Chapter Thirty-Three

We manage not to be too late for dinner, and I am glad because Theo's family really are delighted to see him. He sits across from me, between his mum and his sister, and Alice keeps putting her hand on his arm, as if reassuring herself he is really there.

We're eating in the conservatory on the side of the hotel that will host the rehearsal dinner tomorrow and then the reception on Saturday. Right now there are fifteen of us sitting at a long table in the middle of the room: Rob and Lisa, Alice and Hugh, Rob's mum, dad and step-mum, two older brothers and their partners, as well as Cara, Lisa's other bridesmaid Sophie, and Rob's best man and his wife.

Hannah and Oliver, Rob's nieces and Sophie's daughter are all being looked after by the on-site babysitter so that the grown-ups can enjoy the beautiful, tiny plates of food that are served paired with large glasses of wine.

It's dark outside and there are candles all around us. In the flickering glow of their flames we talk and laugh and eat and I get to hear plenty of stories about Theo's childhood. Lisa and Rob have been together since they were at school, so fortunately everyone here has had enough Theo exposure not to be overwhelmed by his presence. I realize that I had been bracing myself for that, but so far – apart from Sophie's slightly frozen expression – things have been relaxed, normal.

‘Oh my God,' Lisa screeches after I bring up the story Theo told me when we first met. ‘Colin the poltergeist! I had totally forgotten about him!'

‘Well, I hadn't,' Theo grumbles. ‘You scared the shit out of me.'

‘I used to re-arrange all his FIFA trading cards when he was asleep, and then tell him Colin had done it.'

‘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.

‘You look…' He trails off, his voice rusty.

‘Yeah. You too,' I manage.

‘I can't touch you,' Theo says carefully. ‘Because if I touch you, I'm not going to be able to stop touching you, and I cannot be late for my sister's rehearsal dinner.' He pauses. ‘Right?'

There's something hopeful in his voice that makes me laugh. ‘That's right. They're doing canapés and cocktails outside and we're already late. They'll be waiting for us and people will definitely notice you are missing. We should go.'

‘Okay,' Theo sighs. ‘But later. Later I'm going to have a lot to say about you in this dress.'

‘I'm not going anywhere.' I smile, feeling suddenly shy.

Theo's throat bobs. He doesn't say anything, just nods, then holds out his hand.

I slip my fingers into his and the two of us head out the door and downstairs in a fraught silence that seems only to lessen its grip slightly as we get further away from a bed and closer to civilization. By the time we hit reception I feel more like a human and less like a walking bag of uncontrolled hormones, but I'm still careful not to look directly at Theo in case I end up accidentally climbing him like a tree in front of his friends and family.

The place is much busier than it has been, with a few guests who have obviously driven up after work to check in to their rooms ahead of the dinner. I catch a glimpse of Cassandra, behind the desk, directing various staff members with an elegant wave of her hand like a virtuoso conductor, completely at her ease.

It's a short walk around the side of the hotel to the patio where pre-dinner drinks are being served. Lisa said around fifty guests were joining us for dinner and to stay over tonight and then about the same again were coming tomorrow for the wedding. We join the crowd, walking across the gravel paths which are proving a challenge for those in spiky high heels. I have never mastered walking in high heels so today for once I actually feel quite smug in the pair of flat, gold sandals I picked up last summer in the supermarket. Sure, they might have cost ￡12 and be made out of plastic, but I'm not the one sinking into the driveway like I'm unsuccessfully traversing the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride.

I start to feel the eyes on us, the people nudging one another, the whispers. Theo is wearing his sunglasses, but they're not really a miraculous Clark Kent/Superman disguise transforming him in the eyes of strangers. Unsurprisingly, I was always way more into Clark than Superman. When I say this to Theo, he smiles.

‘Typical you to fancy the handsome nerd.'

I nod, trying to ignore the interested stares. ‘That is my type.'

