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  This time, she had hit home. “Don’t you dare question my feelings for my brother,” he said, in a low but firm voice. “I don’t give a damn about you, but I want to make sure he marries someone who will make him happy.”

  “He’s a grown man,” said Faye, incredulously. “Don’t you think he can make his own decisions in life, without big brother wet-nursing him?”

  “Obviously not, if this is anything to go by.” He swept his hand around the room in a gesture of hopelessness. “He didn’t get your measure, did he?”

  “And you have?” Faye was seething at this man’s bullish arrogance. “You know absolutely nothing about me.”

  “True, but I feel I’m getting to know you a little bit more as each second passes.”

  Faye stood up and strode over to the window. The scene outside was tranquil, a stark contrast with the turmoil in her suite. She could see Jean and Derek walking arm in arm down towards the orangery, stopping to share a few words with an old gardener who was trimming the lawn where it met the pathway. “Your parents would be devastated too if the wedding didn’t go ahead,” she said quietly.

  “They’ll get over it,” he replied dismissively. “Better a short sharp shock now than going ahead with a lavish farce at their expense.”

  Faye turned to face him. “This is not a farce.”

  Tony stared down at his dark brown loafers, which bore traces of mud.

  “What happened, happened,” she continued, her heart leaden with misery. “I can’t change that. But we didn’t have sex, and I’ll maintain until my dying day that that’s because I loved Mark too much to go through with it.” She went back to staring out of the window. Jean and Derek had disappeared from view.

  Tony was mulling over her remark. “Admirable, I’m sure,” he said. “But my brother deserves a woman who loves him so much that she doesn’t put herself in that position in the first place.”

  They fell silent again, the only sound coming from the water tank refilling in the bathroom. Faye stood up and straightened her tracksuit bottoms, which had ridden up to her ankles.

  Eventually Tony coughed. “Look, we could go round in circles for hours over the hows and whys of it all, but the simple fact remains that this wedding has to be canceled.”

  An acidic lump rose in the back of Faye’s throat. She swallowed. “Tony, don’t do this . . .” she pleaded. Her desperation was such she would happily have got on to her knees and begged. “You can’t seriously expect me to call the wedding off at this late stage, after all that’s been done?”

  “I’m deadly serious,” he said, looking exactly that. “I’m sure a lot of people find temptation beckons after they’re married,” he continued, “but you couldn’t even get to the wedding day without showing your true colors.”

  “So what are you expecting me to do?” she said disconsolately.

  “Go and tell Mark that the wedding’s off,” he replied quickly. “I don’t care whether you tell him about your appalling lack of self-control, as long as the end result is that we’re not all standing there at three o’clock this afternoon, witnessing your marriage.”

  “And if I don’t?” Faye raised her eyes to look at him.

  “Then I will stand up and tell all your guests exactly what happened last weekend.” He shrugged. “After all, I’ve got nothing to lose.”

  For a few seconds, Faye forgot to breathe, such was the shock. In less than two hours, she had been due to get married. Now it was all in ruins. It was almost incomprehensible. “You can’t do that,” she said weakly.

  “Oh, I can,” he said briskly. “And, believe me, I will.” Tony pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket. He offered one to Faye, but she shook her head so he lit one for himself.

  “Mark will never get over it,” she said quietly, a solitary tear running down the side of her nose.

  “Yes, he will.” Tony’s voice was softer now. “Sooner than you think. He may be laid-back, but he’s very strong emotionally. Much stronger than me, in fact.”

  In normal circumstances, Faye would have asked what he meant by that, but she was too consumed by her own drama. She also felt overwhelmed by depression, and exhausted by misery, but deep down she had an almost masochistic urge to try to change Tony’s view of her. “I can assure you it was out of character,” she mumbled. “I wouldn’t normally do that, even if I was single.”

  Tony ground his cigarette into the small white china ashtray in front of him. “Whatever,” he said. “You did do it, so you won’t be marrying my brother this afternoon. Will you do the honors, or shall I?”

