Louise Bentley is a feisty, wild, 'let's-go-to-Capri-for-the-weekend-yeah?' kind of girl. She spends her days working at a party-planning company. Oh, and she never wants kids. Ever.
Ben Langford is a studious, quiet, 'I'm-busy-reading' sort of man...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Louise didn't like Jack Norberg.
She knew this within the first three sentences of meeting him. Jack had introduced himself as Dr. Norberg, used the word "triumvirate" to refer to a trio of desserts, and then took a call while the waitress was rattling off the specials.
Thirty minutes later, Louise hadn't changed her mind about Arabella's fiancé.
They were sitting in an eco-friendly café off King's Road. Their salmon had been sourced locally, their straws made from bamboo fibres; Jack — Louise refused to call him Dr. Norberg — had explained to her that the café only let in customers wearing sustainable clothing brands, but an exception had been made for Louise, since Jack knew the owner.
Louise sipped more of her raspberry mocktail and said nothing.
"More tea, darling?" Arabella asked.
Jack tapped away at his phone. His fiancée cleared her throat, and he looked up. "Pardon?"
"I asked if you wanted more tea."
"Oh." He went back to typing. "No."
"Cake?" Arabella asked.
Jack waved her off. "Let's just get on with it, shall we?" He pocketed his phone. "My flight leaves in three hours."
Right.
Louise pulled out her laptop. She talked Jack through the wedding venue. She gave details about the wedding cake (a strawberry-and-champagne naked cake), the elaborate flower wreaths (shipped in from Mexico), and the albino flamingos (turns out you just fed them less shrimp for the week — a fact that Louise had learned from a bored-looking teenage employee at the London Zoo).
Jack listened patiently, nodding along, until Louise closed her laptop. Then he leaned back, steepling his fingers together.
"Well?" Arabella was bouncing in her seat. "What do you think?"
"No," Jack said.
Louise and Arabella exchanged a look.
"Er," Louise said. "Which part?"
"All of it." Jack ran a hand through his hair. "Do you know what the ecological footprint of shipping flowers will be? And the flamingos are an environmental nightmare. Like, that has to be animal abuse." He turned to face his fiancé. "I'm sorry, darling, but you know that journalists will be there. How will it look if I'm on Good Morning America warning people about the climate crisis while the tabloids print photos of my extravagant wedding?"
There was a long pause. Arabella stared into her coffee, the rose petals capsizing like miniature boats.
"No, it's fine," she said. "I understand."
Jack squeezed her hand. "I'll make it up to you."
"I know." She looked up at Louise. "There's still time to change a few things, right?"
