A Christmas Wedding(39)

Nope. Still won’t sink in.

We head to the venue in a black cab after Maria has retouched Bridget’s make-up. Rachel joins us to snap some pics, bringing with her tiny bottles of chilled Prosecco for the journey. We all still feel a bit rough after last night, but manage to knock them back anyway.

And then I climb out of the cab to see Alex standing on the steps outside the cream-coloured building.

I freeze, only very vaguely aware of Rachel and Maria clicking off shots. He looks so handsome. He’s wearing a very dark-blue, fitted suit with a pale-blue tie.

Finally it hits me.

My legs feel like jelly as I come out of my daze. He jogs down the steps and takes my hand.

‘Don’t freak out,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘Visa, remember?’

‘Yes, visa,’ I repeat aloud. He casts me a sideways grin and squeezes my hand as we walk up the steps together.

‘You look incredible,’ he says seriously, and then he leads me inside the venue and down a corridor to two wooden doors at the end. Bridget, Maria and Rachel go in ahead, but, as the doors swing shut behind them, I catch a glimpse inside and breathe in sharply.

There are so many more people here than I’d anticipated.

‘I thought we were keeping this small,’ I whisper.

‘It was a little out of my hands,’ he replies. ‘They all wanted to come. I hope you’re not upset.’

I shake my head and then push open the door a crack and peek in, spying my mum up at the front, next to David.

A lump forms in my throat.

‘Hey,’ he says gently, pulling me into his arms and holding me tightly.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ I gasp. ‘I’m not going to lose it.’ I try to inhale, but my lungs refuse to fill with air.

He places his hand over my stomach and presses his lips to my temple.

I don’t know how or why, but I suddenly feel calm. Like, weirdly calm.

He looks at me expectantly.

I nod and go to push open the doors.

As soon as we walk in, Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ pipes up. I start to laugh and look for Bridget, who’s grinning back at me from the front of the room. This is one of the songs they played at our first eighties club night, and I squealed when it came on again last night. She starts to melodramatically lip-sync to the words and I really want to join in, but then she suddenly seems to realise she’s being completely inappropriate and gathers herself together.

Alex smiles at me when we reach the front.

‘I love you,’ he mouths, squeezing my hand.

‘I love you, too,’ I mouth back, tears filling my eyes. He’s not letting me go, even though my hand is clammy.

And then we both turn to face the beaming registrar.

Ten minutes later, we’re married.

Later the following year…

We’re lying on our sides, facing each other, the lights in the room dimmed right down. It all happened so quickly, at the end. I can’t actually believe we did it. I did it.

Alex runs his hand gently over the head of our tiny sleeping son, nestled between us. His eyes are blue.

‘All babies’ eyes are blue at first,’ he said earlier.

‘Our son’s eyes will be blue,’ I replied determinedly.

‘Okay, I’ll give you that, as long as our daughter’s eyes are green like yours,’ he stipulated.

I stare down at her now, emotion catching in my throat as I brush my finger across her tiny cheek. Not one, but two babies. Twins. Theo and Abigail.

I meet Alex’s eyes, which are swimming with joy and pride as he stares back at me. I tear my eyes away from my adoring husband and look down at the tiny sleeping bundles again, my heart threatening to burst with more love than I ever thought a human being could be capable of feeling.

Fate finally got it right.

And the timing was absolutely perfect.





Read on for an extract Paige Toon’s beautiful new novel, out now

The Last Piece of My Heart





Prologue



The problem with giving your heart away to someone is that you never fully get it back. Long after you’ve fallen out of love with them, they still own a little piece of you. That’s why first love is always the strongest: it’s the only time you ever love wholeheartedly. And I do mean that literally.

I came up with this theory a few years ago when I was belatedly reflecting on why on earth I had ever broken up with David, my boyfriend at university. He was great, but something was missing, so I called it off and started a new search for the complete package. Over a decade later, I’m still looking.

It’s not that I haven’t been around the houses. I have. And the caravans, apartment blocks and skyscrapers, to boot. At the end of the day, it all comes down to Elliot Green. He’s entirely to blame. He was my first love and he took a piece of my heart – and my virginity, while he was at it – and then emigrated to Australia with his parents at the age of sixteen, never to be seen or heard from again, once his initial frenzy of letter writing had died out. I figured he’d found a fit Aussie bird and had forgotten all about me, so I tried to forget about him, too. Many moons later, I’m still trying.

It doesn’t help that I’m currently in Sydney, where he moved all those years ago. I’ve been daydreaming about bumping into him here and melodramatically declaring, ‘You’ve got something that belongs to me,’ before demanding that he give me the piece of my heart back.