edelweiss Island is just a clever marketing ploy. Copies of The Man Land will fly off the shelves and people will fall for his completely fictionalised article. At least this way, I’ve got a chance of telling the real story.
‘So, are we really going to do this?’ he asks. ‘Will you, er, marry me?’
It’s the closest I’ve ever come to a marriage proposal, and judging by the lack of relationships in my life, it’s probably the closest I ever will come to one, and even though this is only a joke, it still makes my breath catch in my throat for a moment.
I know it’s wrong to tell a lie like this to people on the island. But I can’t face the thought of going back to the office with nothing. What if more advertisers have pulled their adverts? What if sales are down next month because of me? That’ll be it. And then what? Hunt for another job at another bridal magazine with the collapse of Two Gold Rings on my record and Angry Oliver as my reference? Not going to happen, is it?
‘I do,’ I stutter. Words I’ve imagined saying since I was eleven years old and my mum showed me her wedding dress, hanging in her wardrobe, still as immaculate as the day it was worn twenty years before. Words I never imagined saying with no meaning behind them. Words I never thought I’d joke about.
He smiles so wide that I’m sure his face is going to split and for just one moment, it feels real. He looks as happy as he might if a real girlfriend had just accepted his proposal.
‘Yes!’ He punches the air in a victory gesture.
He must love his job more than he lets on to be so pleased about getting a chance to save it. He looks so happy that it can’t fail to rub off on me too. Doing this is a good thing. Just one little white lie that won’t hurt anyone and will give us both a fair shot at saving our magazines.
‘Come on, we should go back to the B&B and let Clara in on our secret relationship and start the ball rolling. I’m taking bets on how long it’ll be before the whole island knows. My money’s on three and a half minutes or however long it takes her to find the megaphone and announce it from the skylight.’
He stands up and holds his hand out to help me up, but I ignore it. He doesn’t need to do the whole chivalry thing now his real identity is out in the open. He waits as I get to my feet and we start walking out of the picnic area, but after a couple of steps, he stumbles and makes an ‘oof’ noise. ‘Sorry, my shoelace is undone.’
We’re still in the clearing of the picnic area, and he kneels down to tie the laces of his red Converse. I stop and wait, watching him, entranced by the length of his dark eyelashes as he looks down. He’s so unlike he seemed in his column. He’s easy to talk to and fun to be around, and I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t gorgeous. His thick hair has flopped forward and his brow furrows in concentration as he lets out a puff of breath to blow it out of his eyes.
He looks up at me and smiles. ‘What are you smiling at?’
‘Nothi—’
I’m cut off by a squeal at a pitch that could open garage doors. At first I think someone’s fallen off a cliff or there’s been some kind of terrible accident, but the squeal doesn’t sound like a scream of fear. It sounds like a squeal of delight. The clatter of a garden gate makes me turn to see Amabel, the lady who greeted us yesterday and gave Rohan the flower this morning, jumping up and down for joy on the path, and pointing. At us.
Her squeal is quickly echoed by someone else on the other side of the island, and the couple who waved to us earlier are hurrying down their garden path too.
‘What the…’ Rohan says, looking utterly confused.
People are tottering down the paths towards us and they’re all looking very happy.
‘All right, I’m going with sacrificial cult,’ Rohan says. ‘We’ve just stepped into a pentacle drawn in a salt circle or something, haven’t we?’
I look between him and them. ‘You’re down on one knee, you idiot!’
‘I’m tying my shoelace!’
‘This is The Little Wedding Island – that’s not what they think!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘It’s a good thing you said yes then. Let’s run with it.’ Without hesitating, he stands up and wraps his arms around me, lifting me off the ground and spinning us around.
‘And you thought they wouldn’t believe us,’ he whispers in my ear before setting me back on my feet.
‘Congratulations!’ Amabel shrieks, so loud that I’m unsure if my legs feel so unsteady from the sudden noise or from the unexpected hug. ‘I knew you were a couple! He tried to deny it this morning, but you can see these things in a man’s eyes.’
