From Notting Hill with Love...Actually (31 page)

I cut him off before he went any further. “Wait a moment; you said Mr. Bond—is that Sean Bond you’re talking about? Is he the one who booked you to do this?”

“Er, yes, he is—and actually we’d best continue with the task in hand; we’re starting to drift a bit off course.” He squared his shoulders and adjusted his tie in preparation. Then he gave me a nervous smile.

I simply stared at him. I just wanted them to get on with this, now I knew Sean was at the bottom of it. What did it all mean? I glanced at David; his face was thunderously dark.

I noticed that Oscar, Ursula, and some of the other guests had joined us outside to see what all the fuss was about.

Dermot rummaged in his pocket for a piece of paper, then took a quick look at it before stuffing it back in his pocket again.

“So, now we need to ask you how you feel?”

“What?”

“How…do…you…feel?” Dermot repeated slowly as if I was hard of hearing.

“At…this…very…moment?” I repeated in the same tone of voice. “Extremely confused.”

“Not angry?”

“No.”

“Not cross.”

“No.”

“Irritated?”

“No—but I’m going to be in a moment if you don’t get on with it!”

“Good, then we can give you this. Finlay?” Dermot held out his hand and Finlay pulled a red envelope from his jacket and passed it to him. With a flourish Dermot passed it to me. “Mr. Bond said if you reacted in the right way to the song then we were to give you this.”

“What is it?” I asked, turning the envelope over in my hands.

“We’re not privy to that sort of information, miss. We were simply instructed to give you this if you seemed at all moved by the music we played. Just as well you like Ronan Keating, eh? Lucky you’re not a full-on thrash metal fan, or we might have had a different result on our hands!” Dermot and Finlay both laughed at his joke.

“Er…yes.” I looked down at the envelope. “Should I open it now?”

“I guess so. Well,
we’re
interested to know what’s in it anyway, aren’t we, Finlay?” Dermot turned to his silent partner. “We’ve never had a booking like this before.”

Finlay nodded.

“I guess I’d better open this.” I turned and looked back at the others. “I’m assuming that’s OK with everyone?”

Everyone nodded with enthusiasm except David, who stood motionless next to the group now crowding around me.

Slowly I opened the envelope.

Inside there was a postcard and, underneath that, a ticket. I didn’t look at the picture on the postcard because handwritten on the other side in black ink were the words—

If you feel the same…

Meet me on top of the London Eye tomorrow.

I’ll wait until midday.

S x

I read the card aloud.

“What does he mean—the top of the London Eye, Scarlett?” my father asked, speaking for the first time. “Why would Sean want to meet you there? And how can he meet you at the top? Isn’t it constantly revolving?”

“It’s like the movie, isn’t it?” my mother said, smiling. “
An
Affair
to
Remember
.’”

“I thought that was
Sleepless
in
Seattle
?” Maddie asked, joining in. “Meg Ryan tries to meet Tom Hanks on top of the Empire State Building.”

“It’s both of them, actually,” Dermot piped up. “
Sleepless
in
Seattle
was based on
An
Affair
to
Remember
.”

Everyone turned and stared at him.

“It’s my girlfriend,” he said, blushing under his hat. “She watches all those kinds of films.” His voice deepened. “I’m more of an Arnie guy myself, obviously.”

We all turned back to the card still held in my hands.

I shook my head. “This is all just madness. I can’t believe I’m standing out here now even looking at this—let’s all go back inside and continue with the service. I…I shouldn’t have dragged you all out here, I’m sorry.”

I looked to where David had been standing a few minutes ago but he’d gone.

“Where’s David?” I asked, looking wildly around me.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “He’s gone back inside the church, Scarlett,” my father said gently. “I think he’d heard enough.”

I looked up at the church and felt a wrench in my stomach.
Poor
David—what was I putting him through on our wedding day?