  Another tear ran down the side of Faye’s nose and plopped onto the corner of the coffee table. “I will.” She sniffed. “But you’ll have to give me time to steel myself.”

  Tony looked at his watch. “It’s half past one. I doubt you’ll have time to speak to Mark and contact all the guests to tell them it’s off, so you just deal with him. We’ll worry about everyone else later.”

  Faye felt numb. Tony was talking about the cancellation of her wedding with businesslike brusqueness, as if they were discussing the postponement of a board meeting. “Fine,” she whispered. “I’ll just wait for my face to calm down, then I’ll go and find him.”

  “Good.” Tony stood up and straightened his jacket. “Despite what you might think of me, I’m sorry it had to end like this, you know. More than anything in the world, I want Mark to meet the right girl and be happy.”

  Faye looked up at him, her eyes dull with misery and defeat. “You mean, your version of the right girl for him. That’s a tall order.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “If he was marrying Kate today, I wouldn’t be interfering. If he was marrying Jenna, I would probably have told him that he would end up hurting her.”

  “Quite the marital expert, aren’t you?” she said sarcastically.

  He sighed impatiently. “It’s just common sense, Faye . . . the same way there’s a man out there who will fit you perfectly.”

  “I’d already found him,” she sobbed.

  He knelt down and placed his hand on her forearm. “You know that’s not true. If you had, you would never have taken me back to your flat that night.” He pulled a tissue out of the box on the table and handed it to her. “When you meet the right man, believe me, it won’t even cross your mind to do that.” He stood up and brushed down the knees of his trousers. “One day you’ll realize I was right to insist on this.”

  Faye’s tears were flowing now, and she used the back of her hand to wipe her face. “Goodbye, Tony.” She didn’t bother to look up. “I just wish I could say it’s been a pleasure.”

  A few seconds later, she heard the door to the suite open, then click shut. She straightened her back, and took a long, slow look round the room until her eyes rested on Tony’s cigarette butt lying in the ashtray.

  “You stupid, stupid cow,” she mumbled. “You’ve ruined everything.”

  Saturday June 29

  2 p.m.

  “It has to be here somewhere,” said Brian, pointing the remote control at the television, his finger frantically tapping the change-channel button.

  “What?” Mark emerged from the bathroom, toweling his wet hair.

  “The porn channel.” Brian didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Doesn’t every continental hotel have one?”

  “This is a classy hotel, mate. You’re not in one of your Amsterdam dives now.”

  The neon symbols moved from eighty-nine to zero, and Brian tossed the remote on to the bed. “All this money on a room and not so much as a naked breast in sight. Still, not that you’ll be worrying tonight. You’ll have a real pair of your own to play with whenever you fancy it.”

  “Do you mind?” said Mark, with mock-indignation. “That’s my bride you’re talking about.” He broke into a huge grin. “God, I’m so happy I could bloody burst. I always worried that I’d feel scared on my wedding day, you know, wary of the big commitment or whatever. But I feel absolutely fine
—in fact, I’m looking forward to it.”

  Brian gave him a rueful smile. “Fools rush in. Marry in haste, resent at leisure.”

  “Oy.” Mark gave him a stern look and jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t start! You’re as bad as bloody Tony, trying to piss on my chips.”

  “Sorry,” said Brian. “I’ll keep quiet from now on. Scout’s honor.”

  Mark laughed. “You were expelled from the pack after just a week!”

  “I didn’t know the peace salute meant holding your two fingers the other way round . . .”

  Mark had calmed down after his altercation with Tony. He had returned to his room in a highly agitated state, where Brian tried to mollify him and find out what had happened. As Mark recited the details of what had been said, the expression on Brian’s face told him that he probably agreed with Tony, but clearly thought better of saying so. Instead, he’d distracted Mark by ordering two hair-of-the-dog beers on room service and reminding him of their wilder times together.