She engulfs me in a hug so tight that I’m sure she’s got boa constrictor in her DNA. She’s quickly pushed aside by the woman who said good morning earlier, who hugs me as her husband shakes my hand at the same time, pumping it with such vigour that I’m not sure if he’s congratulating me or if he wants to take my arm home as a trophy. Amabel moves on to squeezing the breath out of Rohan, and another middle-aged couple are rushing across the island towards us, and three people are on their way down from the shops.
This is ridiculous. All this because they think Rohan proposed?
I meet his eyes over the sea of people, before a bloke drags him down and claps him on the shoulder in congratulations.
‘What a catch!’ someone says to me.
‘Yes, such a handsome one you’ve caught there, love!’ someone else adds.
‘Oh, we’re so pleased for you, dear,’ says the woman I recognise from the cake shop this morning, the one who slammed the door in my face and wagged her finger at me. ‘You come by any time you want to discuss your cake options for the big day!’
‘And a dress too,’ another woman chimes in. ‘You don’t have a dress yet, do you?’
‘I… er…’ The hopeful look on her face is too much. ‘No, I don’t.’
This is all pretend. I shouldn’t need to remind myself of that, but with the crowd of people congratulating me, I find that I do. The dress waiting for me in London is for my real wedding, which this is not. I don’t have a dress for this wedding because I need to get into those shops because Oliver needs to know what they sell.
‘Let’s see the ring!’ someone cries.
I gulp. ‘We don’t… er… it was a bit spur of the moment.’
I glad Rohan’s tall because I can see him over the people between us. ‘We don’t have one yet,’ he says, sounding calmer than he looks. He gives me a smile as a woman with a tape measure around her neck asks him if he knows his inside leg measurement or if he’d like her to take it for him. I wonder if she even works in a clothing shop or if she just fancies him. He is quite fanciable. To someone who doesn’t know who he really is, of course.
‘You come and see me in the jeweller’s whenever you’re ready,’ a man says to him. ‘Bring your lovely fiancée along to pick out a ring, unless she trusts your taste.’
‘Oh, it’s so romantic when a man can be trusted to pick out the perfect engagement ring by himself. My husband got it spot on. Not a day goes by when I don’t look down at my hand and remember how lucky I am!’ A woman wearing a paw print apron and a cat ears headband with her grey hair in a short elfish cut waggles her ring finger towards me. She must be Kittie from the café that Rohan was just talking about.
‘Wait, you have a jewellers here?’ I ask, hoping the man who talked to Rohan can hear me.
‘We have everything here, love,’ he says. ‘Everything you could ever dream of for your special day.’
‘We don’t call The Little Wedding Street a one-stop shop for nothing!’ Kittie says.
‘And only the absolute best of everything, pet!’ another person says. ‘We pride ourselves on being the best in the UK. We think happy couples deserve special things, and if you’re getting married in our church, we know your relationship is special!’
Rohan meets my eyes and mimes throwing up. It makes me laugh. I love weddings but this is a bit too mushy even for me.
By the time people have finished congratulating us, it’s surprisingly late. Amabel walks back towards the B&B with us because her cottage is on the same route. ‘You two do make such a lovely couple,’ she says. ‘I could see you were perfect for each other from the moment I saw you arrive at the top of those steps. I knew Clara had got it wrong when she said you weren’t together.’
Rohan elbows my arm and I know what he’s trying to say – see, they are all gossiping about us.
‘Now, I do have one question, you’ve just got engaged but why on earth aren’t you holding hands?’
‘It’s too hot today,’ Rohan says, despite the fact it’s only April and actually quite chilly.
‘He’s got a fungal skin infection.’
Rohan lets out an indignant snort. ‘She gets sweaty palms.’
‘We thought it might make people uncomfortable,’ I say.
‘Nonsense, dearie. People on this island thrive on seeing happy couples. Most of us are a bit old and past it now so we live vicariously through you young ’uns.’ She nods pointedly towards our hands, which are hanging limp at our sides, bumping occasionally.