“Are you absolutely sure about this, Scarlett?” Dad asked in the same gentle voice. “Are you sure it’s what you want—to go back in there and marry David? This invite, and the way it was
supposed
to be delivered,” he said, looking at Dermot and Finlay, “seems just the kind of romantic ending you’d get in one of your movies. Except this time it’s happening for real. Are you sure you don’t want it to end a different way?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“How
do
you feel about Sean?” my mother asked, appearing on my other side. “Do you love him?”

I hung my head. “Yes, I think I do. But it’s complicated.”

I could feel everyone willing me to tell them why.

“It just is, OK?”

“He obviously loves you, Scarlett,” my mother said, “to go to all this trouble.”

“I thought
you
were against him?” I said, turning to her. “I thought you said he was a Daniel Cleaver.”

My mother looked confused.

“I believe he’s a character in
Bridget
Jones’s Diary
,” Dermot suggested helpfully.

We all stared at him again.

“Yes, I’m aware of that—thank you,” my mother said, slowly turning away from Dermot. “But what’s that got to do with anything, Scarlett?”

Oh, this was just getting far too complicated to explain now. “Look, forget I said that. It just makes more
sense
to marry Mark…I mean David.”

“Why does it, Scarlett?” Maddie asked now. “If you love Sean more? Yes, I know you’re here at the church about to get married, and it would be easier to just go through with it all now. But this is just one day—we’re talking about the rest of your life.”

“Because…” I stuttered.

“See?” Maddie continued. “I knew this would happen after I saw you two together at my wedding.”

“Sean is the chap you took to Maddie’s wedding?” Dad asked in surprise.

“Yes—why?” I asked, wondering what that had to do with anything.

“Because David told me about this absolute cretin that went with you to Paris, said he was a right slimeball and was all over you that night. He described him as a complete loser.”

“David would say that, though—he hates Sean.”

“And with good reason, it would seem now. But Sean’s not a loser,” Dad said, defending him. “Nor is he a cretin, come to think of it. He’s a very smart, astute businessman. And a nice genuine young fellow too.”

“How do you know all this, Tom?” Mum asked. “How are you able to form such a rounded opinion of someone you’ve only met the once, like me?”

My father sighed. “Look, Scarlett, Sean asked me not to tell you this—but I feel now with so much hanging in the balance, I must. Sean has offered to invest in our business. He’s recently bought a chain of cinemas over in the States, and he wants us to provide not only the popcorn makers for every single outlet, but all the food concessions too.”

“He’s done what?” I asked, slowly absorbing this information. “But that means…”

“Our business will be made for life, Scarlett—yes.”

“But…” I couldn’t take all this in.
If we exported to America with Sean, that meant we wouldn’t need David’s cinema chain
…

“Sounds like he cares more about your welfare than you realize, Scarlett,” Maddie said knowingly. “If he’s gone to all the trouble of buying a chain of cinemas for you.”

I shook my head. “They’re not for me—they’re just a business venture. There must be money in it, or Sean wouldn’t be involved.”

“May I just say something?” a polite voice asked, and someone stepped forward to join our debate. It was Ursula. “I haven’t said anything up until now, because being Sean’s sister you’d all just think I was biased. But it was actually Sean who helped reunite you with your mother, Scarlett.”

I looked at Ursula.

“No, it wasn’t. We just bumped into each other accidentally in the cinema one evening—you should know, you were there.”

“That’s what I thought at the time too. But it was Sean who encouraged us to go around to your house that day. Sean who suggested we take you out for the evening, and Sean who absolutely insisted we take you to that exact cinema.”

I turned to Oscar, who nodded in agreement.

“Scarlett, you know Sean and I don’t exactly see eye to eye,” he admitted. “But Ursula’s right. He was the one who insisted it had to be the Coronet. He told us it was because of the
Notting
Hill
connection and we’d be helping you out with your movie thing by taking you there. But the truth of the matter is we found out later he’d actually tracked your mother down, found out she worked there, and even knew what shifts she was on so he could guarantee you’d bump into each other.”

I stared in astonishment between Oscar and Ursula for a few seconds before turning first to my mother, and then my father, and then Maddie, who all stared back at me with similar expressions.

