Free White Wedding by Milly Johnson Page A

began Faye, looking to Bel for comment.
    ‘I’ve done everything myself. I didn’t want any help,’ explained Bel.
    ‘Oh? Why not?’ asked Vanoushka in her plummy tones. She always spoke very slowly, feeling that added an extra notch of class to her voice. ‘It’s quite an undertaking to
arrange a marriage by yourself, Belinda.’
    ‘I knew what I wanted so it wasn’t necessary to involve anyone else.’
    Vanoushka would have raised her eyebrows if she could. Bel knew that when Shaden got married, Vanoushka’s nose would be well and truly stuck into the business of organizing the wedding.
Although Shaden was quite happy playing the field for now. She was holding out for a multimillionaire with a dicky ticker and no concept of the phrase ‘pre-nup’.
    ‘I don’t know yet what we’re going to be eating at the reception,’ laughed Richard.
    ‘Even you haven’t had any involvement? In your own wedding?’ Vanoushka looked horrified – at least as much as she was able to.
    ‘Well, Liam and I have picked our suits. That’s about it,’ he replied. ‘And I’ve arranged the honeymoon in Las Vegas. The Bellagio.’
    ‘Very nice,’ sniffed Martin. ‘Although I’d have gone for the Venetian myself.’
    Like he would know, thought Bel, pressing down on the snarl her lip wanted to make. He was only saying that to intimate that he was a savvy world traveller. Bel bet that he wouldn’t know a
Ritz hotel from a Ritz cracker.
    ‘Still, in our circles it’s a bit odd, surely, for the bride to arrange everything herself,’ said Vanoushka, sounding exactly like the snob she was.
    ‘I want everything to be a surprise,’ Bel smiled sweetly. If only they knew how much scheming this wedding had taken. It was hard enough work organizing the original one, but when
all the plans had to be changed . . .
    ‘Are we allowed to know what we’re having to eat, then?’ asked Martin, holding out his glass for a refill. Food was constantly on his mind. ‘Lobster? Beef?’
    ‘That’s another surprise,’ Bel carried on smiling, as beatifically as Mother Teresa.
    ‘I love lobster,’ announced Martin, his pronounced paunch grumbling.
    ‘That’s lucky,’ beamed Faye. ‘Because that’s what we’re having today. Come to the table, everyone. The caterers are ready to serve us.’
    Vanoushka’s face nearly turned the lime-green shade of instant jealousy. Lobsters and caterers and champagne. And a wedding in a couple of days that would have cost a small fortune, most
likely.
    ‘Don’t forget to put that cheque in the bank,’ Trevor reminded his daughter yet again as they walked arm in arm into the dining room. ‘I haven’t strictly paid for
your wedding until you do, you know. And that’s not right.’
    ‘I know, Dad,’ said Bel, adding to herself: But that’s the idea .
    Bel noticed that Shaden sat as far away from Richard as she possibly could at the table. Faye relinquished her seat so that Bel could sit next to her father. That was sweet of her, Bel conceded
grudgingly. Mind you, she had him 24/7 so she could afford to let him go for an hour or so.
    At the other side of her Bel felt Richard squeeze her leg and her heart beat against her chest wall. He really was so handsome. She’d thought that from the first day she met him in her
office three years ago. The new business contact at the bank, he’d breezed in exactly on time for their appointment, tall and cocky in a black Armani suit . From the moment his soft and sexy
ice-blue eyes locked on to hers, she’d almost dissolved into a pool of drool.
    ‘When are your parents arriving from France, Richard?’ asked Trevor, as a waiter served him with a pot of buttery shrimps.
    ‘They’ll be flying over as we speak, with my brother who’s been out there for two weeks.’
    ‘Such a shame they couldn’t have got an earlier flight and joined us,’ said Faye.
    Bel rather thought that Madeleine and Monty Bishop had timed their flights from an early