He rolled his eyes. ‘Your mother’s job is to create over-the-top weddings for people in days.’
I groaned. ‘She’ll make it huge, won’t she?’
‘But do you know how happy it will make her?’
‘I suppose.’ I looked up at the sky. The sun was creeping lower now.
‘Shit, what’s the time? I need to get to work.’
‘Better run along, Miss Supervisor.’
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.
‘I’ll probably take the dogs for a walk.’
‘Good idea, they’ll love that.’ I started jogging up the long driveway. Zeus and Athena did not follow me though. In the last few months, I’d come to realize what fickle animals they were. Instead, they stared at Andrew with their big brown eyes. I was not the only one who’d fallen in love with him.
‘Hey,’ Andrew called out, and I stopped. ‘Did we seriously just agree to get married?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to take my surname?’
‘Pippa Boyce-Jones?’ I said it out loud and instantly liked the way it sounded. ‘I think I will.’ I turned and started jogging, but then stopped.
‘Andrew.’ I turned and started walking back down towards him.
‘What, wifey?’
I laughed. ‘No. No pet names. Please.’
‘What, Pippa?’
‘If you don’t manage to fix the gate engine this time, I am calling the electrician.’
He smiled at me. ‘I’ll fix it.’
‘That’s what you said the last six times.’
‘Well, lucky number seven then.’
CHAPTER47
I stood in my bedroom and looked at myself in the mirror.
‘I cannot believe I allowed my mother to organize a wedding for me,’ I said to Jennifer, who was spread out across the bed playing with the dogs.
‘How bad do you think it will be? How many people do you think she’s invited? How many ice sculptures and water fountains and marching bands will she have there? She won’t even tell me where it is, just to be ready for the limo to fetch us at five. God, an evening wedding and a night-time reception. There’ll be fireworks, won’t there? Lots of fireworks.’
Jennifer sat up on the bed and crossed her legs. ‘Are you seriously asking me these questions? You do know that they are totally rhetorical, because we both know the answers to them.’
I put my face in my hands. ‘It’s going to be bad, isn’t it?’
‘It’s your mother,’ Jennifer said flatly. ‘Cirque du Soleil has probably been flown in from France and she’s probably uprooted the Leaning Tower of Pisa and put it in the middle of the garden as a centrepiece. She’s probably resurrected Pavarotti from the great beyond to have him sing the wedding march.’
I grabbed my stomach. ‘I feel sick!’
‘At least you look amazing!’ Jennifer walked up behind me and looked at me in the mirror. ‘This dress is incredible.’