“I…I don’t know what to say…I don’t know what to do.” I returned my gaze to my mother. “Mum, what do you think?”

She thought for a moment. “Forget what I said to you on the telephone, Scarlett. I think Sean has put an awful lot of expense, but more importantly thought, into trying to win your heart. And you won’t find many men who can do both—believe me, I’ve spent long enough looking for one. And, if it hadn’t been for him, it seems I wouldn’t be standing here now. But only
you
can decide what to do for the best.”

“Dad?” I asked, looking at my father again.

“Scarlett, you have my blessing whatever you decide to do—both now and in the future. But whatever you decide, all I ask is, you forget about the movies for once. This is real life you’re dealing with now, not a film script. You
must
take it seriously.”

“But I do take it seriously. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. In the month I was away I had so many experiences that completely back up my theory, but you wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell you. Life
can
be like a movie—perhaps not always in the same saccharine sweet way they portray it to be in the cinema, but maybe living with that sort of hope and those types of dreams is the only way you’ll ever find a happy ending in life.”

“Then why stop now?” I heard a voice behind us call. I turned around and saw David standing high up on the steps of the church. “Why stop, Scarlett, when you’re on a roll? Let’s live out a real movie scene right here, right now.”

“David, I…”

“Perhaps we’d better go inside,” my father said, attempting to herd everyone together. “David, you and Scarlett should discuss this in private.”

“No, why bother?” David said in a tight voice. “You’ve all heard everything else. You might as well hear this too. Plus,” he said, looking directly at me, “it will be so much more dramatic this way, and that’s what Scarlett likes, a bit of drama and excitement in her life—don’t you, Scarlett?”

Even though it was a warm April morning, I felt a shiver run through me as I stood and watched David speaking at the top of the steps. I never wanted to hurt him. I hadn’t meant for any of this to happen.

Everyone around us stood in silence as I gazed up at him. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Dermot and Finlay removing their hats.

“I’m going to make this really easy for you, Scarlett,” David said, looking down at me. “You know when we hired a wedding planner to help us plan for this wonderful day in our lives, you thought she would be just like Jennifer Lopez in the film?”

He waited for my answer, so I just nodded.

“And she wasn’t—she turned out to be more like…now what did you call her? Cruella De Vil?”

I nodded furiously as Cruella scowled at me from where she was perching on a nearby gravestone.

“Well, this part of our wedding is going to be just the same as in that movie. Do you remember it, Scarlett? The bit just before the couple are due to get married.”

I looked up at David glowering at me from the steps above, and I nodded sadly.

“You do? Good. Well, just like the groom in that movie, Scarlett, I’m going to make this really easy for you and take the choice between me and Sean out of your hands. Because guess what?
I
don’t want to marry
you
anymore.”

There was a sharp intake of breath around the churchyard.

“I don’t want to marry someone I can’t rely on and trust to be there for me 100 percent. I don’t want to marry someone who thinks I’m only second best. And”—his voice that had been so strong and devoid of emotion when he’d first stood on the steps was beginning to break now—“most importantly, I don’t want to marry someone who is, without question, so completely and utterly in love with someone else.”

I made a move toward him but he held out his hand to stop me.

“No, Scarlett. You wanted it this way—you wanted to live like you were in a movie and now you are. I’ve given you your dramatic last scene, just like in
The
Wedding
Planner
. But I bet you never expected to be the bride jilted at her own wedding.”

“David, please,” I pleaded with him as he descended the steps of the church, obviously intending to leave this hellish situation I’d put him in as quickly as possible.

I caught up with him at the bottom and grabbed hold of his arm.

“David, wait…”

“Go to him, Scarlett,” he whispered to me. “He doesn’t deserve you, but go to him if that’s what you want. Maybe you
can
have that fairytale ending you’ve always wanted—even if it’s not with me.”

Then I watched as he marched out of the churchyard, quickly hailed a passing taxi, and was soon swallowed up into the swarming London traffic.