Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Praise for A Season for Second Chances
- Also by Jenny Bayliss
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Discussion Guide
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“Don’t worry about me.” He gestured back to where a small band of surly-looking estate workers had gathered. “I’ve got plenty of backup.” He smiled, then kissed her cheek.
“Oy, oy!” Guy hollered.
Isaac and Nory turned to look at him, Guy pointed straight at Nory.
“Been there, mate! Done that and got the T-shirt!”
Nory barely had time to register her indignance before Isaac strode over to Guy and punched him squarely in the face. Guy went down like a sack of potatoes and lay spread-eagle in a pile of horse dung—just in time for the others to trot back into the courtyard to find two of their friends on the ground bleeding and the other snogging the gardener.
Twenty-one
With two of their number incapacitated, the hack had been abandoned before it even began. Nory and Pippa helped Jeremy back to the castle. Guy was manhandled—while sobbing his remorse loudly—from the stables to his room by Charles and Isaac. Charles took his arms and Isaac his legs, while Jenna screeched that he was ruining her pre-wedding party, and Ameerah took photos on her mobile phone, presumably to be used as evidence against him later.
By the time they had gotten back to the castle, Jenna had wound herself up into such a frenzy that she was convinced Guy would be the ruination of her entire wedding, and was threatening loudly that she was going to disinvite him. Even Charles was unable to calm her down.
“Why did we think he would’ve changed?” she yelled. “He’s always been like this; at school he was an argumentative twat and he’s still the same now. Even his own wife can’t stand him! And how will it look in the wedding album when two of the groomsmen are bloody black and blue? How do we explain that to our future children?”
“Jenna, honey, this will be one of those things we look back and laugh about,” said Charles soothingly. “It’ll be a great story to tell our children.”
But Jenna’s ninety-mile-an-hour thought processes had doubled back from their future children to the wedding day.
“OK! Magazine are going to be here, and my wedding party looks like they’ve just emerged from a bare-knuckle fight at a carnival! I need to call my PR and my PA and my agent, where’s my fucking phone?”
“Baby, calm down. We can get the photographer to airbrush the bruises out,” said Charles.
“I’ve got a better idea, let’s just airbrush Guy right out of the wedding!” She leaned over the banister at the top of the first landing, sending petals and leaves from the garlands fluttering down the stairs as she yelled, “Guy Bailey, I hereby rescind your invitation to my wedding, you utter fuckwit!”