‘Well, lucky for you I'm a handsome nerd who looks great in Spandex. So you don't have to choose – the best of both worlds.'

‘You're so full of yourself, Eliott.' I bump him with my hip.

Of course, lots of people actually know him, and we stop often so that he can introduce me to friends or more distant family members. He's polite, engaging, quick to smile, but I know him better now, know that he's not as relaxed as he seems. I see the way his smile shows off his teeth, but not his dimple. I feel his hand tighten in mine, hear the way he talks – his words smooth as a pebble skipped across water, and I realize that for all the charm and warmth he exudes he doesn't give himself to everyone. Not the way he does to the people he really cares about.

‘Excuse me.' One of the guests approaches us nervously; she's probably in her mid-thirties, wearing a spangled purple gown that looks like a grown-up prom dress. Cara was not lying about how dressed up people were getting: it's like the Oscars red carpet out here.

‘I'm really sorry to bother you,' she continues breathlessly. ‘I hope this isn't really rude, but I'm such a big fan, I wondered if you would mind taking a picture with me?'

Theo smiles with his teeth again. ‘Of course,' he says lightly, ‘that's so nice of you to say. Are you a friend of Lisa's?'

‘I actually work with Rob,' the woman says. ‘They're such a lovely couple.'

‘They are,' Theo agrees.

‘I love your dress,' I tell her. ‘Would you like me to take the picture for you?'

‘Oh, yes, thank you.' She hands me her phone and I snap the photo. Theo literally looks like he's stepped out the pages of GQ magazine; the woman's smile is wide and disbelieving as he loops his arm around her shoulder.

When she thanks me again and wanders off with a dazed expression I realize that the floodgates have opened now, and there's a small, awkward crowd surrounding Theo as each person plucks up the courage to approach him next.

Every time, Theo seems surprised, delighted, only too happy to meet them, but I can see the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes slide over to where Lisa and Rob are having their photos taken by the professional photographer, blissfully unaware. The relief he feels in that moment, that he's not somehow stealing attention from her, is obvious.

‘Do you want to be in the photo?' a younger guy asks at one point and I realize that he's trying to work out if I'm someone worth meeting. After all, I am here with Theo.

‘Oh, no,' I say awkwardly, ‘I'm just the photographer tonight.'

‘I think she might be that one from Game of Thrones,' I hear him say to his friend as they lope away, and I stifle a giggle that borders on the hysterical.

‘You okay?' Theo asks quietly, his hand resting on the small of my back. ‘I know these things are a lot…'

I look up at him, at the worried crease between his brows. ‘I'm good,' I say, and it's mostly the truth.

I can see how much it means to all these people to meet him. I can see how careful he's being to give them something that will make them happy. How they'll go home and tell their friends, ‘You won't believe it. I met Theo Eliott in real life, and he was so nice.'

It's bringing up memories of being with Ripp, and Sam too, that don't feel great, but I'm still aware that it's different. Theo doesn't live for it the way they did, and his eyes flicker to me often, measuring, checking in with me. I realize with a pang that when I was in this situation with my dad, I always felt like he wanted me to fade into the background, that I couldn't exist for him because every fan he met was the most important person in the room – after himself of course. I don't feel that with Theo.

With Theo, I'm the most important person in any room.

‘Mostly, I'm interested in snagging some of these canapés before they're all gone,' I say, placing a hand over my stomach. ‘I'm starving.'

Theo grins, and then insists we track down every member of the waiting staff so that we can try and compare each different offering. When I tell him I prefer the mushroom tartlets to the miniature lemon cheesecakes he tells me firmly that I'm out of my tree and stuffs another cheesecake bite in my mouth. I'm half laughing, half-choking when I see the wedding photographer has captured the moment.

‘You guys are so cute,' she smiles, before moving on.

‘Yeah, we are,' Theo beams, hooking his arm around me and pressing a kiss to my temple. I squeeze my eyes shut, worried that he's going to see my whole heart in them.