She smiles wryly. ‘Wow, thanks. I thought I scrubbed up okay.’

‘You do, Michelle. Oh my God, you so totally do. I just, I want us to get to know each other. Properly, I mean, as Michelle and Rhys, not David’s girlfriend and David’s brother.’ I pause. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, you… I could… but—’

‘You’re assuming I’d want to,’ she teases. But I also notice she runs her tongue across her lower lip and there’s a feeling in my belly that I’m not alone.

I reach across to take her hand, and immediately take it back because I can’t bear the physical shockwave that runs up my arm, down my spine and through my body.

‘Okay. Let’s give it a month.’

‘A month?’ I check.

‘Yes. A month. We have a month to get to know each other properly. To see if this is real or grief.’

‘A month…’

She winks, running her foot up the inside of my thigh, making me squirm in my seat.

‘Okay. Done. A month. Now get your foot away from my crotch, you hussy, I’ve got a pigeon squab to explore.’

Chapter Fifty-Six

KAT

‘Right, hang those up there. Put that on ice. Run the bath and open the chocolate!’ Lou squeals and giggles as she runs around the largest room in the hotel, setting mood lighting and making her mark. I struggle to hang up the giant, white dress bag that contains her most precious item in the world. Apparently. Then I take my own dress bag and rest it over a chair. ‘Not there!’ Lou says, picking it up. ‘It’ll crease!’ She sweeps it up and hands it straight back to me. ‘GLASSES!’ she shouts.

‘STOP!’ I say, dress down, hands up. ‘If this is going to work, you need to step back from Bridezilla and breathe.’

Lou stands in the middle of the room, hands on hips, deep breathing. All she needs is a brown paper bag and we’ve got ourselves a scene straight out of a romcom: wedding dress, champagne and a hyperactive bride to be.

‘We have all the time in the world,’ I say. ‘We have everything planned to the last detail. I have the Gantt chart you so carefully drew up and I am as crystal clear as those glasses about what you want, when and where. Also, those glasses – are they not the ones you inherited? Is it wise to bring them here? I’d have drunk this out of a mug, you know.’

‘I am not drinking out of a mug, Kat!’ she says, then drops her hands and retreats. ‘And besides, they were used at Grandma’s wedding so they should have a role in mine too.’ She eyeballs me before relenting. ‘Okay, okay, Bridezilla is climbing back in her box.’ She falls dramatically onto the bed, letting her head loll in the luxury of crisp white Egyptian cotton sheets. ‘I’m just sooooo excited,’ she says dreamily. I pop the cork and spill the champagne into the glasses, impressed I manage not to lose a drop on the carpet. Lou takes her glass, watching the bubbles disappear, which quickly depletes the liquid in her glass from almost full to barely a thimble-full. She looks at the glass, then to me, but chooses to get up and top up her drink herself.