  “God, do you remember that party at Billy Henderson’s place?” he said, referring to the night he’d tried to urinate from an upstairs window and leaned a little too far forward.

  “Only too well,” said Mark, chortling. “I had strategically maneuvered my hand down some girl’s blouse and was doing very nicely thank you, when someone came running into the spare room and said you’d really hurt yourself.”

  “Hurt myself?” Brian choked. “A broken collar bone and three cracked ribs! I was fighting for my life, mate.”

  “I almost came out and finished you off myself for interrupting my little session,” he said, with a sigh of lament. “By the time I’d helped load you into the ambulance and gone back indoors, she’d rearranged her clothing and buggered off.”

  “Such compassion from my dear old friend.” Brian flung his hand to his forehead dramatically. Unable to leave the remote alone, he picked it up and started flicking through the channels again. “There must be a decent film we can watch to kill time.”

  “Kill time?” Mark looked at his watch. “I’m getting married in precisely one hour and you,” he tapped Brian’s chest, “are my best man. I suggest you shower and work towards getting your suit on.”

  Brian hoisted himself up from his horizontal position on the bed and sauntered across to the bathroom. “I’m just going to slip into something less comfortable,” he said, and booted the door shut.

  Mark went to the wardrobe where his hired gray morning suit was hanging in a polythene wrapper with “Moss Bros.” printed on the front. “It’s almost time,” he whispered, running a finger down the cool plastic.

  A loud knock at the door made him start. “Shit!” He went to the door and peered through the spyhole. “Darling!” He flung it open, grinning from ear to ear. “Naughty girl. I’m not supposed to see you before the wed—” He stopped dead as his brain started to compute the image before him.

  Faye, her face deathly white and devoid of makeup, was wearing a baggy white T-shirt and blue tracksuit bottoms. Her eyes looked puffy, and her hair was scraped back in an unkempt ponytail.

  Mark’s heart skipped a beat, and he glanced at his watch. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

  She looked on the verge of tears. “I need to talk to you,” she said and glanced down the corridor. “Can I come in a minute?”

  Mark’s mind whizzed through several less frightening reasons for Faye’s sudden appearance at his door. Perhaps her dress had been torn in transit. Maybe she’d had a row with her mother. He clung on to these lightweight hopes as he stood aside and gestured for her to enter the room.

  “Brian’s in the shower,” he said, “but he should be a little while yet. There’s an awful lot of ingrained dirt to remove.”

  “I’ll keep my voice low . . . for a change.” She returned his halfhearted smile.

  “So, what’s the problem?” He felt nauseous with expectation and didn’t want to skirt the issue any longer.

  She sat down on a hard-backed chair by the window, looking almost terrified. “There’s no easy way to say this, really . . .”

  “Faye, what is it?” he said. “You’re scaring me—no one’s hurt, are they?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that.”

  Safe in the knowledge no one had died, he allowed himself to look irritable. “Well, what is it, then?”

  “I can’t marry you.”

  The punch of her words hit him straight in the stomach. He stared at her, wondering if she was about to break into a “gotcha!” grin. But her expression didn’t crack.

  “Why not?” It was all he could manage to say.

  Tears were pouring down her face now, but she was making no sound. She brushed them away. “I’m so, so sorry, Mark, but I just can’t.”

  “That’s not an answer,” he said, surprised by how calm he sounded. “I asked you why?”

  “It just doesn’t feel right.” She sniffed.

  Mark felt a surge of anger, but controlled it. He needed to establish whether this was a redeemable attack of the jitters, or whether this really was hell and the wedding was off. “And you couldn’t have come to that conclusion before we spent all this money and dragged everyone out here?” he said quietly.

  “I know! I know!” She leaped up and paced the floor in front of him. “The timing stinks, but I just can’t go ahead with it.”

  “But why now?” He was baffled by the turn of events.

  Faye’s eyes were etched with the pain she felt at hurting him, and she didn’t reply.