‘Well, if it makes you happy.’ Rohan gives her a tight smile and lifts my hand, entwining his fingers with mine.
My heart thuds a bit harder. She’s going to realise this is fake. I’m sure she is.
As we reach the gate of Amabel’s garden, Rohan leans over and opens it for her and she pats his hand. ‘What a nice young man.’
‘I’ve been called many things in my time, Amabel, but a nice young man is not one of them,’ he says, flashing his most charming smile.
‘Then might I suggest, Mr Carter, that you’ve been keeping the wrong company.’
Rohan looks surprised as Amabel turns to me. ‘And don’t you let him play the big macho man and not hold your hand. We’re very big on public displays of affection here on Edelweiss Island. You’re young and in love. Don’t let a minute of that pass without showing how much you love each other. You never know when it’ll be too late.’
She looks sad for one flash of a moment before pasting a smile back on. ‘Now, I’ll see you tomorrow, we have a lot of planning to do.’ She waves as she retreats up her garden path, paving stones winding through colourful flower beds and past a large greenhouse heaving with greenery.
‘And on that surprisingly maudlin note…’ Rohan says when she’s out of earshot, and I wonder if he means the stuff about it being too late or the idea having to plan a fake wedding.
‘Sorry, couldn’t get out of that without stirring suspicion.’ He checks behind us to make sure she’s gone and drops my hand abruptly. ‘And I never told her my surname. They’re all watching us, you know. They’re all in it together.’
‘Could you be any more paranoid?’
‘Paranoid? That must’ve been every single person on this island come out to congratulate us on me tying my shoelace. I don’t think I was far wrong about the cult thing. It’s some kind of wedding cult. It’s got to be. They’re probably all a hundred and fifty years old and their pagan god grants them an extra year of life for every couple they sacrifice in the church. That’s probably why no one’s ever got a divorce – they just leave out the part where no one’s ever made it out of the church alive.’
I look up at him, unsure of whether he’s being serious or just his usual sarcastic self. ‘They’re nice people who like weddings. Their home has become known as The Little Wedding Island, they’ve got to get into the spirit of things.’
‘They were like seagulls on a chip!’
‘Admittedly I didn’t even realise there were that many people living here.’
‘They were like moles suddenly rising from the earth. They probably all live underground and they’ve got supersonic sound wave detectors that start beeping at the merest hint of someone kneeling down.’
‘Would it kill you to say something nice?’
‘Probably.’
‘Could you try it more often then?’
He flashes me a false smile. ‘Ha ha.’
I give him a false smile right back. ‘So you didn’t do that on purpose then?’
‘What, trip over my undone shoelace?’
‘Stage a proposal.’
‘No.’ He laughs. ‘I wish I’d been clever enough to think of that.’
I narrow my eyes at him. ‘Not a plan B in case I’d said no to your little proposition?’
‘No. And whether you believe me or not, I’m not the kind of man who’d try to trap you into faking an engagement. If you’d said no, it would’ve been no, and I would’ve set them straight. I didn’t because an accidental public proposal doesn’t exactly hurt our chances of people believing we’re a real couple.’
I glance up at him and he seems serious instead of sarcastic, and a look of hurt flashes across his face again. That’s twice today I’ve seen that look and twice I’ve been the one who put it there.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble. ‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I just meant it was very convenient.’
‘I think that was something you believers would call fate.’
Maybe. I’ve been thinking about fate a lot since I got here. What are the chances of meeting someone and feeling a little spark of something, and him turning out to be the very reason I’ve been exiled here in the first place? That doesn’t just happen, does it? And despite my initial impression of him online, and his obvious anti-love flaws, he’s the only man I’ve met in years who I’d want to go on a second date with.
And now we’re faking an engagement together after the unintentional proposal, and it’s got me wondering if there’s more to this island than just a church of no-divorces. What if they send so much love out into the universe that the universe sort of favours this island a bit when it comes to matters of the heart?