The Wedding Planner. Eve Devon

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СКАЧАТЬ first, while he’d been serving up sentences like, ‘As if Perse hasn’t already had enough to deal with,’ she’d stared at him thinking, and whose fault is that?

      Next had come the, ‘Do you really want our daughter discovering that when she’s with me, you’re going through men like they’re going out of fashion,’ she’d also wanted to hurl the words, ‘Again – whose fault is that’ or at least refute the accusation. But all she’d been able to focus on was the gigantic boulder of baggage rising up from the pit of her belly.

      By the time he’d got to the, ‘And what about the way you treat everyone who tries to pass the time of day with you? You can’t really want to be this bitter for the rest of your life’ part of his lecture, the boulder in her chest had pushed all the way up to her throat, making it nearly impossible to draw breath.

      Then had come the: ‘Because, FYI, calling everyone out on the mess they’re making of their lives, isn’t in any way, masking the colossal hypocritical balls-up you’re making of your own and honestly? Bobby and I can’t stand to see you spiralling like this.’

      For the first time in her life, she’d turned from confrontation and started running, eager to escape the boulder of baggage now threatening to unload and bury her under its weight.

      In Rosehip Cottage at the end of her confession-vomit, she’d looked up from the chessboard, expecting Old Man Isaac to defend the obvious, which was that of course she was only like this because of Bob and Bobby.

      But instead, he’d leaned back in his armchair, steepled his fingers together and asked, ‘Would you be in this state if anyone other than your ex had the guts to tell you to rein yourself in for the sake of your daughter and your personal happiness?’

      Rest assured she’d been about to tell him she’d have liked to see even one other person dare to talk to her like that considering no one in Whispers Wood would have the first clue what it was like to have your husband leave you so scandalously.

      Because Bob hadn’t just left her for a younger model.

      Nope.

      He’d left her for an actual model.

      A catwalk model.

      A male catwalk model.

      Called Bobby.

      Yep.

      A few little walks on the catwalk and Bob had found Bobby literally too sexy for his shirt.

      Of course, coming to terms with his sexuality had taken Bob months of tortured soul-searching and on her more charitable days Gloria knew that to be the absolute truth. Unfortunately it didn’t negate the reality of discovering that nine and a half hours A.B.F.C.O (After Bob Finally Came Out) the word on the street, the village green, in the woods, and even in Big Kev’s corner shop, was that she was obviously such a dud as a wife, she’d managed to turn her own husband gay.

      And, not that she would ever have admitted it but filling up every corner of her soul had been the question: what if she had?

      She knew she wasn’t the warmest of individuals.

      That she was more alpha than any other letter of the alphabet.

      She favoured cutting the extraneous bullshit, setting goals and driving in a straight line towards them.

      How else did Bob think they’d created such a glossy magazine-worthy lifestyle?

      But Bob uttering the words he could never take back had attacked the very security she’d attached to that magazine-worthy lifestyle, and worse. Someone being in love with her turning out to be a big fat lie and all the confidence that came along with that simply snuffed itself out.

      Then, Bob and Bobby choosing to live their lives just down the road while quietly and respectfully taking every care not to throw their relationship in her face? Well, she defied anyone to understand just how much worse that made it all.

      But it had.

      So very, very much.

      In the intervening three years they’d found a way through for the sake of their daughter and in all the shared custody pickups and drop-offs not once had Bob commented negatively, sarcastically, or carelessly about how she was choosing to deal with the fallout from their marriage ending.

      Until that afternoon.

      When he’d seen his daughter bravely defending her and all his deliberately withheld assumptions for the sake of peace had tumbled out of his mouth as critical assertions.

      The biscuit Gloria had been eating turned to stone in her mouth as it occurred to her that her appalling behaviour had ceased being a completely justifiable coping method and become instead rather an effective way of showing the whole of Whispers Wood that she possibly wasn’t woman enough to rise above what had happened.

      The weight of shame in that sat in her throat along with the bit of biscuit.

      It seemed no matter how much you worked to set your life up perfectly so that you got to enjoy living it, life happened and things changed.

      But if she didn’t?

      Couldn’t?

      What kind of example was that to set for Persephone?

      As if recognising her shields were only at thirty percent Old Man Isaac had leaned forward, and quietly stated, ‘I have to tell you Gloria we’re all a little worried about you.’

      She’d wanted to sneer, ‘How very dare you.’

      She’d managed to hold her tongue but not the snort of laughter from slipping out. But then she’d felt a rogue tear slipping down her cheek and the next thing she knew, she’d looked down at the chessboard, tipped over her King, and whispered, ‘I concede.’

      That afternoon, she’d gone home and downloaded the Headspace App to every device she owned, bought herself a warehouse-sized supply of self-help books and decided she’d play chess with Old Man Isaac once a week and if he wanted to talk about how she could go about putting some changes in place, she’d soak up the strategizing.

      Naturally, she also started a man ban, which wasn’t actually that difficult considering the meagre offerings provided by the online dating service she’d used.

      With hard work and determination gradually the anger that had sat so close to the surface twenty-four-seven, started feeling more … well, less.

      Sure, sometimes, someone would go and ruin her best of intentions by saying something so monumentally stupid that the needle on her ‘sarcasmometer’ spiked straight to eleven and words would come out of her mouth like they had used to. Sans filter.

      Slowly but surely though she’d started to trust that a cutting remark wasn’t always the best opening. Sometimes (cue Eastenders dun, dun, duns …) a smile was.

      People stopped holding their breath or assuming the brace position when they were around her.

      And then last year Emma Danes had moved all the way from Hollywood to Whispers Wood to run Cocktails & СКАЧАТЬ