  “Faye!” Mark’s voice was low but angry. “I asked, why now?”

  “I don’t know,” she sobbed. “It just has to be.”

  Mark blinked very deliberately a few times, then squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds. He rubbed them vigorously and went over to her. “What’s this all about?” He put his hand on her shoulder and gently turned her to face him. “Last night everything was fine, today you’re saying you can’t go ahead. I don’t get it. What’s changed in the past few hours?”

  She looked devastated, but it was small consolation to him. Inside, he felt the chemical rush of rising panic. His euphoria of half an hour ago was about to switch to a crashing depression from which he might never recover.

  “Mark, I love you to bits.” She placed the palm of her hand against his cheek. “You are a kind, gentle, sweet man . . . but . . .” She looked lost.

  “But you don’t want to marry me,” he interrupted.

  She dropped her hand from his face and looked down at her sneakers. “It’s not that I don’t want to marry you . . . just that I shouldn’t.”

  “Shouldn’t? What the bloody hell does that mean?”

  “I’m not good enough for you.”

  He put his hand out in front of him in a “stop” gesture.

  “Please don’t insult my intelligence with the old kind-to-be-cruel tactic,” he said.

  She shook her head, and her ponytail swung back and forth. “It’s not a tactic, it’s the truth.”

  Mark looked at her in disbelief at first, then his expression changed to defiance. “So, come on, then, tell me. Why aren’t you good enough for me?”

  She looked at him, blinking rapidly as she tried to think of reasons, any reason, she could give him, rather than the glaring, ugly truth: “I slept with your brother last weekend.” She knew Mark wouldn’t let her just walk out of there on the strength of what she’d said so far.

  “I’m not nice enough for you,” she blurted out, knowing immediately that it sounded pathetic.

  “Not nice enough?” he said contemptuously. “Is that it?”

  “Yes,” she said miserably. “I’m too difficult. You deserve someone who appreciates you more.”

  He looked at her as if she was insane, and she was seized with the urge to tell him the truth. Perhaps he would forgive her and they could go ahead with the ceremony without Tony’s threat hanging over their heads. But she knew in her heart of hearts that even if Mark could eventually forgive, h
e wouldn’t make that decision in time for the ceremony in just one hour’s time.

  “Faye.” His voice broke into her thoughts. “I don’t want anyone else, I want you. Is that so hard to understand?”

  “No,” she whispered sadly. She was desperate to say “I want you too,” but knew she couldn’t.

  Mark’s tone softened. “I haven’t always been sweetness and light to you,” he said. “I always thought mood swings were part and parcel of any relationship.”

  Faye knew she was losing ground. She had to remain resolute or, if Tony carried out his threat, the afternoon would take an even more dramatic turn than it already had. “Yes, but they were mostly my mood swings, weren’t they?” She looked at him imploringly. “It was invariably me being difficult and you trying to placate me.”

  He frowned. “So, hang on, what are you saying? That if I had retaliated in some way or played the same silly games, we would still be going ahead with the wedding?” His face was twisted with incomprehension. “Am I being jilted simply because I didn’t play silly buggers and issue ultimatums?”

  Faye sat down on the chair by the window and blew her nose with the tissue Tony had handed to her half an hour earlier. “It’s not as simple as that,” she sniveled, knowing she was waffling in desperation. She wanted Mark to accept that the wedding was off and not ask any questions, but she knew that was overambitious. She had to say something, even if she didn’t mean it. “I’m just saying that our personalities aren’t right for each other.”

  Mark took a couple of seconds to absorb what she’d said, then banged his hand hard against the window frame. The noise made her jump. “For fuck’s sake, Faye!” He pointed out of the window. “Those are our guests. This is our wedding day. And you leave it this long to start talking about personality clashes?” He stared at her. “Do you have any idea how fucking stupid that is?”

  They fell into a tense silence, punctuated by the occasional laugh from the guests gathering outside. The sunshine was strong now, bringing a distant lake alive with dancing chips of light.